Bank of China Tower from Hong Kong Park
The natural vegetation of southern China is subtropical, broad-leaved forest. Although it is difficult to believe, southern China was once a forested landscape where tigers, leopards, elephants and gibbons roamed. All of this original forest has long since been cleared and there is little, if any, of modern Hong Kong that has not been in some way affected by man - usually radically so.
The most obvious example of this, of course, is the urban landscape. Kowloon, and more especially the northern shore of Hong Kong Island have changed beyond recognition since the end of the Second World War. The modernistic, steel and glass high-rises of Central stand as a testament to man’s creativity, evidence of the desire to keep pushing the limits – in this case the limits of architectural utility and beauty.
However, there are less aesthetic aspects of the urban landscape to be reckoned with – overcrowding, pollution, the seemingly relentless urge to demolish buildings and re-develop sites for purely monetary motives. So, although I recognise and appreciate the pulsing dynamism that drives Hong Kong, for me the city would be unliveable without the countryside.
We are fortunate in Hong Kong that there is still plenty of countryside left and it seems that an increasing number of people are becoming aware of the value of the countryside as a counter-balance to the pressures that they face in their daily lives.
On a personal level, I have been interested in nature – or, more specifically, in birds – since I was a young boy. When I arrived in Hong Kong to work in the 1990s and the birds in this part of the world were fresh and vivid to me, I wrote a guide to the birding sites of Hong Kong, and later contributed a small part to the Avifauna of Hong Kong which was published by the Hong Kong Bird Watching Society in 2001. More recently, my interests have expanded into other animal families, as well as plants, that can be found in Hong Kong. I have also after a lapse of many years, taken up photography again. The result of this is Hong Kong Nature Walks: The New Territories and Hong Kong Nature Walks: Kowloon, Hong Kong & the Outlying Islands.
My latest publication is the photobook Mai Po: The Seasons - A Photographic Essay. All of the above books are available directly from Accipiter Press (see http://www.accipiterpress.com/) and from certain bookshops in Hong Kong.
I have set up this Hong Kong Nature Walks website to complement the material in the books. It forms part of my continuing engagement with the Hong Kong countryside, an engagement that involves the written word and the photographic image. It is my hope that visitors to this site will share my appreciation of Hong Kong’s natural beauty and will perhaps be inspired to go out and explore the countryside from their own fresh, individual perspective.
I have also recently started a new website with a focus on bird watching in Hong Kong. This can be viewed at www.birdinghongkong.com
David Diskin
The most obvious example of this, of course, is the urban landscape. Kowloon, and more especially the northern shore of Hong Kong Island have changed beyond recognition since the end of the Second World War. The modernistic, steel and glass high-rises of Central stand as a testament to man’s creativity, evidence of the desire to keep pushing the limits – in this case the limits of architectural utility and beauty.
However, there are less aesthetic aspects of the urban landscape to be reckoned with – overcrowding, pollution, the seemingly relentless urge to demolish buildings and re-develop sites for purely monetary motives. So, although I recognise and appreciate the pulsing dynamism that drives Hong Kong, for me the city would be unliveable without the countryside.
We are fortunate in Hong Kong that there is still plenty of countryside left and it seems that an increasing number of people are becoming aware of the value of the countryside as a counter-balance to the pressures that they face in their daily lives.
On a personal level, I have been interested in nature – or, more specifically, in birds – since I was a young boy. When I arrived in Hong Kong to work in the 1990s and the birds in this part of the world were fresh and vivid to me, I wrote a guide to the birding sites of Hong Kong, and later contributed a small part to the Avifauna of Hong Kong which was published by the Hong Kong Bird Watching Society in 2001. More recently, my interests have expanded into other animal families, as well as plants, that can be found in Hong Kong. I have also after a lapse of many years, taken up photography again. The result of this is Hong Kong Nature Walks: The New Territories and Hong Kong Nature Walks: Kowloon, Hong Kong & the Outlying Islands.
My latest publication is the photobook Mai Po: The Seasons - A Photographic Essay. All of the above books are available directly from Accipiter Press (see http://www.accipiterpress.com/) and from certain bookshops in Hong Kong.
I have set up this Hong Kong Nature Walks website to complement the material in the books. It forms part of my continuing engagement with the Hong Kong countryside, an engagement that involves the written word and the photographic image. It is my hope that visitors to this site will share my appreciation of Hong Kong’s natural beauty and will perhaps be inspired to go out and explore the countryside from their own fresh, individual perspective.
I have also recently started a new website with a focus on bird watching in Hong Kong. This can be viewed at www.birdinghongkong.com
David Diskin
All website text & images © David Diskin
