Two free days in Taipei

Squeezing some birds into a visit to Taipei

21^st – 25^th August, 2006

Author: Keith Martin. 55 Belmont Road, Twickenham, Middlesex TW2 5DA, U.K.

keith@borsuk.clara.co.uk keith.martin@rhul.ac.uk

Introduction

As many birders know well, you can squeeze a bit of birding around almost any activity, and this certainly applies to the business travelling birder abroad. In this case the destination was Taipei, where I had three days of business and two days free. A frustratingly short trip, with very little loose time to take in a country and its birds. My aim was to get a flavour, without pointless crazy rushed travelling. Could you actually conduct some decent birding in the heat of August based from a hotel in central Taipei?

Strategy

It was clear from reading that the great birds of Taiwan live in the mountains to the south of Taipei and you need time and a degree of effort to get there. It was also apparent that August was not great month to be out and about in steamy Taiwan as birds would move early, if they moved at all. There was thus no point in trying to get one morning somewhere in the hills, as this would involve more travel time than I was willing to donate to the cause and might not even result in many birds. The remaining option was to visit some local Taipei spots and just take “pot-luck”. My strategy thus became to try to contact some Taiwanese birders through the Internet…

… but despite the popularity of Taiwan as a destination and the alleged local interest in birds in Taiwan, all my trails turned to dust. The local Taiwanese Birding Associations had websites primarily in Mandarin and all attempts to contact them through email addresses went nowhere. Local visitor-friendly Wayne Hsu seemed to be away and not replying to mail. The contacts of the Canadian-based Birding in Taiwan web site were all in the U.K. attending the British Bird Fair (!) and the only “Birding Pal” who replied lived miles from Taipei.

It was looking bleak until the day before I left. And then somewhat out of the blue Victor Yu from the Wild Bird Federation Taiwan dropped me an email to say that he had found two locals willing to take me out for a morning on each of my free days. There would be birds, but we’d have to work for them. No blundering around blindly on the public transport system for me! It was great news!

Monday 21^st August

Bird lists can be slow to get off the ground. We arrived late in the evening last night, and Taipei was just a continuous pulse of neon signs and traffic lights. At breakfast I toy with a multicultural breakfast of dumplings, scrambled egg, passion fruit and rose tea, while some birds noisily scrape to one another from what looks like some fig trees just beneath the large glass panels of the hotel restaurant. They are Light-vented Bulbuls, and they make a fine accompaniment to breakfast. I am also entertained by the antics of a Pallas’ Squirrel that is scampering over the fence, oblivious to the hordes of commuters who are pacing and scootering along Roosevelt Way.

Tuesday 22^nd August

There’s a shortcut from the hotel to the university that passes through a small square of urban space. Most of it is short grass, but there is a row of small shrubs. Today it seems to be teeming with birds, most of whom are bulbuls, but there is a beautiful Black Drongo amongst them (now whey did I leave the binoculars behind this morning?). Later, from my lofty hotel room I watch a distant Spotted Dove, perched on the flat roof of a giant office block It watches the busy city far below, just like me, but through a very different pair of eyes.

Wednesday 23^rd August

Today the rained lashes down in torrents: a warm, smothering rain. The swarms of Taipei scooters still plough into the spray, riders draped in enormous tarpaulins that look unlikely to keep them very dry. Today Taipei is the birdless city that I imagined.

When I get back to my hotel I discover that Victor has called by and left a packet for me. It contains two simple bird guides, some postcards, a lapel badge and a business card. It is an extraordinarily kind gesture and suddenly Taipei seems to be a city of birds once again, at least in spirit.

