2012 Tour Narrative
We sat quietly, very quietly, and peered out through the narrow slits in the cloth that obscured us from the birds visiting the forest feeding station we were gathered beside. After a short while there was movement high above the grain-filled dishes and a male Swinhoe’s Pheasant cautiously made his way down towards us. All—bar one of us—had already been treated to prolonged looks at another magnificent male earlier in the tour but we were all again transfixed and none of us could take our eyes off this gorgeous creature. We felt blessed - Swinhoe’s is a truly stunning, multi-coloured pheasant and a Taiwanese endemic. But this wasn’t what we’d come to see – today was our tenth day on the beautiful island of Taiwan and we were here in the hope of seeing our final Taiwanese endemic – the imaginatively named Taiwan Partridge. We didn’t have to wait much longer as suddenly there they were, first a pair, then a pair (perhaps the same pair?) with five chicks and lastly another pair with four even smaller chicks! They weren’t secretive, didn’t skulk and certainly didn’t run away and we were transfixed! A fabulous looking bird – who could possibly have hoped for more. Prior to this year, actually seeing a Taiwan Partridge, easily the nation’s most elusive endemic, involved as much luck as it did skill or field craft – but that was in the past. This year’s bird blind presentation simply could not have been improved upon! Our day wasn’t over however and our intrepid, highly skilled, host showed us a Collared Scops and moments later a Mountain Scops Owl during a brief break from the rain on our way back from dinner that very same evening! This was Taiwan, and we were enjoying some of the best of what it had to offer.
The tour started superbly with our first Malayan Night Heron being seen, and seen ridiculously well, less than ten minutes inside the gates to the Botanical Garden in the heart of downtown Taipei. Our good fortune continued, as it would throughout the entire tour, and moments later we were watching our first Taiwanese endemic. Yes you’ve guessed it - the imaginatively named Taiwan Barbet. Before we left the park we’d also had prolonged telescope looks at a Pechora Pipit, the only one we would see on the entire trip. It was raining when we entered the gardens, and raining when we left, and it would rain, at least a bit, every single day of the trip! At times the weather was frustrating but fortunately it didn’t cost us any of our primary avian targets, Taiwan’s endemics. I can think of only one species that we didn’t see because of the unusually wet weather – Alpine Accentor. That species was probably jinxed in any case!
We kept our good humour despite the weather. Chinese Bamboo Partridge’s frequently heard ‘in-your-face’ vocalisation is often rendered ‘People pray…people pray…people pray’ but towards the end of the tour I think that it was Nancy who suggested a more apt transcription of it could read ‘Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain’! We couldn’t disagree.
Yenhui had shuffled the tour the itinerary around a bit before we arrived - and the changes he had made worked superbly right from the outset when he took us from Taipei north to a site where we saw Taiwan Blue Magpie, one of the island’s more elusive endemics. We’d only see the magpie in flight today – but we rectified this later on in the trip and all ended up having decent telescope looks at this colourful lowland species. It was raining when we arrived at our first overnight stop, Basian Shan, but this didn’t stop Mr Chai and his wife greeting us in the car park – nor from the Taiwan Whistling Thrushes doing the same. Here two charming Varied Tits put in an equally memorable appearance. It rained hard that night – so hard that no owl worth its salt was ever going to co-operate and we went early to bed.
We moved on the following day – heading to Da Syue Shan – a protected area that proved to be the very best birding site we visited on the entire tour. We stopped en route to bag a very obliging Taiwan Hwamei and shortly after we arrived, a male Swinhoe’s Pheasant! This wonder, undoubtedly a bird high on the wish list of every birder visiting Taiwan, put on the briefest of roadside shows, unfortunately however only half of the group saw it. Everyone else had to make do with a more co-operative female. Later that same day we went on to see Taiwan’s other endemic pheasant – encountering no less than four male Mikado (Taiwan’s national bird) on the road! Other goodies at this spectacular forest reserve included the first of two well-seen White-bellied Green Pigeons, our first Taiwan Wren Babbler (we’d have prolonged telescope view of another near Cingjing two days later), a Taiwan Bush Warbler that repeatedly scurried beneath our feet, Taiwan Yuhinas galore, White-whiskered Laughingthrushes that we almost had to kick our way through, a Rusty Laughingthrush and a truly gorgeous Flamecrest that were both eventually obliging. We also saw a couple of remarkably obliging Taiwan Barwings, a White-browed (or Taiwan Blue) Shortwing that sat up and allowed itself to be ‘scoped, more Steere’s Liocichlas than you could shake a stick at, and a tree-top hugging Black Eagle. And thus it continued – we kept finding the birds and moving on, finding the birds and moving on. One of the highlights was enjoying breakfast being serenaded by a singing Yellowish-bellied Bush Warbler. The birding at Da Syue Shan was first class – though I wish we could have said the same about the weather.
Leaving Da Syue Shan (literally ‘Big Snow Mountain’, though fortunately we didn’t see any snow) we paused multiple times on our way down to the plains. Our first halt allowed everyone to watch a male Swinhoe’s Pheasant, then to admire a remarkable confiding female White-tailed Robin. Our second stop yielded a Chinese Bamboo Partridge that scurried along the road edge and our third pause (at a site where we were warned not to steal the bamboo!) a very inquisitive Dusky Fulvetta. We weren’t in the plains very long before climbing back up to Cingjing. Here many of the same species we’d just left were waiting – but there were a few additions: a couple of elusive Ashy Woodpigeons perhaps being the pick of the bunch on an extremely wet trail.
Unfortunately we missed the Alpine Accentors – but then it was raining hard and we were enveloped in dense cloud which prevented us from seeing the edge of the car park right at the summit of East Asia’s highest road pass from more than 15 metres away, so we sort of had an excuse! Fortunately we descended beneath the cloud as we dropped down in to the spectacular Taroko Gorge.
All too soon it was time for our flight to Lanyu, or Orchid, Island. We spent the rest of that day, and all the following morning, there exploring the beaches, forests and shoreline of this fabulous tropical paradise. Accompanied by yet another skilled local guide, we were soon enjoying views of a pair of Japanese Paradise Flycatchers, Brown-eared Bulbuls and shortly afterwards our first Whistling Green Pigeon and Philippine Cuckoo-dove. We even managed to stumble across a daytime roosting Elegant Scops Owl – and were treated to fantastic views of it in almost full sunlight, mid-afternoon! Migrants were few-and-far-between on Lanyu – though a cracking Black-capped Kingfisher offered some compensation. We took the high speed ferry back to the ‘mainland’ but saw very few birds, a couple of frustratingly distant Long-tailed Jaeger’s being the pick of what was a small bunch.
Heading to the Taitung Grasslands the following morning we soon found several Richard’s Pipits and both species of Cisticola. The hoped for Siberian Rubythroat, a cracking male, was lured out duly obliged, but the Little Whimbrel of previous visits were nowhere to be seen.
On on the west coast our focus shifted to shorebirds - but not before we’d seen the last of Taiwan’s over-wintering Black-faced Spoonbills! Over the following couple of days, with a brief interruption to watch the aforementioned Taiwan Partridges and Scops Owls, we were blessed with repeated studies of some of East Asia’s most sought after species such as Long-toed and Red-necked Stints, Grey-tailed Tattler, Sharp-tailed, Terek and Broad-billed Sandpipers and even a few Great Knot. The rarity of the trip, a Little Stint, wasn’t quite in the same league as some of our other quarry species however.
Our last port of call was Pillow Hill where our final local guide, took a matter of a few minutes to show us that region’s last speciality – a fantastic Fairy Pitta! Paul Holt
Updated: May 2012