Taiwan
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Apr 19 to May 1 2025
Paul Holt
2025
Tour Price $5,790
Single Room Supplement $590
2025
Tour Price $5,790
Single Room Supplement $590
Early Portuguese sailors dubbed Taiwan “Isla Formosa”—the beautiful island—and although the title was abandoned some time ago in favor of the Chinese name, Taiwan is still a strikingly attractive island with some spectacular mountain scenery. Sitting astride the Tropic of Cancer, less than 250 miles from north to south and no more than 100 miles wide, Taiwan boasts impressive geographic and ecological diversity. A dramatic mountain range forms the island’s backbone and is flanked either side by a broad, flat coastal plain that is warm and humid.
Amazingly, few Western birders have experienced Taiwan’s rich bird life. We’ve been missing out, as many of the species are generally far easier to see here than in most other Asian countries. Moreover, Taiwan is an affluent nation with a good tourist infrastructure and road network, and traveling around is genuinely easy. Most important, Taiwan boasts an impressive array of 32 endemic species that include Taiwan Yuhina, Collared Bush Robin, White-eared Sibia, Steere’s Liocichla, and the more recently split Taiwan Cupwing, Taiwan Shortwing and Black-necklaced Scimitar Babbler.
Endemic birds are not all that Taiwan has to offer, however. The island is the winter home of the bulk of the tiny world population of Black-faced Spoonbill, and we expect to see a few lingering birds. The tour’s timing, at the height of the northbound spring migration, means that we’re also sure to find a decent number of East Asian migrants. We also stand a very good chance of seeing that most elusive of Asian birds, Fairy Pitta.
Day 1: The tour begins this evening at our hotel in Taipei. Night in Taipei.
This was a fantastic tour. Paul couldn’t have been better. Best eyes and ears I’ve ever experienced and a will to get everyone to see each bird. - Hank K.
Day 2: After breakfast we’ll travel a short distance to the Taipei Botanical Gardens for an introduction to Taiwan’s more common birds. These are sure to include Swinhoe’s White-eye and Light-vented Bulbul, and this site is also one of the best for both Taiwan Barbet and Malayan Night Heron. We should be able to find at least one of the latter stalking earthworms somewhere in the small gardens. A pair of Crested Goshawks also breed in the park most years. From there we’ll drive southwest, away from Taipei and up into the hills at Da Syue Shan (literally “Big Snow Mountain”). Even though this site holds most of the island’s endemic birds, we’ll make several stops en route, perhaps to search for Black-necklaced Scimitar Babbler or Taiwan Hwamei, but we should still arrive in time to explore some of this excellent reserve. The endemic Swinhoe’s Pheasant is relatively easy to see here, as is its rarer cousin, and Taiwan’s national bird, Mikado Pheasant. Night just outside Da Syue Shan Forest Recreation area.
Days 3-4: We’ll spend the following two days at Da Syue Shan searching for species such as White-bellied Green Pigeon and endemics such as Taiwan Bamboo Partridge, the startled-looking Yellow Tit, Taiwan Bush Warbler, Taiwan Scimitar Babbler, Grey-cheeked Fulvetta, Rufous-crowned, Rusty, and White-whiskered Laughingthrushes, Steere’s Liocichla, White-eared Sibia, Taiwan Vivid Niltava, Taiwan Yuhina, Taiwan Rosefinch, and Flamecrest.
Even with all these endemic species to search for, we won’t neglect the endemic subspecies Dusky Fulvetta or regional specialties such as Little Forktail.
Day 5: Depending on what we’ve seen at Da Syue Shan, we’ll have the choice of leaving early or late in the day. Our next destination will be Cingjing, which at 5640 feet is ideal as a base for searching again for several of Taiwan’s higher-elevation specialties, such as Taiwan Bullfinch or Taiwan Hwamei, that might have eluded us so far. All three of Taiwan’s endemic game birds occur near Cingjing, and we’ll probably spend some of our time quietly walking various trails through the bird-rich temperate forests in our quest to see them all.
The spectacular Swinhoe’s Pheasant is the easiest to see, the elusive Taiwan Partridge undoubtedly the most difficult, and while Mikado Pheasant isn’t common, we have lots of time. Several of the species we searched for at Da Syue Shan also occur here, while more site-specific specialties include the enigmatic Taiwan Cupwing and Taiwan Barwing. Night in Cingjing.