Thursday 24^th August

I sleep fitfully in anticipation, for today’s host Tony is calling at first light. He arrives with a spring in his step and seems as excited as me to be heading for Wulai. This is a recommended site just north of the city and it takes us about half an hour in his aging Volvo to get there. We leave the city limits and start to climb along a twisty road which follows the edge of a gorge, accompanied by classical concerto on Tony’s favourite radio station. The vertical ridges are flush with impenetrable vegetation and despite the intense infrastructure of the suburbs, it looks possible that no human has set foot on the low summits that surround us. Clouds labour overhead and the weather seems uncertain. Telegraph lines drape back and forth across the road, sometimes adorned by a Grey Treepie or two. I call them “Treepys” by mistake and Tony peels with laughter behind the wheel.

We pause at the entrance to a small town, where the road meets a fork in the river. Hundreds of Pacific Swallows and House Swifts swirl around us. A Black-crowned Night Heron maintains watch from the cable across the river and a pair of Grey Wagtails are spotted flicking downstream. I scan the far bank, but feel uncomfortable as several families are rinsing their laundry and it seems unreasonable to optically intrude.

We grind the car through the town and take a few backstreets before suddenly halting. We seem to be in the outer suburbs, but apparently this is it. Beneath us a small gorge and above us nothing, for morning mist is gripping the mountains and all I can see is one hundred metres into a luscious canopy of hillside trees. Tony says we might see monkeys. It seems unlikely to me that we will see much. But I’m about to be proved wrong.

Immediately we hear a repeated call that I infectiously echo back into the fog. It is very close and seems to be high in the canopy. Tony shakes his head and says it is impossible. He says he has seen this bird just three times and he clearly does not want to invest time in searching for it. I do, but the call is so enigmatic that I can’t even decide where to start. “Magpies” yells Tony in a surprising shriek of excitement. I clamber up the track and down between the houses are a pair of outlying trees, where a flock of birds have just settled. One, two, three Taiwan Blue Magpies amidst a flock of treepies. It is my first Taiwan endemic, and will be my last as well. The magpies appear to fly off but we quickly relocate them in a clearing next to my singing bird and we enjoy some superb views before they troupe off noisily into the valley. Now its time to return to the job I started, in which Tony reluctantly partakes. The call is indeed now very close and Tony tells me that it will be on the ground. There! Where? There? There! Where? And when it finally hops into view on a fallen log, we are just a few metres away from a pretty Dusky Fulvetta. How could a bird foraging so low make a noise that seemed so high?

We abandon various other creaks and scrittles, which Tony identifies as shrugs of his shoulders, but which I think are possibly all emanating from treepies. We now follow a narrow road which switchbacks up the hillside into the clouds. The friendly flight calls of Japanese White-eyes accompany the climb and in windows through the mist we see glistening Bronzed Drongos hanging themselves out to dry as the precipitation burns off and Black Bulbuls crossing over the valley. A cemetery is followed by a clearing and Tony thinks we should see woodpeckers here, but in fact some distant Blue Magpies are all that we make out in the gloom. There is rustling in the hedge however and it turns out to be a pair of Streak-throated Scimitar Babblers, foraging just above ground level and closely followed by the little mohican of a White-bellied Yuhina, which Tony tells me comes down from altitude in large numbers in the winter months. We reach a snarling dog outside a house and I am quite keen to move steadily on, but Tony stops and starts to scan around, apparently oblivious to the ticking of Plain Flowerpeckers that buzz over the track and bow to one another on top of an electricity pylon. There is something quite pleasing about the fact that giant ugly manmade structures are proving so useful for a tiny bird.

Now something very unexpected happens. As we walk down the road a loud rollicking can be heard from the dense undergrowth of the forest. It is a very, very loud bird and Tony has no idea who the call is from. I am expecting something fairly big singing from the forest floor and indeed I glimpse movement from behind a fern. By getting into a very uncomfortably stooped position I am able to see parts of the birds (there are two of them). They are quite large, about Jackdaw size, chocolate brown, with a distinctive white stripe through their eye, and grey facial masking. One bird is leaning back and literally hollering its call into the cool morning cloudbank. There is only one thought in my mind – these are laughing-thrushes. But try as he might, Tony can’t see them and they move away into the undergrowth. Tony whips out the field guide and through we go: nope, nope, nope, definitely not, ummm.. nope.. There’s only one laughing-thrush and the jizz is perfect, but the plumage is wrong. These laughing-thrushes do not occur here anyway, Tony informs me. You must have seen a new bird for Taiwan, Tony grins, for the first time in the day displaying an unexpected flash of irony. I saw the birds, I heard the call, we have the book, and still they get away. But I am determined that they won’t…

