Asia Beauty Spot – Asia Scenery

Tsim Bei Tsui is located at the Inner Deep Bay wetlands and the indented western coast of Hong Kong. To the east, we may view the Mai Po wetlands and natural environment. To the west, we may view the mudflats. Tsim Bei Tsui could be the best bird watching site. Remember to prepare a telescope with the best resolution of 15X or more.

This is one of the best bird-watching sites adjacent to the Mai Po marshes, particularly good for viewing wetland birds like wintering ducks and a wide variety of shorebirds that pass through the area. On the landward side, a tidal lagoon, fishponds, an egretry and roadside scrub provide a range of habitats. The small hills near the Tsim Bei Tsui pavilion are good places to search for migrating raptors. Right along the Mainland boundary fence near the village of Mong Tseng there are patches of woodland and abandoned farmland, fishponds and orchards.

The Inner Deep Bay (includes Mai Po and Tsim Bei Tsui) locates at the Northwestern side of Hong Kong. Deep Bay was designated in 1995 as the Ramsar site, an international reputation for wetlands. Tsim Bei Tsui contains mudflats, mangroves, fishponds and sluice gate. The wetland provides abundant of foods and living space for birds and other organisms. During low tide in Inner Deep Bay, waterbirds, mudskippers and crabs like to leaping for foods on the mud.

The Tong Hau Ling Belvedere is a good place for bird watching. An information board (see right figure) is built to explain the origin of Tsim Bei Tsui & Tong Hau Ling. To enhance the public knowledge, Yuen Long District Council and AFCD established a special board to introduce the ecology of wetlands there. You can overview the Mai Po and the Deep Bay Ramsar Wetland from the belvedere.

Sluice Gate was previously a useful tool for catching shrimp larvae. Shrimp farmers directed the shrimp larvae from Deep Bay into the mangroves, where the larvae fed on the decomposer. When the shrimp larvae grew into adults in summer, shrimp farmers used sluice gate to net the shrimp larvae during the time of greatest tidal difference on the first and fifteenth day of the Chinese Lunar month.

Fishpond and sluice gate was a useful tool to provide food for birds in the past. It had an important impact on the food chain and ecosystem. Nowadays when there is a low tide, you will see a lot of fiddler crabs leaping on the mud under the sluice gate. Fiddler crab has a large claw. When they move their big claws, they look like they’re dancing to the tides.

Mangroves are growing in the tropical and the inter-tropical coastal mudflats. We can find 6 mangroves species in Deep Bay. Mangrove can survive in a challenging and stressful environment because it gains strong anchorage in the soft substratum, obtaining enough oxygen from the anoxic mud and also tolerating to the fluctuating salinity and desiccation stress. The wetland plants and mudflats is valuable for maintaining the natural ecosystem. They decompose the water pollutants, protect the shape of coastal line, and store extra water to prevent flooding.

Courtesy of Hong Kong Tourism Board