Day 6: We’ll leave Cingjing early today and drive up the Central Cross Island Highway and over the Hehuanshan Pass, which at 10,728 feet is the highest road pass in East Asia. Target species here include Collared Bush Robin, Flamecrest, and the recently described Alishan Bush Warbler. The higher-elevation patches of bamboo hold good numbers of Taiwan Fulvettas and a few Golden Parrotbills, though we’ll need a fair amount of luck to connect with the latter. Other target species include the endemic form of Alpine Accentor, Taiwan Rosefinch, and both Brown and Taiwan Bullfinches. Descending the eastern side, we’ll travel slowly through Taiwan’s premier tourist attraction, the spectacular Taroko Gorge, before reaching the coast near Hualien. Along the way we’re sure to come into contact with Styan’s Bulbul, Taiwan’s most threatened endemic, before we reach our hotel in Taitung where we spend the night.
Day 7: This morning we’ll take a two-and-a-half-hour journey on a large passenger ferry to Lanyu, or Orchid, Island, a volcanic jewel located off Taiwan’s southeastern corner. Species that we’ve seen from the ferry on past trips include Streaked Shearwater, Bulwer’s Petrel, Long-tailed Jaeger, Bridled Tern and Red-tailed Tropicbird. Still inhabited by some 2000 Yami aborigines, whose culture is closer to that of the Philippines and Pacific islands than it is to China, Lanyu is radically different from mainland Taiwan. Birds we’ll be looking out for on Lanyu itself include the endemic Taiwan Green Pigeon and endemic forms of Ryukyu Scops Owl, Brown-eared Bulbul, and Lowland White-eye. Night on Lanyu.
Day 8: Lanyu Island is also home to small numbers of both Philippine Cuckoo Doves and Japanese Paradise-flycatchers. In addition, we’re sure to come across numerous migrants at this time of year, anything from a Little Curlew to a gorgeous Ruddy Kingfisher or Narcissus Flycatcher. We’ll spend the morning and early afternoon on Lanyu before taking the ferry back to the mainland. Night back in Taitung.
Day 9: After some more birding close to Taitung we’ll drive south, past Taiwan’s second-largest city, Kaohsiung, to Budai. We’ll spend the night there, but not before we’ve started our search for more shorebirds.
Day 10: We’ll spend much of the morning traveling slowly along the southwest coastline, stopping at numerous sites to search for waders and terns. Our main target is Black-faced Spoonbill: the bulk of the tiny world population of this endangered species winter in Taiwan, and a few lingering birds should still be present. Other species here should include a host of waders such as Eastern Curlew, Terek Sandpiper, Grey-tailed Tattler, Great Knot, Long-toed Stint, and Sharp-tailed Sandpiper. With luck we might be able to find a Chinese Egret or, if we’re extremely lucky, even a Spoon-billed Sandpiper. In the afternoon we’ll swing away from the coast and head inland to Alishan. The enterprising proprietor of our comfortable home-stay hotel here has constructed a couple of bird blinds in the forest, and this site is now the best in the world for viewing Taiwan’s most elusive endemic bird, Taiwan Partridge. Night at Alishan.
Day 11: In the morning we’ll spend more time at Alishan before returning to the coast to search for more birds. There are a couple of recent records of Chinese Crested Tern here, but realistically we have only a very slim chance of connecting with one of these increasingly rare birds. In the afternoon we’ll head north, spending the night in a hotel at Douliou.
Day 12: Accompanied by a local naturalist, we’ll make an early morning visit to Pillow Hill near Douliou with the aim of finding the gorgeous and elusive Fairy Pitta, a few pairs of which breed here. With the help of a scientist who has been studying these birds we should be able to find at least one individual before we drive back to Taipei, stopping for any birds we may see along the way. Night in Taipei.
Day 13: The tour concludes this morning in Taipei.
Note: The information presented here is an abbreviated version of our formal General Information for this tour. Its purpose is solely to give readers a sense of what might be involved if they take this tour. Although we do our best to make sure that what follows here is completely accurate, it should not be used as a replacement for the formal document which will be sent to all tour registrants, and whose contents supersedes any information contained here.
