photographic highlights 2019–20: part 2

Continued from Part 1

I posted a feature on firecracker vines in January, but the next photo is a close-up of one cluster of flowers before they have burst into full bloom:

Incidentally, the firecracker vines in my neighbourhood continued to flower sporadically until early May, something that I’d never seen in previous years. What is going on?

I took the next photo in the area between the village where I live and eastern Fanling. It shows a type of gourd that I’ve never seen growing anywhere else or being offered for sale in any market:

The ‘wilderness’ in the background was cultivated ten years ago but was then fenced off by the landowner (Henderson Land). I spotted this vine growing up the fence.

I’ve taken pictures of the makeshift shrine in the next photo, which is located next to a road junction near the beginning of the long and winding road, before, but I simply had to stop and take another when I saw the statue of Guan Gung (‘Old Man Guan’), which is a new addition and is at least 1.5 metres tall:

Whenever we cycle the long and winding road, we always stop at Luen On Bridge, which crosses the Sheung Yue River, for a water break. On one occasion, a large herd of goats was slowly browsing its way downstream, and I took several photos. The two goats in the next photo were part of that herd:

The goat on the far side of the channel had leapt across, but I failed to capture that, and I guessed that the nearer goat had bottled out. So I took this photo then put my camera away. The second goat then made the leap, from a much more difficult take-off position, so I missed that too.

On several occasions when we’ve cycled journey to the west, we’ve noticed a large group of black-winged stilts (‘red legs’) on a dam across an unnamed tributary of the Kam Tin River. And on several occasions, we’ve stopped to take photos. This is my best one:

Paula always takes her photos from a different vantage point, and this is her best:

The two photos were taken on different occasions.

This winter, I devised a new way of starting the Tam Mei loop, and I must have cycled past this mural two or three times before I noticed it:

It was painted in August 2016, so the colours have probably faded somewhat. I find the hourglass to be particularly strange and cannot begin to guess its significance in the context of the rest of the mural.

Tortoises are not indigenous to Hong Kong, but there appears to be a well-established feral population, probably the result of pets being released into the wild. They appear to have colonized watercourses, and being exothermic, they can often be seen warming themselves in the sun. This photo was taken on the Ng Tung River, in a location where I’ve seen tortoises on more than one occasion:

There is a small squatter area next to Po Kak Tsai Road, opposite the point where the path across ‘the swamp’ emerges onto the road. As often happens in such areas, someone has made use of a small flat area to grow vegetables. The scarecrow in the next photo may be crude, but I thought it amusing:

When I wrote about ‘ignoble hill’ last year, I included photos of some murals along one of the main alleyways. This one didn’t exist then:

I can’t imagine that many people actually cycle through the area, because there are a lot of steep ramps and tight corners, which is the reason I ride here. The Chinese characters read ‘five street’, so individual dwellings will actually have formal addresses.

Having mentioned tortoises above, here is another photo, which shows two much larger individuals that I spotted in the stream that drains ‘the swamp’:

You may wonder why I took the next photo, which shows the entrance to a standard village house in Kwan Tei, a large village a few kilometres east of Fanling:

But notice the name. I can’t help but wonder: if it’s mainly court, what’s the rest of it?

The flowers in the next photo, taken in the section of my neighbourhood south of Sha Tau Kok Road, are part of someone’s garden. However, this display was hanging over the garden wall, and I like the intensity of the colour:

Snakes are common in Hong Kong, but you don’t often see them because they keep out of the way of humans. However, we were cycling south along Fai King Road, which leads from the frontier area northwest of Fanling, when Paula suddenly exclaimed: “Look out for the snake!”

It had been sunning itself in the middle of the road, but it quickly slithered up the embankment on the side of the road when it became aware of our approach. However, it wasn’t in any hurry to disappear entirely, and I took several photos—the first time I’ve ever had this opportunity—and this is the best:

According to the website that I consulted when trying to identify it, 39 species of snake have been recorded in Hong Kong. This is a checkered keelback and is not venomous.

I’ve seen some bizarre flowers in Hong Kong, but none could match this example, which I spotted when Paula and I were walking through the alleyway that I’ve named ‘fruity pie’ recently:

Sightings of snakes may be uncommon, but I frequently see lizards—monitors and skinks—when cycling along narrow country paths. However, they invariably scuttle off long before I can stop and get my camera out. However, there is a third type of lizard, geckos, that often live indoors. I photographed this individual on the inside of the screen door that leads onto our balcony:

While the border with China has been closed, we’ve extended any ride along the frontier road to include San Tin because there has been a huge decrease in traffic on the road that leads to the Lok Ma Chau border crossing. This includes cycling along San Tin Tsuen Road, which separates San Tin from the fish ponds. I took the following photo from this road:

I cropped the previous photo, with the following result:

I think that this makes a better image, but you may feel that the uncropped version is better, because you can see more. I would welcome readers’ opinions on this subject.

I started cycling along Tun Yu Road, which leads from the eastern end of San Tin Tsuen Road to an unmanned and apparently seldom used crossing point into China, just a few months ago, and I took the next photo on this road on the same day that I took the previous photograph. It shows the same buildings in Shenzhen that can be seen in the last photo from a different angle:

The final photo in this collection is a view from the east bank of the Ng Tung River, with a small part of Shenzhen in the background:

The large pond that I included in Part 1 is located somewhere in the trees directly in front of the leftmost skyscraper that you can see in the photo.

previous highlights collections
Photographic Highlights: 2015–16
Photographic Highlights: 2016–17
Photographic Highlights: 2017–18
Photographic Highlights: 2018–19