IDENTIFICATION

VOCALISATIONS

The advertisement or territorial call is a rolling series of notes that falls slightly in pitch.

Also has a distinctive slow, deep drumming.

OCCURRENCE

There are two records, the second of which referred to a minimum of two individuals over a four year period:

1959: one at Repulse Bay, Hong Kong Island on 6 May 1959.

1970 – 1974: one at She Shan, Lam Tsuen Valley on 21 February, 26 April and 3 May 1970; a male and female there on 3 January, and one on 1 May 1971; a male on 5 February and 17 December 1973, and one on 15 January 1974. These are all the dates for which records were submitted and published; however, it should be noted that supporting descriptions were only provided for three of the observations, those in 1971 and 1973. In the absence of evidence to the contrary it is assumed that no more than two birds were involved.

The 1959 Repulse Bay record is well-documented, but the location on HK Island and, to a lesser extent the date, are very unusual for what must be presumed to relate to a wandering or dispersing individual from south China. In this context, it is perhaps relevant to note that, following a review reported by Carey et al. (2001), Great-spotted Woodpecker Dendrocopos major, for which there were four HK records three of which were from HK Island, was placed in Category III as all records were considered likely to refer to ex-captive birds.

Considerably less doubt as to their origin is attached to the cluster of records at She Shan. The fung shui wood at the latter location (which currently covers about 6ha) was known as a hotspot for forest bird species from the 1930s and was probably one of the older and larger patches of woodland in HK in the early 1970s and thus is a likely destination for a dispersing forest bird.

RANGE & SYSTEMATICS

The range extends from the Himalayas through most of southern India east and south through mainland southeast Asia and the Greater Sundas to west Java (Winkler and Christie 2020). In China it occurs from extreme southeast Tibet and Yunnan east through Guangxi, Guangdong and south Hunan as far north and east as Jiangxi and south Zhejiang, as well as Hainan (Liu and Chen 2021). There are ten subspecies, of which three occur in China: M. b. phaioceps in Tibet and Yunnan, M. b. fokiensis in the remainder of the mainland range and M. b. holroydi in Hainan. Like Grey-headed Woodpecker, the closest locations to HK listed by Lewthwaite (1996) were in northern Guangdong, but recent eBird reports suggest that it is found in hill forests east of Guangzhou, approximately 100km from HK (eBird 2024).

CONSERVATION STATUS

IUCN: Least Concern. Population trend decreasing.