The clouds start to lift on our lofty position and the occasional wisp of song still seeps from the canopy down beneath us. Our first glimpse of Black-browed Barbet is from a rather luxurious garden, although we have been hearing them since arrival. We hike back down to the river and follow the road upstream. The sun is out now and it has quickly transcended from cool to rather warm. A Cattle Egret flaps upstream but there are no classical birds of the river. Tony wants to find a dipper. Back to the car, up over the hill and back down past a waterfall to a little footbridge that straddles the gorge. Here we see Common Kingfisher perched on a boulder and we admire a male Plumbeous Water Redstart hawking from his lair, deep within a riverside crevasse. More interestingly we stroll to a small waterfall and encounter a man camped by the falls, boiling his billy, surrounded by camera equipment. His peace is about to be shattered by a party of twenty marching Taiwanese tourists. I ask Tony where they are all off to. He tells me that they are almost certainly heading for the waterfall, to meditate. It sounds so unlikely that I am sure it’s true. We dip on the dipper and turn for Taipei.

It’s hot now and Tony seems pleased with his decision to start early as the show appears to be over. We briefly stop at a long causeway over a broad river. Beneath us are broad shingle river islands covered in low sedge. It looks a great habitat for something, but it is not evident what that might be. I look for small brown birds flitting across the reeds, but nothing materialises. We are instead distracted by a distant bank of TV cameras and a helicopter, all of whom seem to be interested in about thirty men in lifejackets who are riding the rapids in rubber dinghies. It seems to be “show and tell” day at the river rescue agency. An immature Crested Serpent Eagle circles overhead. Tony takes me to a factory outlet where they serve ice lollies in the flavours of unusual native fruits. It is about the last thing my stomach wants and I do my best to diplomatically stop a second one being ordered.

We return to Taipei late morning. It has been fun and we did see birds. I am not sure whether Tony should be paid for the outing so I diplomatically offer money for his fuel. He suggests a sum which I think is considerably more than fuel, but considerably less than guiding, so I pay. Later in the afternoon I get a call. Our mystery bird has been traced by Tony, using a tape, and he is convinced it was an Island Thrush. I thank him for his suggestion. It’s not arrogance, or obstinacy, although I can be guilty of either on occasion, but if that was an Island Thrush I’ll eat my field guide. I know a laughing-thrush when I see one. And I saw one. The plot thickens…

One and a half hours of glorious sleep work wonders and I am more than ready when Jason and Ollie propose an afternoon drive into the foothills of Yangmingshan National Park. We cross the city and climb quickly past the astonishing Grand Hotel into the mountains behind Taipei. The Park Visitor Centre is fairly quiet and we climb a viewing tower to look out over hazy Taipei, while giant butterflies labour beneath us in the thickness of humid afternoon air. In a dense entanglement of secondary growth a pair of Black-browed Barbets are chasing their tails and an elusive Rufous-capped Babbler hops briefly into view. I surrender my binoculars to Jason in a hapless attempt to show him a massive orb spider draped amidst the shrubbery. The energy of the city seems to vaporise below us as we lean from our lofty lookout and breathe in the stillness.

