Grey skies over South Lantau

Rainy season revitalises the wetlands

Grey skies over South Lantau
Rainy season revitalises the wetlands

I don’t care for the summer rains much; I prefer Autumn and Spring, when the humidity is low, the temperatures are mild, and the skies are blue. But those are the harshest of times for the wetlands’ most visible inhabitants, the water buffaloes. When the grass dries out and turns brown, they struggle to find enough food.

The rains, which will continue until about the end of September, prevent me from doing many of the things I should be doing. I have to function in between the downpours and occasional typhoons. But this inclement weather does reinvigorate the wetlands around South Lantau after the much drier winter and spring seasons.

When the humidity rises and the first rains have fallen, the marshes come alive again. The days are often grey and gloomy, but the night is filled with a chorus of frogs and toads, desperate to make contact with others of their species. How they find each other in the cacophony is beyond me, but to owls and snakes it must sound like the dinner bell. The grass grows green and supple again, giving the buffaloes somewhere to graze. As their hooves churn the mud, cattle egrets, mynahs, and black collared starlings follow in their wake, searching for grubs.

Water buffalo graze on the Sun Wai marshes (above) while little egrets patrol the ponds and rivers looking for fish

In times past, much of the area was rice paddies, but after the Second World War, farmers began leaving the fields for work in the factories of a rapidly industrialising Hong Kong. They left behind their cattle and buffaloes to fend for themselves, while the paddies returned to nature. The buffaloes aren’t native to Hong Kong; they are the descendants of animals that were imported early in the twentieth century because their strength made them ideal for working in the coastal paddies. Today, their docile nature makes them one of South Lantau’s most beloved residents.

It is the buffaloes that keep these wetlands, these mangroves, mudflats, streams, and estuaries alive today; they are the caretakers of this environment. Without them, the land would just collect weeds and strangle biodiversity. Their hooves and horns constantly churn the mud, creating a breeding ground for a wide variety of plants and animals, which, in turn, help to purify the water and keep it clean.

Water Hyacinth (left), and a common tiger butterfly

And it is a rich biodiversity indeed. At these wetlands, concentrated at Pui O, Shap Long, and Shui Hau, on the South Lantau coast, over 180 bird species have been recorded, including the regionally endangered Brown Fish Owl and the Malayan Night Heron. There are around 90 species of butterfly, seventeen kinds of dragonfly, a wide variety of frogs, toads, and lizards, innumerable aquatic species, as well as snakes, the cobras, kraits, and keelbacks, amongst others, that prey on them.

Life is a beach

Walk across the mudflats at low tide and you’ll see crabs combing the silt washed down from the mountain streams and occasionally engaging in territorial disputes with mudskippers. Both are shy, so you need to keep still and very quiet. In the mangroves, waterhens forage and cluck while both little and great egrets scan the Pui O River estuary for snacks.

The mud and sand flats at Shui Hau (top). Fiddler crabs and turret shells abound (below)

The rugged landscape of Lantau, indeed all of Hong Kong, was formed by huge volcanic eruptions between 146 and 160 million years ago. Along with silt, the rains wash black volcanic sand down the rivers and out to sea. At Pui O, some of this is washed back by the waves, where it merges with the yellow sands of the beach, creating an intriguing marble effect, particularly at the western end.

The beach is littered with the long, thin cones of turritellidae or turret shells, while tiny crabs burrow into the beach, throwing out little black balls of sand. There are, of course, some days of sunshine during the rainy season, and good weekends do bring people out to enjoy the beach. But on gloomy days in the middle of the week, only the keenest of surfers take advantage of the bigger waves the rainy season brings.

Storm clouds over Pui O Beach, but the surfers are already wet, so they don’t care

Main Picture: Temple Crag looks down over the Pui O River estuary

Hotel Suggestion
Tai O Heritage Hotel, Lantau

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