Lung Fu Shan (“Dragon Tiger Mountain”) is Hong Kong’s smallest country park. It is also its most discreet. Better still, as the park’s 47 hilly hectares are folded between Mount Davis and Victoria Peak on Hong Kong Island, it lies right next to the city proper. It’s also fronted by one of the city’s most picturesque public buildings – an information centre housed in a 130-year-old bungalow that wouldn’t look out of place in a period drama. “We’re aiming to promote a sustainable community that’s in harmony with nature here,” says Ray Chu Wai-kee, project manager at the park’s Environmental Education Centre on Kotewall Road, which has been running since 2008. A permanent exhibition within showcases Lung Fu Shan’s history, ecology, geology and – most importantly – the stories of the people who’ve played a part in making it what it is. Visitors can borrow binoculars and field guides to identify birds and butterflies, and loupes for taking an in-depth look at plants and insects. Interactive maps furnish a guide to the park’s hotspots. “In normal times we also run group tours for a nominal charge, though they have had to be suspended because of coronavirus,” Chu says. “We also invited volunteers to help us keep count of the birds in the park, which was a very good way to involve the community.” The park is criss-crossed by hiking trails, and roughly bisected by Hatton Road which, despite being paved and well signposted, is hard on the legs. Around the midway point, a spur to the west leads to Pinewood Battery, an Edwardian-era gun emplacement that suffered heavy bombardment from invading Japanese in 1941. Gunners manning the Royal Artillery anti-aircraft battery had made elaborate attempts to camouflage the site but their position was betrayed. After suffering a number of casualties, they retreated in face of the Japanese onslaught . “There are quite a few sites with a World War II story in Hong Kong, but Pinewood is one of the most interesting,” says Martin Heyes, who leads military-themed tours for Walk Hong Kong. “The army picked this spot as it dominates this end of the harbour, so they’d be able to shoot at any approaching enemy. There’s no call to guard against invasion nowadays, but the view is as splendid as ever.” Much of Pinewood has fallen into disrepair, but the remaining bunkers are enough to enthuse even the mildest war buff, as well as war games fans who – illegally – have been known to sneak up here with their BB guns. Rather more pacifically, there’s a purpose-built picnic area just up the road, with tables, barbecue pits and plenty of shade. “One of Lung Fu Shan’s real plusses is being able to get there quickly and easily,” Heyes says. “When I’m leading tour groups we ride up aboard the Peak Tram, then stroll along Lugard Road, drop down through the park and end up in Mid-Levels.” Lung Fu Shan is far enough up the mountainside to be unbothered by noise from the city, but it’s rarely dead quiet. More than 100 species of bird – including brown Asian cuckoos, orange-bellied leafbirds, red-whiskered bulbuls and black-throated laughingthrushes – roost and feed in the park’s lush woodlands. “We’re so lucky to have this amazing diversity right next to the city,” says Alex Fu Chi-yung, an amateur ornithologist and one of the most enthusiastic contributors to the Hong Kong Bird World website. “Hong Kong is a concrete jungle, for sure, but there’s a lot of greenery, a subtropical climate and plenty of food for birds, some of which are resident, and others migratory. Lung Fu Shan is very hilly, so it’s not been developed, and the trees and the dense vegetation make their own little ecosystem where the birds can thrive.” Porcupines, squirrels and other wildlife live out a happy existence here too. The author Martin Booth, who grew up in Hong Kong in the 1950s, used to explore Lung Fu Shan after school, looking for spent cartridge cases and other wartime memorabilia, but also revelling in the rural peace and quiet. Birdwatching in Hong Kong – everything you need to know “Skinks rustled in the leaf litter or scurried ahead of me, their azure tails swinging from side to side to counteract their movement,” he recalls in his lyrical memoir, Gweilo (2004) . “Butterflies sunned themselves on the cracked concrete of the road or fluttered over the lantana florets … All around me, unseen in the cover, birds caroused as they mapped out their territories for the night.” It’s a bucolic scene that has changed little in half a century and more.