Metropolitan birdwatching
Birders may also find metropolitan Taipei and its surroundings worth exploring. Places like Yangmingshan’s Qianshan Park, the Taipei Botanical Garden, Da’an Park, the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, National Taiwan University, and Guandu Nature Park all promise the delights of birdwatching.
At 6 a.m. we meet up with Allen Lyu, secretary-general of the TWBF, at the Taipei Botanical Garden. Lyu observes that the vegetation in the garden is dense and complex; there are also a variety of habitats here, including ponds. These characteristics account for the garden’s rich diversity of birds.
Here too, the way to find birds is by listening. “We make a distinction between ‘bird songs’ and ‘bird calls.’ Simply put, we believe songs are used primarily to attract mates or declare territories. Calls, on the other hand, take various forms and respond to various situations; they serve to contact, warn, or threaten others, and are used to beg for food.” Upon hearing three or more vibrant “wi” sounds in a row, Lyu knows immediately that it’s a black-naped monarch. Because these tiny birds like to hide in dense woodlands, we don’t often see them, even if we’re able to hear them. If you ever spot one, you’ll marvel at its beautiful blue plumage. In the botanical garden, we often hear a series of bubbling notes in the background. Lyu tells us that they’re made by Taiwan barbets. These endemic birds favor luxuriant green places, so there are many of them in Yangmingshan. During their nesting season (April–August), their songs often fill the entire mountain, accompanied in summer by chirping cicadas. “When you’ve learned to identify bird sounds, if you have the opportunity to go birdwatching abroad, you’ll realize that these sounds are distinctively Taiwanese,” Lyu says.
Amid the trees and bushes, we notice a subadult crested goshawk practicing its hunting skills. Under the trees there’s a Malayan night heron that doesn’t mind our presence. It stoops and leans forward, keeping its head down to look for food. With deadly precision, it seizes an earthworm in its beak. This heron, which many refer to affectionately as a “stupid big bird,” is one of the species on Western birders’ must-see lists when they visit Taiwan. In a pond, there are Eurasian moorhens paddling slowly. Near them, a white-breasted waterhen and its chicks are foraging amid the plants growing on the banks. On the footpath, several photographers are holding their breath, closely watching a nest of Swinhoe’s white-eyes in a nearby tree. They’re waiting to capture perfect images of the adult birds feeding their little ones.
Lyu’s fascinating explanations bring each of the bird species in the Taipei Botanical Garden alive. If you don’t have access to a personal birdwatching guide, Lyu recommends two helpful apps: eBird and Merlin Bird ID. The former not only provides a database of bird sightings that can be used alongside Merlin Bird ID to locate information on individual bird species, but also tells us which birds are frequently sighted in our local areas, as well as the seasonal variations in sightings.
Apps such as eBird and Merlin can help us locate information on individual birds. They can also tell us which birds appear frequently in our locality, and in which seasons.
The crested goshawk (Accipiter trivirgatus formosae) is one of the birds of prey that live very close to human beings.