Datun Nature Park is a little further along the mountain highway. I am not sure what to expect there, for nature seems to be all around us in the mountains. What materialises is a small ornamental pond with a walkway that skirts some head-high shrubbery. Plain Martins swirl in small clouds high above us but the pond itself seems to hold nothing other than turtles, giant carp and a few Mallards. A small clearing on the far shore however holds a bevy of Chinese Bamboo Partridges, rather boldly fussing along the edge of a coppice. A buzzing party of small passerines is moving rapidly through the scrub and panning them as they flit between the trees reveals a mixed flock of Japanese White-eyes and Grey-cheeked Fulvettas. A wedding party are being photographed on one bank, sweating in their finery, serenaded by an orchestra of cicadas as mist swirls around the hilltops. I am glad Ollie has taken us here.

The road back down to Taipei passes beneath a mountain vent that is hissing odorous sulphurous gas. We descend into the traffic maze of Taipei city. A White-vented Mynah perches on top of a streetlight at a particularly busy junction, just as darkness falls. Soon we are immersed in the swirling swarms of moped lights as we recross the city. It is beautiful in its own strange way.

Friday 25^th August

I am back in the breakfast bar after seven hours of unbroken sleep and feeling very much up for the day. This morning a Grey Treepie has decided to perch next to the window and watch the commuter scooter procession with me. Katy arrives at 8am sharp. She is clad in khakis and a floppy hat and looks every inch a birder. She has already warmly greeted a silver-bearded gentlemen who looked much more professorial than me, but discovered that he was not her lift for the day! Her husband kindly escorts us into the morning jams and inches his way over to Guandu Nature Park. They used to live in the U.S. and now run a small computer shop. There will be no language difficulties today, expect perhaps for bird names.

We emerge from the car’s air-conditioning into the steamy hot entrance gateway to Guandu. It is my hottest day in Taipei. We enter a grove of shady saplings and set up Katy’s scope. The first hide is nothing more than a slat in a brush fence, providing a lookout over the park. We can see vast expanses of dredged muddy pits, acres of rank grassland and a pulsating heat haze, vibrating over the baking clay. Guandu looks like excellent habitat for a cooler, wetter day at a very different time of year. Tony cautioned that we would see nothing here, but Victor and Katy both wanted to show me this innovative park, providing a wildlife haven within the city limits of Taipei. However its haven qualities are mainly reserved for the winter months. Will we see anything at all today?

We scuttle between patches of shade and eventually realise that we don’t need to “hide” when there are so few birds around, so set up Katy’s Leica scope on the edge of a muddy levy bank. Scanning around reveals good numbers of rather distant waterbirds, including Grey Heron, Great Egret, Black-headed Ibis, Cattle Egret and Little Egret, especially in an area currently being dredged by a bulldozer, where fresh mud is being turned and apparently provides an abundance of moist morsels. A few Green-winged Teal are roosting on the edge of a shallow lagoon and we manage to winkle out some early migrating waders, including Common Sandpiper, Wood Sandpiper and a few Little Ringed Plover. From a giant hide that provides an even more substantial view over the wetland (mudland) we spot some Black-winged Stilts flying in and manage to settle the scope onto Plain Prinias in the tall sedge. The hide is almost uninhabitably hot however, and we don’t stay long.

A tall gate appears to bar entry onto a pathway leading to a new hide complex, but Katy is confident that her connections will provide enough of a pass, so we step through and join a boardwalk between some reed-fringed pools, where Scaly-breasted Munias pop up to watch our passing and a Zitting Cisticola takes to the air. A colourful Yellow Bittern briefly jumps across the channel and we watch a motionless immature Black-crowned Night Heron playing at being invisible. The path continues past some experimental rice paddies. In a line of trees that skirt the paddies we are lucky to see another early migrant in the form of a Brown Shrike. However I am struck by a pair of astonishing birds, quite unlike anything I have seen before. They are white and grey and pink, but my view of them is obscured. I can’t even decide what type of bird they are. Could they be some sort of pigeon? But they fly and they are definitely not pigeons. Are they mynahs? Some kind of shrike? No – I am sure that these are starlings, but for the second time in my short Taiwanese birding life I find myself utterly defeated by the field guide. These birds are simply not there. And then Katy remembers. Yes there are some introduced starlings around Taipei, but she can’t remember the English name. We reach the new hide and there, amidst the bird posters, are our birds: Black-collared Starlings, now very much at home in Guandu Nature Park.

