IDENTIFICATION

VOCALISATIONS

The call is a high-pitched ‘ki-ki-ki-ki-ki’.

Can often be heard tapping on bamboo as it forages.

DISTRIBUTION & HABITAT PREFERENCE

Early records of Speckled Piculet in HK largely came from areas of mature, mostly native forest, notably Tai Po Kau, Ng Tung Chai, Tai Lam Country Park and Lau Shui Heung, and most observations still come from such sites. However, it is by no means confined to large areas of mature forest and it makes use of small woodland patches and plantation trees, whilst there is also a recent breeding record from a riverside park in Tin Shui Wai. In forest areas it appears to show a preference for clumps of bamboo, which is frequently utilised for foraging and drumming, the latter no doubt because the hollow stems serve to amplify the sound.

Speckled Piculet is widespread in wooded areas throughout the mainland New Territories and it is found from Tuen Mun in the west to Li Chi Wo and Pak Sha O in the east and Kowloon Hills in the south. It was noted from just 0.1% of squares in the 1993-96 breeding atlas, was unrecorded in the 2001-05 winter atlas and in only 0.4% of squares in both the 2016-19 breeding and winter atlas surveys; it is highly likely such an inconspicuous species was under-recorded in these surveys. However, Speckled Piculet does appear to be a low-density species and it is unusual for even experienced observers spending several hours in prime locations to log more than two or three individuals – the highest single site count still appears to be of only four birds.

OCCURRENCE 

Speckled Piculet was first found in HK when a juvenile was trapped at Wong Chuk Yeung, Ma On Shan on 25 July 1996 (Leven 1998). One was seen at Tai Po Kau on 11 January 1998, but it was not recorded again until 27 September 2006, when one was at Ng Tung Chai. This bird probably remained until at least 1 October 2007 when it was photographed (Carey et al. 2001). Since then, records have been annual (except 2011), and following a slow beginning with the first summer records at Tai Po Kau on 17 June and Long Valley on 6 July 2012 and records from no more than one site per year until 2012, there was a rapid increase and geographical spread from about 2015 such that by 2020 it was recorded at 32 sites.

Speckled Piculet is widespread in Guangdong, including city parks in Shenzhen, and HK was no doubt colonised by birds dispersing from there, but the pattern of records and colonisation of HK does not suggest that it is a regular or eruptive migrant. There is a slight peak in the number of reports in the period from late January to early March but this is likely because drumming is most frequent at that time (eBird 2023).

As yet all HK records have come from the mainland New Territories south to Lai Chi Kok Park in West Kowloon, apart from single records of one in Crooked Island (Kat O) on 10 April 2020 and one heard drumming, but not seen, at Victoria Peak, HK Island on 26 February 2021 (eBird 2023).

BEHAVIOUR, FORAGING & DIET 

Speckled Piculet is often solitary, single individuals being detected by their loud drumming or (also surprisingly loud) tapping as it probes tree trunks, bamboo stems and branches for invertebrates. Outside the breeding season it sometimes joins mixed babbler and warbler flocks. It appears to forage at all levels.

Diet has not been studied in HK; incidental observations suggest that it extracts invertebrates from wood by excavating in typical woodpecker fashion, but it also appears to glean from bark surface on trunks and branches in the manner of a tit.

BREEDING 

The first HK record concerned a recently-fledged juvenile with some feathers still growing and Leven (1998) speculated that it might have been locally bred. However, whilst drumming is frequently noted in spring, no nest holes (which it excavates in tree branches, bamboos and even palm fronds (Winkler et al. 1995)) appear to have been found in HK. Indeed, though there is now assumed to be an established breeding population, the first confirmation of breeding appears to be an observation of a pair feeding at least two recently fledged young at Tin Shui Path, Tin Shui Wai from 11 June 2022 (eBird 2023).

RANGE & SYSTEMATICS 

The range extends from Pakistan and India in the west, south and east to Sumatra and Borno and east through most of central and southern China north to Shaanxi, Henan and Jiangsu, but it is absent from both Hainan and Taiwan (Winkler and Christie 2020, Liu and Chen 2021).

There are three races, all of which occur in China. The nominate race is found in southeast Tibet, P. i. malayorum is found in Yunnan, whilst P. i. chinensis occupies the remainder of its Chinese range (Cheng 1987), including HK.

CONSERVATION STATUS 

IUCN: Least Concern. Population trend decreasing.