ENTERING TAIWAN: U.S. citizens should have a passport valid for at least the duration of their stay in Taiwan and with at least one blank page for an entry stamp. Tourist visas are not required for stays of fewer than 90 days.
COUNTRY INFORMATION: You can review the U.S. Department of State Country Specific Travel Information here: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel.html and the CIA World Factbook here: https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/. Review foreign travel advice from the UK government here: https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice and travel advice and advisories from the Government of Canada here: https://travel.gc.ca/travelling/advisories.
PACE OF TOUR: There is a reasonable amount of travelling, but the days are not unduly long or overly tiring. Nevertheless a modest degree of fitness is recommended. Please note that on this tour we are frequently moving on and only spend more than one night at one hotel – the one at Da Syue Shan. That means that we are not able to make very many of the early morning excursions optional and in recent years as few as three of these have been optional. Nearly all the forest trails that we will walk on are fairly flat – most are in fact rather wide, un-surfaced old logging roads, and none are particularly steep. We might go off road onto short, rougher tracks on a couple of occasions at Da Syue Shan, once or twice on Lanyu and perhaps again when we’ll search for Fairy Pitta near Douliou on the last full day of the tour. We do not expect these walks to be long ones and we will go slowly.
Due to the early morning bird activity in many of the areas, we will want to be out in the field early each day. This is particularly important in our quest to see both of Taiwan’s endemic pheasants. This might mean that on two or three days we will leave our hotel at about 4:30 am in order to be in a good area shortly after dawn. We anticipate that a more typical departure time will be about 5:00am. Chinese/Taiwanese breakfasts are not particularly appealing to most western palates, and on most days we will have picnic-style breakfasts of more western items in the field. These will normally consist of cereals and milk, yogurt, fresh fruit, bread and jam, juice, tea and coffee. These will usually be eaten close to the vehicle ‘out in the field’ but on a couple of occasions will be eaten in our hotel lobby.
HEALTH: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that all travelers be up to date on routine vaccinations. These include measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccine, varicella (chickenpox) vaccine, polio vaccine, and your yearly flu shot.
They further recommend that most travelers have protection against Hepatitis A.
The most current information about travelers’ health recommendations can be found on the CDC’s Travel Health website here: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/list
Elevation: Taipei is at low altitude as are many of the birding sites that we will visit on this tour. However near the start of the tour we will venture into the high mountains that form the north-south oriented back bone of Taiwan. The highest accommodation that we will stay in is at Da Syue Shan and is at 2200 meters (7220 feet). One one or two days we will venture higher at Da Syue Shan, probably going up as far as 2560 meters (8400 feet). We will go even higher than this during our time at Cingjing and will venture up the Wuling Pass on Hehuan Shan Mountain in the spectacular Taroko National Park. At 3275 metres (10,740 feet) the pass, the highest road pass in east Asia, will be the highest elevation that we will visit.
Motion Sickness: We’ll be three hours on a ferrycrossing between Lanyu Island and Taitung.
Smoking: Smoking is prohibited in the vehicles or when the group is gathered for meals, checklists, etc. If you are sharing a room with a nonsmoker, please do not smoke in the room. If you smoke in the field, do so well away and downwind from the group. If any location where the group is gathered has a stricter policy than the WINGS policy, that stricter policy will prevail.
Miscellaneous: Biting insects are not numerous but can occur locally. Mosquitoes can be locally common especially in the plains of Taiwan around Fuyuen, Taidong and on Lanyu Island. They do not carry malaria and insect repellent should provide adequate protection.
Tap water is not safe to drink but bottled water and soft drinks are readily available, and hot, boiled water (for coffee or tea) is available in some of our hotel rooms.
CLIMATE: At least in Taipei and the lowland coastal areas that we’ll visit it is likely to be warm, with temperatures ranging from 20-32°C (70-88°F) during the days and cooler, perhaps down to 18°C (64°F), at night. It will be slightly hotter and definitely more humid on Lanyu, an island that we visit for parts of two days and one night. In the mountains it will be noticeably cooler with temperatures possibly dropping almost as low as 8°C (46°F) at night. Several of our early mornings here might also be chilly. Rain is typically infrequent throughout the tour but is still a possibility – it rained at least once every day of the 2012 and 2024 tours, and occasionally rained very hard. It is perhaps most likely in the hills at Da Syue Shan, near Cingjing or at Alishan but cannot be discounted anywhere.
