Water bird paradise
The Yan-shui, Lu'er-men and Zeng-wen rivers flow into the sea in Tai-jiang National park, and the park is full of estuaries, tidal zones, mangrove forests and other wetland ecologies. The -Qigu Lagoon and the Si-cao Inland Sea in the park are remnants of the Tai-jiang Inland Sea. When you add the farming, fishing, and salt industries, the diversity of wetlands here is greater than anywhere else in Taiwan. In particular, the Si-cao wetlands and the wetlands at the mouth of the Zeng-wen River are regarded as having international importance.
The abundant wetlands provide ample food and areas in which to hide. What's more, Taiwan is located along migration routes for water birds in East Asia. Every fall, many tens of thousands of migratory birds pass through here on their way south to warmer climes, before returning north in the spring. Others, including about 1000 black-faced spoonbills (or about half the global population of the endangered species), stop here to overwinter.
Tourists who come to Tai-jiang from October to March shouldn't miss the opportunity to visit the birdwatching pavilion in the Black-Faced Spoonbill Reserve, where one can enjoy views of these avian guests of Taiwan, which have flown some 2000 kilometers from their summer homes in North Korea or Northeast China.
When this reporter arrived, high-powered telescopes in the pavilion were trained on a vast beach more than a kilometer away where more than 200 black-faced spoonbills nestled together, leaning into the breeze off the ocean. The volunteer on duty said that the birds-apart from a few "standing guard"-were resting, and had gathered together to take warmth from each other. They leaned together to keep their feathers smooth, because ruffled feathers would affect their flight and might result in their demise if they were attacked by a peregrine falcon or other predator.
This reporter visited at the end of March, before the black-faced spoonbills flew north. Already wearing their yellow breeding feathers, they would soon take off on the 20-day journey to reach their breeding grounds. At the end of May the chicks will hatch, and by the middle of July they will become juveniles and spend the next two-plus months learning how to fly. At the beginning of October they must accompany their parents on the demanding journey southward.
Even when the spoonbills are gone, the reserve and the various neighboring wetlands are still full of avian footprints. All told, more than 200 bird species can be seen in Tai-jiang National Park. About 140 migratory bird species (including snipes, sandpipers, plovers, gulls, herons, geese and ducks) make up about 75% of the total. Resident birds comprise the other 25%. The bio-resources of Taijiang's intertidal zones represent another one of the park's big selling points. Take, for instance, the 49 species of crabs in the park. The sight of thousands of them scurrying hither and yon never fails to impress.
When you visit Tai-jiang, don't forget to find a place along the shore to watch the sunset. The stretch of coastline from the mouth of the Zeng-wen River to the mouth of the Lu'er-men River has attracted sunset gazers since time immemorial. Behold the purple-red sky, the returning fishing boats, the setting sun reflecting across the crystalline water. The beauty of Formosa simply can't be put into words.