Scarlet Sterculia and Blue-tailed Skink

Summer's just starting to fad; themperatures not quite so baking. Yet for birds, it's autumn - seems the Barn Swallows and Chinese Starlings that arrived to breed on Cheung Chau have gone.

Walking woods near Fa Peng - no passage migrants as yet - seeing a few Scarlet Sterculia seed pods; also fallen parts of these striking pods, which look rather like brilliant red flowers.

 

Surprised this aft to see a Blue-tailed Skink - only my second on CC in a few years (the other was earlier this year), on path just by old folks' home above Pak Tei Temple. It was the first one I can remember seeing on north part of the island; and away from the grassy hillsides w boulders that seems their main habitat.