ACCOMMODATION: Our hotel in Taipei is of a good international standard with private bathrooms, proper restaurants and other facilities that you would normally expect such as gift shops in the lobby, business centres and in-room facilities for making international phone calls etc. Our others hotels are standard with clean rooms, each with an en suite bathroom with a western toilet and shower.
Our Lanyu Island accommodation is perhaps the poorest that we use but all the rooms are clean and all have en suite facilities with a bath, shower and a western toilet. However the hotel is a bit shabby and run down. We’ll spend just one night here.
Internet Access: Taiwan has excellent internet coverage and there is free wifi-internet access in most of our hotels as well as in several restaurants and café’s on Lanyu Island. The hotels in Taipei, Taitung, Tainan and Douliou also have free-to-use computers with internet access in either their lobby or business centre.
FOOD: Everyday food in Taiwan is mostly very similar to that of mainland China and is what most westerners would regard as ‘Chinese food’. The cuisine is well-known and widely appreciated. Beer, soft drinks and green tea will be served with the food. Unlike in mainland China and Hong Kong, the Taiwanese rarely drink hard liquor, bai-jiu, with their food. Western brands of alcohol are not always easily obtainable (and where they are available, they are usually expensive), so you may wish to consider bringing your own supply.
The mainland Chinese and Taiwanese way of eating differs from that in the west in that a selection of different dishes are shared by those sitting at the table. Food is almost always plentiful. Few of the restaurants we will visit provide knives and forks. Instead chopsticks, often disposable wooden ones, are used. If you are not used to eating with chopsticks, we suggest you start practicing right away or bring your own cutlery.
WINGS tours are all-inclusive and no refunds can be issued for any tour meals participants choose to skip.
Drinks: Bottled water is always available, and fruit juice, soft drinks or a beer are normally provided at sit down lunches and dinner, as is coffee or tea. All other drinks or ‘personal’ drinking water for use in your room etc is the responsibility of the individual. Bottled water will be available in our tour vehicles.
Food Allergies/Requirements: We cannot guarantee that all food allergies can be accommodated at every destination. Participants with significant food allergies or special dietary requirements should bring appropriate foods with them for those times when their needs cannot be met. Announced meal times are always approximate depending on how the day unfolds. Participants who need to eat according to a fixed schedule should bring supplemental food. Please contact the WINGS office if you have any questions.
TRANSPORT: Transportation throughout most of the tour is by a small bus or larger coach. Some of the bus rides may last for up to seven hours, but we will, of course, make regular stops along the way to stretch and to bird watch. Participants should be willing and able to ride in any seat in tour vehicles.
We’ll also have a three hour boat trip from Lanyu Island back to Taitung via a daily passenger ferry service to and from the island. They use a large, stable ship that can hold 250 passengers.
At Alishan we’ll have a short, ten-minute, drive in a small 4-wheel drive van owned and driven by the proprietor of the guest house that we will stay at. This vehicle is small but perfectly acceptable for a journey as short as the one we will go on.
2024 Narrative
Da Syue Shan Kilometre 23. It doesn’t sound much – and it’s barely a bend in the road but there’s something about this particular stretch that makes it THE best place on the planet to see Swinhoe’s Pheasant. And boy did we see Swinhoe’s Pheasant! And our first White-bellied Green Pigeon, Rufous-faced Warbler, Black-throated Bushtit, several mesmerizing flocks of Taiwan Yuhinas, White-eared Sibia, Steere’s Liocichla and Vivid Niltava…all at Da Syue Shan Kilometre 23. The birds there are clearly habituated to people and were almost oblivious to our presence, but it took us a while to see the magnificent male Swinhoe’s Pheasant that eventually put on such an impressive show. We’d go on to see another four Swinhoe’s but this was our first encounter with this spectacularly multicoloured gamebird and it came as no surprise that it won the end of trip ‘Bird of the Tour’ poll. It pipped the equally exquisite Fairy Pitta by just one point and the exotic Mikado Pheasant (Taiwan’s National bird and a previous winner of the end of tour poll) by a remarkable 14!
