Black Drongo is a relatively common bird in Hong Kong, perhaps not in the top tier, but I saw the species most places that I went. I found them to be quite shy, and managed only one brief sequence of shots - the bird flew away after a mere five seconds once I revealed myself by popping out from behind a bush on Lantau. A shame, as I would have liked to have been a lot closer. I think this must be a young bird, though it seems quite advanced for the time of year - I cannot explain the fluffy grey feathers on the back - it would seem odd for a bird to moult in May. There is another speceis in HK, called Hair-crested Drongo, but I only saw that once, so whilst they look very similar, my gut feel is that this must be Black. Dull light, but I like the simplicity of the photo.

American Robin fills the role of Blackbird in the States, except I'd say that it is far more numerous in any given area - or at least the area I was in, the mid-west. They forage in the same way as Blackbirds, and even sound pretty like them. Of course they're not a Robin at all, and are only named that due to the red breast reminding settlers of the bird back home (I presume) - it's a Turdus species just like Blackbird. Although I was definitely not on a birding holiday, I did have my gear with me - given how many images I got I rather regret carting it some 20,000 miles most of the way around the world - so decided to try a few sneaky shots when the family weren't looking. Here are a few of them. I've been away for a whole two weeks, and have decent photos of perhaps ten species. Sometimes you have to do something different I suppose, and it's been good for me to not be totally obsessed by birds for a while - there are other things out there!

I stepped out of my front door this morning and heard a Whitethroat very clearly. Normally London traffic would completely prevent this from being the case, but being a Bank Holiday there were few cars on the road. As I walked towards Wanstead Flats it got louder and louder, and there it was, in the patch of broom closest to the house. Before continuing on for my morning birding session, I grabbed a few shots of it - it seems to have three favoured song perches, but only launches itself into the air from one of them. I'm not skilled enough to get that display flight, but I'm reasonably pleased that I had a high enough shutter speed that when it dashed from one to the other I got a bot of movement.

The portrait at the bottom is my favourite of the ten or so images I took though. I've been looking at images on the web lately that are more of a bird in a landscape or a setting, rather than just the bird, and I'm trying to get a few more images with this feel.