This new hide provides a very different view of Guandu. We are now looking into, and over, a reedbed, with water channels flowing directly around the hide and an expanse of sedge to our rear. We have also reoriented and so the backdrop is now a ridge of tall apartment blocks, which helps to reinforce that this is urban nature. If you lived at the top of that block over there and you owned a powerful telescope then Guandu would be your garden. However I am struck by the total lack of birds on view. In fact we see absolutely nothing from this hide except for a Black Drongo hawking over the scrub. Katy tells me that I need to come back in November. They have counted hundreds of species of bird here in one day, she says. It seems at best vaguely possible on a thermal late morning at the end of August, but there is no doubt that Guandu is a very good thing and I am sure a different prospect in the winter months.

I am treated to lunch at the reserve restaurant, overlooking the pans, while small groups of schoolchildren lark in the exhibition centre. I glance through the giant telescopes mounted behind the huge viewing platform and a Greenshank has appeared. How many more birds would we see if we just sat and waited? I like Guandu. It is a fledgling version of London’s Barnes Wetland Centre and I wish it all the luck in the world.

We take the metro back into the city. Katy is disappointed that I don’t have time for another excursion because she had plans to show me the Malayan Night Herons in the Botanical Gardens. I am briefly and sorely tempted, however I am already pleased and satisfied with my brief introduction to the birds of Taipei.

Wednesday 30^th August

Mystery solved.

From:	fbmagpie@gmail.com  on behalf of  Wayne Hsu [SMTP:WayneHsu@birdlover.com]
To:	Martin Keith
Cc:
Subject:	Re: FW: Visiting Taiwan
Sent:	30/08/2006 10:21

Hi Keith,

I'm glad you enjoyed your trip and that you were able to go birding on
both days. Could your birds have been the Black-throated
Laughing-thrush, an increasingly common exotic that I frequently see
at Wulai? You might need to look it up in the China guide or online.

Acknowledgements

My greatest thanks is due to Victor Yu for saving the day and fixing up the two birding trips for me and for his very kind information package. I am grateful to Tony Tang for taking me out to Wulai and Katy Lee for her most enjoyable tour of Guandu and her enthusiasm for the birds of Taiwan. Yi-chung Yen provided company throughout our visit and was generous in giving up an afternoon to take us to Yangmingshan. Brian Sykes and Jo Ann MacKenzie were extremely helpful in replying to email inquiries prior to the trip. I am sorry that I (just) missed Wayne Hsu by one day, but am grateful to his follow-up emails.

Resources

[1] W.-H. Fang and B. Sykes, Birdwatching in Taiwan, BirdingASIA No.2 December 2005, Oriental Bird Club (2005).

[2] W. Sen-Hsiong and Y. Hsiou-ying, A Guide to the Wild Birds of Taiwan, Taiwan Wild Bird Information Centre and Wild Bird Society of Japan (1991).

[3] T. Inskipp, N. Lindsey and W. Duckworth, An Annotated Checklist of the Birds of the Oriental Region, Oriental Bird Club (1996).

[4] 100 Common Birds of Taiwan, Wild Bird Society of Taipei (2005).

[5] J.-Y. Wang, The Complete Guide to Birds in Taiwan, Government Information Office (2001).

[6] Birding in Taiwan, http://www.birdingintaiwan.com

It wasn’t very easy finding information on birds in Taiwan prior to departure. Probably the best starting point was [1] (available online from the OBC), although I did flick through some of the high level information on [6]. The locals all use [2] as their default guide book, but it is in Chinese. I picked up a copy at the end of the trip (available at Guandu) as it is a beautiful guide. (It is surely only a matter of time before someone produces an English field guide.) I was provided with a copy of [4] on arrival and it is an ideal starting photo guide, which suffices for all common species. I was also given a copy of [5] but its title belies the fact that it only provides some information on a few random species. All these sources use different versions of some of the common names and so I have defaulted to the nomenclature of [3], which varies markedly from [2].