Da Syue Shan with its old growth, mossy forests and great on-site infrastructure is a fabulous area to visit on a birding tour. Holding most of the island’s specialities we were fortunate, despite the weather’s best efforts, to see the majority of them in our one-and-a-two-half days there. But that’s not where the tour started as we began our group birding in a tiny, but superb, urban park in downtown Taipei – a park that yielded our first Taiwanese endemic, Taiwan Barbet, within seconds of entering and followed that with equally enchanting looks at a pair of Black-necklaced Scimitar Babblers, nesting pairs of both Malayan Night Herons and Black-naped Monarchs, lengthy studies of a perched Crested Goshawk and our first migrant of the tour in the shape of a cooperative Arctic Warbler. We’d move on from that park to another where we’d see the hoped-for Taiwan Blue Magpie, and another insanely cooperative Malayan Night Heron.
Our good fortune with the birds (less so with the inclement weather) continued throughout the entire tour, and Day 2 in Taiwan saw us add Mikado Pheasant, Yellow Tit, the first of many insanely singing Yellow-bellied Bush Warblers, our first Taiwan Bush Warbler as well as both Rufous-crowned and White-whiskered Laughingthrushes, Flamecrest, and a confiding Ashy Wood Pigeon. It wasn’t all plain sailing however – we heard, but didn’t see, the ever-elusive Taiwan Partridge (no surprise there) and heard, but didn’t see, a pair of Taiwan Fulvettas. Fortunately, we’d go on to rectify both those failings on a later date…
We’d see more Taiwan Bush Warblers and White-whiskered Laughingthrushes at Da Syue Shan the following morning as well as our first Taiwan Cupwing and the equally imaginatively named Taiwan Shortwing before bad weather forced us lower and into the hands of some stunning Rusty Laughingthrushes. That day’s other highlights included several very obliging White-backed Woodpeckers and a pair of Taiwan Barwings.
We abandoned Da Syue Shan to the low cloud and rain that had set in early the following morning. We stopped again on the lower slopes just outside the park – had great looks at a singing Oriental Cuckoo and multiple more Whistling Green Pigeons but failed to find the site’s hoped for Taiwan Hwamei or Striped Prinia – just more rain – and LOTS of it! Moving on, our next destination, via a stop where Mr Mao, our experienced driver, bought us a massive box of ice-creams, was Baxianshan. That site soon yielded its primary avian prize: four Chestnut-bellied Tits in a mixed species flock with several White-bellied Erpornis and Grey-chinned Minivets. The tit, previously a subspecies of Varied, has quite rightly been adopted as that sanctuary’s emblem – and who could criticise them for that, they’re gorgeous…Only a few of us were lucky enough to also glimpse a Taiwan Bamboo Partridge as we were leaving but everyone saw the Brown Dipper. On again, our next stop was the Dizhangyuan temple on the edge of Puli. Surrounded by lowland forest, it’s a great site for the attractive endemic species of Maroon Oriole and we were lucky enough to find two birds within a few minutes of arriving. Shortly after that we were treated to looks at an unusually cooperative Taiwan Hwamei and two more Chinese Bamboo Partridges!
The following morning, we moved still higher, driving from Cingjing up the Hehuan Shan Pass where our first Taiwan Bullfinches, a pair, waited to greet us. More White-whiskered Laughingthrushes entertained during breakfast while two summit-loving Alpine Accentors and our only Taiwan Rosefinches of the tour performed brilliantly.
Our ground agent has to be applauded for the speed he rejigged our itinerary in light of the magnitude 7.4 earthquake that hit eastern Taiwan just two weeks before our trip. Hastily rescheduling, he dropped the no-longer safe drive down through the Taroko Gorge taking us, once we’d seen most of the day’s target species, back to Cingjing and then south down the island’s busy west coast. Disappointed as we were at not being able to drive through the spectacular Taroko Gorge it was obvious to all the weather was sufficiently bad with heavy rain and low cloud that the views of much of it wouldn’t have been great.
