dandsblair
David and Sarah
Taiwan not only has great avifauna but also a host of other winning points that make it a wonderful destination for a comfortable birding trip. With around 32 endemics, and many endemic subspecies that could be split in the next 10 years there was a load to look forward to. It is located 100 km east of the coast of China, south of Japan and Korea, and north of the Philippines.
Less than 400 km long and 150 km wide, with rugged central mountains and deep valleys, it boasts a very high biodiversity – in a very manageable package. We focused on the endemics and other East Asian specialities in Taiwan’s well-protected forests. A lot of our time was spent in the mountains but we did have to make some changes to plans due to road closures after some recent very heavy rains and had some heavy rain (Plum rains) in the last 5 days of the trip.
We also allowed some time in the lowlands and at the coast, looking out for wetland birds before taking the ferry to Orchid Island (Lanyu) we only spend one night there as some attractive and interesting birds we had seen in Japan or the Philippines. In the last couple of days we chased a few rarities.
We found the Taiwanese are a very friendly and welcoming people. They have blended the best parts of unspoiled, traditional Chinese culture with the influence of colonial Japan, along with the native Austronesian culture. Taiwan is free and democratic, has good infrastructure, and is considered safe.
Interestingly we decided to do this as a guided tour with Richard Foster (generally recognised as the best birding guy in Taiwan) after meeting him at the UK Birdfair and deciding that with our time of travel and with adverse weather likely to be an issue a Chinese speaker who knows the country would be really helpful. Having birded Japan and parts of the Philippines on our own a self-guided tour is certainly possible but we would have missed a few birds and wouldn’t have been able to respond to road closures and lack of access to accommodation and reserves as readily as Richard did.
We found Richard extremely friendly and excellent company. Unfortunately Richard wasn’t available for our complete trip so we had a local guy Chuck as driver / guide in the last few days, he certainly knew his stuff.
We arrived 5th June 16.20 picked up by Richard and overnight in local town of Longtan. Richard got us into birding pretty much immediately with a drive around the fields near to Taoyuan with best birds being Greater Painted Snipe, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, Plain Prinia, Oriental Pratincol, Pacific Golden Plover, Black-shouldered Kite, Golden-headed Cisticola, Pale-vented Bulbul, Black Drongo and a Crested Myna. On arrival at our hotel we could hear but not see Savanna Nightjar.
There was quite a bit of mud and water around as it had rained for the last 10 days but fortunately the weather not looked to be set fair for the next few days.
Day 2. June 6th Taiwan lowlands
After a not too early breakfast we set off around 06.00 for Shimen Reservoir, Richard hadn’t been here for a while but what a great place to start. We had heard that good views of Blue Magpie could be tricky but from the first minute we arrived in the car park to our return hours later we had good views, including a family group of 5 birds. So first endemic was Taiwan Blue Magpie and shortly behind was the colourful Taiwan Barbet, there when then more familiar lowland species, such as Light-vented (Chinese) Bulbul, Red Turtle (Red Collared) Dove, Spotted Dove, Long-tailed Shrike, Black Drongo, Yellow-bellied Prinia, Japanese White-eye, before we saw a White-rumped Shama, we actually saw a few of these over the trip and then we heard a Black-necklaced Scimitar Babbler – this was a notorious skulker that Richard said could be really tricky to see well but within 10 minutes we had great views of a young bird and glimpses of an adult flitting around, and better still as I was trying to photograph the bird a couple of Taiwan Bamboo Partridge wandered across the path and I even got a record shot of him too, so two tricky endemics ticked without any problem on the first morning. Wandering around the trails we saw quite a few good birds like Grey Treepie, Grey-cheeked Fulvetta, White-bellied Epornis, Bronze Drongo, Black Bulbul before getting great views of a singing Taiwan Whistling Thrush.
Heading down towards a small river we added Grey-capped Pygmy Woodpecker, more Taiwan Barbets before adding the much easier to see Taiwan Scimitar Babbler.
Having seen most of the target birds we headed via Lunch to the coast for any late passage waders and added Great Knot, Sanderling, Avocet, Kentish Plover, Turnstone and Gull-billed and Little Tern. We then headed down Dadong for access to Dasyushan (aka Anmashan) for the next few days.
