124
[106]
THE LAM TSUN VALLEY.
H. P. W. HUTSON.
↓
The Lam Tsun (or Tsuen) valley was certainly a find. And, like so many other discoveries, it was made by chance. Four of us, on a mid- February afternoon, had set out to explore the country north of Tolo har- bour. As we ate our sandwiches by the little stone bridge beyond Taipo Market we changed our plans. Ornithology was the prime motive for our walk and the country before us promised to be as productive as the area we had intended to search. If the birds we saw during luncheon were any indication of the valley's contents, its closer examination would be well worth while. Within a few feet of where we sat a Stonechat hunted insects from a bush; there was a Daurian Redstart across the stream and on a pitch be- hind us a Rufous-backed Shrike, the dusky' form whose status the experts have still to settle. Bulbuls chattered from the top of a thicket and a band of Black-faced Babblers clamoured from its depths, one of the party occa- Add to sionally showing itself as it came aloft for a brief look round. these a Warbler busy amongst the foliage, two Wagtails in the stream bed and a momentary glimpse of a Little Blue Kingfisher as it flashed down the waterway and you have as promising indications of a wealth of bird life as any ornithologist could wish. So the altered programme was proposed and carried. Even the botanist of the party was as pleased with the idea as the rest of us. His roving glance had already discovered two wild roses in bloom by the stream-R. moschata with its many-flowered sprays and R. sinica bearing large single blooms--as well as the magnificent pale bluc Thunbergia grandiflora. With these at the start the new line of country opened as well for him as for the bird watchers.
And
Lunch over, we crossed the bridge. Seldom had a path looked more Cobbled steps led It showed so little yet promised so much. intriguing. down to it from the bridge, it crossed a stretch of paddy, met the stream again at the toe of a pine clad ridge and then disappeared from view. What lay round the bend? We had the afternoon in which to find out. what a grand afternoon it was too-mild, and with a feeling of spring in the air. We had already remarked, on our way out, the delicate greens of the new foliage on the Liquidambar trees near Taipo and the whitish flowers of the Raphiolepis indica shrubs just coming into bloom on the hillsides. Spring was evident in the wild rose blooms and in the gay chatter of the birds. Spring and the path called to us.
Our hopes that the region would prove a rich one were soon justified. We found the Lam Tsun valley a veritable promised land for the field na- turalist, so much so that on this first visit we scarcely penetrated it and had to make many subsequent trips before we fully grasped its possibilities. Round the bend, at the toe of the ridge and out of sight from our starting place, the valley revealed itself, stretching away towards Kamtin as a long narrow strip of cultivation flanked on the one side by the northern slopes Three streams of Tai-mo-shan and on the other by the Fanling hills. traversed its length, the main one hugging the northern hills and the other
The Hong Kong Naturalist.
The Lam Tsun Valley
107
two flowing down the centre and the southern boundary respectively. These three streams met where we had stopped, at the toe of the hill, and at this meeting place grew a mighty camphor tree, an old and evidently a much venerated tree for its trunk was plastered with red papers and its base ringed with joss sticks. The path took the line of the centre stream, an attractive little waterway bordered with pollarded Water Banians, and led to Hang Ha Po, a tree surrounded village on a low mound and backed by an exten- sive grove. Beyond Hang Ha Po and on the same mound which, like the valley, was long, and narrow, lay other villages separated by belts of what can best be described as common land,' grass covered and dotted with bushes. At the aged camphor tree the main stream turned almost at right angles. Its easterly flow had been checked by some high ground near Wai Tau village and it was this elevation, topped as it was by a grove of tall trees, that hid so much of the Lam Tsun valley from the Taipo road. This same high ground brought the main stream to the meeting place by the camphor tree whence the united waters flowed to the sea.
Our plan, if indeed a half-formed intention justified the name, had been to make for Hang Ha Po and work up the centre of the valley. But whilst the botanist was pointing out the Sarcanthus teretifolius orchid and the Ficus repens wih its large hanging fruits, both of which plants covered the limbs of the old camphor tree, a bird flew overhead making for the grove by Wai Tau. Too far away for identification it seemed a species that should be followed up and so we left the footpath and kept instead by the main stream. We failed, as a matter of fact, to find this particular bird again but the failure did not rankle. It was offset by so many other discoveries. No less than three different Kingfishers were seen almost at the start-the Little Blue Kingfisher, the White-breasted Kingfisher and the Himalayan Pied Kingfisher. The last, being by no means common in the Colony and apparently not on record as a nesting species, was particularly interesting especially as we saw a couple of these birds and had high hopes in con- sequence of their nesting along the stream. It was looking for likely holes in the banks that drew attention to the water itself and despite our mature ages led to a very pleasant and wet half hour in keen pursuit of the numerous small creatures that dwelt among the stones. The combined bag included a six inch Catfish, several Crayfish, one of them over five inches long, and a Crab, brown in colour like the stones and in imitation of their mossy growths covered with brown hairs. Many small fishes and newts were missed and we realized that a day or more properly equipped with nets would not be wasted at the stream. The botanist who fished' with one eye always on the look out for flora showed us in the backwaters colonies of Hydrocotyle asiatica raising their tiny white heads and, floating close to the banks, that most delicate of ferns Azolla caroliniana. Strangely enough the botanical find of the day was made during the fishing. It was the purple-flowered climber Mucuna championi in bloom in a thicket on the bank. Compared with the plentiful white-flowering M. Birdwoodiana this one is a rarity in Hong Kong. We eventually left the stream at a cattle crossing. Two Swallows, the first of the year, hawked about the shallows and there were Mushrooms growing in the short grass alongside,
May 1932.
125
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.