The Birds

Chinese Bamboo Partridge Bambusicola thoracica Several at Datun

Mallard Anas platyrhynchos Several at Datun and Guandu

Green-winged Teal Anas crecca Around 20 at Guandu

Black-headed Ibis Threskiornis melanocephalus Common at Guandu

Yellow Bittern Ixobrychus sinensis One at Guandu

Black-crowned Night Heron Nycticorax nycticorax Several at Wulai and Guandu

Cattle Egret Bubulcus ibis Wulai, common at Guandu

Grey Heron Ardea cinerea Wulai, common at Guandu

Great Egret Ardea alba Several at Guandu

Little Egret Egretta garzetta Wulai, common at Guandu

Crested Serpent Eagle Spilornis cheela One near Wulai

Black-winged Stilt Himantopus himantopus Several at Guandu

Little Ringed Plover Charadrius dubius Several at Guandu

Common Greenshank Tringa nebularia One at Guandu

Wood Sandpiper Tringa glareola Several at Guandu

Common Sandpiper Actitis hypoleucos Several at Guandu

Rock Pigeon Columba livia Occasional flocks

Oriental Turtle Dove Streptopelia orientalis One at Yangmingshan Centre

Spotted Dove Streptopelia chinensis Common in Taipei

Red Collared Dove Streptopelia tranquebarica Several at Guandu

House Swift Apus nipalensis Common at Wulai

Common Kingfisher Alcedo atthis Couple around Wulai

Black-browed Barbet Megalaima oorti Several at Wulai and Yangmingshan

Brown Shrike Lanius cristatus One at Guandu

Black Drongo Dicrurus macrocercus One in Taipei, common at Guandu

Bronzed Drongo Dicrurus aeneus Several at Wulai

Taiwan Blue Magpie Urocissa caerulea Several flocks at Wulai

Grey Treepie Dendrocitta formosae One in Taipei, common at Wulai

Black-billed Magpie Pica pica Several at Guandu

Large-billed Crow Corvus macrorhynchos Several at Wulai

Plain Martin Riparia paludicola Common above Datun

Barn Swallow Hirundo rustica Several at Guandu

Pacific Swallow Hirundo tahitica Common at Wulai

Zitting Cisticola Cisticola juncidis One at Guandu

Plain Prinia Prinia inornata Common at Guandu

Light-vented Bulbul Pycnonotus sinensis Common Taipei, Wulai, Datun

Black Bulbul Hypsipetes leucocephalus Common at Wulai

Black-throated Laughingthrush Garrulax chinensis Two at Wulai

Streak-breasted Scimitar Babbler Pomatorhinus ruficollis Several at Wulai and Yangmingshan

Rufous-capped Babbler Stachyris ruficeps One at Yangmingshan

Dusky Fulvetta Alcippe brunnea One at Wulai

Grey-cheeked Fulvetta Alcippe morrisonia One flock at Datun

White-bellied Yuhina Yuhina zantholeuca One at Wulai

Japanese White-eye Zosterops japonicus Common Taipei and Wulai

Black-collared Starling Sturnus nigricollis Several at Guandu

White-vented Mynah Acridotheres javanicus Several in Taipei and Guandu

Common Mynah Acridotheres tristis Several in Taipei and Guandu

Plumbeous Water Redstart Rhyacornis fuliginosus Couple around Wulai

Plain Flowerpecker Dicaeum concolor Several at Wulai

Eurasian Tree Sparrow Passer montanus Several at Wulai and Guandu

Scaly-breasted Munia Lonchura punctulata One at Guandu

Grey Wagtail Motacilla cinerea One at Wulai

White Wagtail Motacilla alba Several near Wulai

Pallas’ Squirrel Callosciurus erythraeus One in Taipei and Yangmingshan