As per most nights we ate in a very good local restaurant a nice variety of Chinese style food.
Less than 400 km long and 150 km wide, with rugged central mountains and deep valleys, it boasts a very high biodiversity – in a very manageable package. We focused on the endemics and other East Asian specialities in Taiwan’s well-protected forests. A lot of our time was spent in the mountains but we did have to make some changes to plans due to road closures after some recent very heavy rains and had some heavy rain (Plum rains) in the last 5 days of the trip.
We also allowed some time in the lowlands and at the coast, looking out for wetland birds before taking the ferry to Orchid Island (Lanyu) we only spend one night there as some attractive and interesting birds we had seen in Japan or the Philippines. In the last couple of days we chased a few rarities.
We found the Taiwanese are a very friendly and welcoming people. They have blended the best parts of unspoiled, traditional Chinese culture with the influence of colonial Japan, along with the native Austronesian culture. Taiwan is free and democratic, has good infrastructure, and is considered safe.
Interestingly we decided to do this as a guided tour with Richard Foster (generally recognised as the best birding guy in Taiwan) after meeting him at the UK Birdfair and deciding that with our time of travel and with adverse weather likely to be an issue a Chinese speaker who knows the country would be really helpful. Having birded Japan and parts of the Philippines on our own a self-guided tour is certainly possible but we would have missed a few birds and wouldn’t have been able to respond to road closures and lack of access to accommodation and reserves as readily as Richard did.
We found Richard extremely friendly and excellent company. Unfortunately Richard wasn’t available for our complete trip so we had a local guy Chuck as driver / guide in the last few days, he certainly knew his stuff.
We arrived 5th June 16.20 picked up by Richard and overnight in local town of Longtan. Richard got us into birding pretty much immediately with a drive around the fields near to Taoyuan with best birds being Greater Painted Snipe, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, Plain Prinia, Oriental Pratincol, Pacific Golden Plover, Black-shouldered Kite, Golden-headed Cisticola, Pale-vented Bulbul, Black Drongo and a Crested Myna. On arrival at our hotel we could hear but not see Savanna Nightjar.
There was quite a bit of mud and water around as it had rained for the last 10 days but fortunately the weather not looked to be set fair for the next few days.
Day 2. June 6th Taiwan lowlands
After a not too early breakfast we set off around 06.00 for Shimen Reservoir, Richard hadn’t been here for a while but what a great place to start. We had heard that good views of Blue Magpie could be tricky but from the first minute we arrived in the car park to our return hours later we had good views, including a family group of 5 birds. So first endemic was Taiwan Blue Magpie and shortly behind was the colourful Taiwan Barbet, there when then more familiar lowland species, such as Light-vented (Chinese) Bulbul, Red Turtle (Red Collared) Dove, Spotted Dove, Long-tailed Shrike, Black Drongo, Yellow-bellied Prinia, Japanese White-eye, before we saw a White-rumped Shama, we actually saw a few of these over the trip and then we heard a Black-necklaced Scimitar Babbler – this was a notorious skulker that Richard said could be really tricky to see well but within 10 minutes we had great views of a young bird and glimpses of an adult flitting around, and better still as I was trying to photograph the bird a couple of Taiwan Bamboo Partridge wandered across the path and I even got a record shot of him too, so two tricky endemics ticked without any problem on the first morning. Wandering around the trails we saw quite a few good birds like Grey Treepie, Grey-cheeked Fulvetta, White-bellied Epornis, Bronze Drongo, Black Bulbul before getting great views of a singing Taiwan Whistling Thrush.
Heading down towards a small river we added Grey-capped Pygmy Woodpecker, more Taiwan Barbets before adding the much easier to see Taiwan Scimitar Babbler.
Having seen most of the target birds we headed via Lunch to the coast for any late passage waders and added Great Knot, Sanderling, Avocet, Kentish Plover, Turnstone and Gull-billed and Little Tern. We then headed down Dadong for access to Dasyushan (aka Anmashan) for the next few days.
As per most nights we ate in a very good local restaurant a nice variety of Chinese style food.
