Taiwan 2024 - VII

The hotel we stayed in Taichung was right next to a large park - Taichung Park and of course we didn't miss an opportunity to go around and find some urban birds in Taiwan.

The first bird! a Spotted dove (kanokobatoカノコバト) on the path

They are a common urban bird a bit like Oriental turtle doves in Japan or Wood pigeons in Britain.

Most common ones are Light-vented bulbuls (shirogashiraシロガシラ), which we saw in every tree in the park! They are very vocal and colourful in the light.

Taiwan has a native myna called Crested myna but in urban environments, the introduced species, such as Common myna (Indo-hakkaインドハッカ) and Javan myna (Jawa-hakkaジャワハッカ), are the ones you see more often. 

Pallas's squirrels are common in the park as well.

We spotted unusual starling-like birds in a tree.

We showed the picture and asked Ko-san, who confirmed they are introduced and wide-spreading Chestnut-tailed starlings (Indo-komukudoriインドコムクドリ).

The starlings are pretty but I found a scary article in the Taipei Times saying they increased in number by 7,618% between the year 2009 and 2020! I wonder if they may have been having a big impact on native birds and natural environment in general.

a pond and a pavilion in the park

Black-crowned night heron (goisagiゴイサギ)

Little egret (kosagiコサギ)

Tree sparrows (suzumeスズメ)

We walked to another park with a large pond. 

I can't just not express my disappointment towards the shopping mall LaLaPort!😤

An Eastern cattle egret (amasagiアマサギ) was panting in the heat. so were we!

An Intermediate egret landed in the grass opposite from the cattle egret. We weren't sure if they were both cattle egrets, intermediate egrets or one of each. After examining the pictures and advice from Ko-san, the one on the island in the pond was a cattle egret and the other in the grass was an intermediate. Are we right? 

Our trip to Taichung came to an end but we will definitely come back to Taiwan in the near future. We also recommend all the birdwatchers to visit this wonderful island. 

Good-bye snack (douhua豆花) & Taiwan beer at the airport 😁👋

Taiwan 2024 - VI

After saying Good-bye to our guide, Ko-san, we stayed in Taichung for two more nights and wandered around the city. With the population of 2.8 million, Taichung is the second most populous city in Taiwan and it certainly is a very busy and lively place!  

Yizhong Street night market 

There are still buildings from the colonial period which are well preserved.

This red-brick building was built by a Japanese ophthalmologist in 1927 during the Japanese colonial time.  The roof was modernised but the walls and the inside of the building has been preserved.

It turned into shops and an ice cream parlour in the building, which has become one of the most popular tourist attractions in Taichung. The ice cream was nice for your information:)

Two more buildings from the same era stand next each other, the one is Taichung Prefectural Hall and the other Taichung Shiyakusho.

The prefectural hall was under renovation and fenced off, unfortunately.

The Shiyakusho building, on the other hand, was open and there was a lovely and peaceful cafe on the ground floor.

You can go upstairs to see this complicated structure of its roof, apparently to deal with the dampness in the highly humid climate.

The Old Taichung Train Station was built in 1917 in the Japanese occupation period, also imitating the Western colonial architecture style.

You can check out all the tourist attractions in Taichung in the Taichung Tourism site.

Taichung Tourism

Taiwan 2024 - V

Away from birding, I'm going to upload the pictures from the trip in Taiwan.

Sorry, they'll be a bit random.

river in Guguan

high street? of Guguan

typical Taiwanese breakfast in Guguan

orchard in Heping district

Taiwanese dumplings and vegetable soup in Dongshi

a mountain hostel (the white one under the pylon)

view from the mountain hostel

Taiwanese dinner at the hostel

a moth xyleutes strix ?

waterfall in Dasyueshan

Mountain View 

I'll continue a bit more writing about Taiwan... 

Birding in Taiwan 2024 - IV

 The car park at the end of the mountain road is at 2560m above sea level and a good place to see high mountain birds,

BUT! the morning we were there it was covered with thick fog! 😭

And yet, we found a Mikado pheasant (mikado-kijiミカドキジ) foraging quietly under the trees just behind the sign.

We went a bit closer but he was just minding his own business.

beautiful tail-feathers!

Suddenly, noisy calls came from the fog - a flock of White-whiskered laughingthrushes (Taiwan-kimbane-gabichoタイワンキンバネガビチョウ) appeared from nowhere.

and started hopping on the ground around us.

A little shadow on the edge of the car park. 

a male Collared bush robin! (Alisan-hitakiアリサンヒタキ)

In the fog it actually looked really blurred like this. Lucky we had an excellent guide like Ko-san to find little birds under this weather condition.

A flock of Black-throated tits (Zuaka-enagaズアカエナガ) flew into a nearby tree👍

Another Mikado pheasant was on the mountain path.

A female Collared bush robin in the bush:)

A juvenile Collared bush robin popped out and quickly back again.

Another male Collared bush robin

a Ferruginous flycatcher (miyama-hitakiミヤマヒタキ) perched on a cable but I failed to capture his whole body! argh!

Taiwan persimmon tree (kaki柿)

Photo-taking was almost impossible in the fog but we had a great morning birding walk in and around the car park.

It was a three-night birding trip with Ko-san and although the number of species we recorded during this trip is smaller than the previous visit in 2015 but we had a wonderful time with Ko-san and we'd like to come back in a different season to see different birds. 

The posts of our 2015 trip are here ↓

Taiwan 2015 - 1

Taiwan 2015 - 2

Taiwan 2015 - 3

Taiwan 2015 - 4

Taiwan 2015 - 5

Taiwan 2015 - 6

Taiwan 2015 - 7

Taiwan 2015 - 8