Heading south we even found time to explore a river mouth immediately south of Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s second city. Highlights there included our first Black-faced Spoonbills, an appealing variety of shorebirds and terns and a nice party of White-shouldered Starlings. Despite what was easily the tour’s longest drive we made it smoothly south to Hengchun, arriving just before seven. And thus it continued – we kept finding the birds and moving on, finding the birds and moving on, often via another 7-ELEVEN and another ice cream…
The following morning we took the ferry across to Lanyu, or Orchid, Island – but not before we’d been treated to another vocal Savanna Nightjar right outside our hotel. The two-hour ferry ride was calm but still produced a modest number of birds: a flock of 25 Red-necked Phalaropes, six Streaked and three Sooty or Short-tailed Shearwaters, a single Bulwer’s Petrel and perhaps most surprising of all, a fly-past Common Kingfisher! The following afternoon’s boat journey back was disappointingly much quieter but Lanyu Island itself was superb!
Spending just over one full day actually on Lanyu we had plenty of time to explore the beaches, forests and shoreline of this fabulous tropical paradise and were soon enjoying views of Brown-eared Bulbuls as well as our first Whistling Green Pigeon, Lowland White-eye and Japanese Paradise Flycatcher. We even managed to stumble across a daytime hunting Elegant Scops Owl of the endemic botelensis form. Philippine Cuckoo-dove took a deal more finding but even then, we didn’t have to wait very long! The inclement weather had made it tough for birds to migrate and the island was thronged with egrets (we estimated 5000 Eastern Cattle Egrets on the morning of 27 April), Brown Shrikes, Blue Rock Thrushes and Eastern Yellow Wagtails being particularly well represented. Other oddities included three Chinese Egrets, a Siberian Sand Plover, our first Red-necked and Long-toed Stints, a pandoo Blue Rock Thrush, two Grey-streaked Flycatchers, one Red-throated and six Pechora Pipits and a single Japanese Sparrowhawk and Grey-faced Buzzard caught up in the movement of at least 400 Chinese Sparrowhawks. Rarities included a Chestnut-cheeked Starling and what we took to be a Germain’s Swiftlet…
Once back on the main island’s west coast our focus shifted to waders - but not before we’d added Styan’s Bulbul to our lists! Over the following couple of days we were blessed with repeated studies of some of East Asia’s most sought-after species of shorebird with decent numbers of Siberian Sand and even a couple of Greater Sand Plovers, several gorgeous Sharp-tailed, Terek and large numbers of Broad-billed Sandpipers, Great Knot, Grey-tailed Tattlers Long-toed and Red-necked Stints (we even managed to find three Little Stints, another Taiwanese rarity, among a party of Red-necks). Quite a haul!
After some more superb coastal shore birding the following morning we moved, via a site for Pheasant-tailed Jacana, back inland and on to the Firefly Homestay…We’d failed to connect with Taiwan Partridge at Da Syue Shan and the homestay’s famous bird blind offered our next best shot. Surprisingly, and for the first time ever on a WINGS tour, the species didn’t show during our afternoon visit but four birds did (for most but sadly not all of the group) the following morning. That gave us time to move on again and explore the higher elevation forest around Tataka, Alishan – always a superbly birdy area. We soon added Golden Parrotbill and White-browed Bush Robin and cleaned up our encounters of Collared Bush Robin, Taiwan Fulvetta and Taiwan Bullfinch.
Our last major port of call was Pillow Hill where, as one member of the group put it, we ‘had a date with a Fairy’. We lucked in – the torrential rain we’d encountered during our descent from Tataka down to Douliou had stopped and boy did the Pitta perform – sitting right up, surely a full 12 metres or more off the ground, frozen, calling occasionally and ‘in the scope’ for the best part of ten minutes. It rained hard again the following morning (we’d had bad, bad, bad weather with LOTS of rain weather almost throughout our trip) but having hastily rescheduled, we headed out a few hours later than originally planned. Bagging another Fairy Pitta as well as two more Maroon Orioles, several Collared Finchbills and umpteen Bronzed Drongos we’d had a productive morning but, all too soon, it was time to head back to Taipei.
While the endemic fauna of this fascinating island is certainly the key attraction for many visiting birders they’re far from the entire picture. Other of the island’s diverse avian delights that we revelled in included Fairy Pitta – a bird as beautiful in life as its name suggests; the uncomfortably rare, but increasing (for now at least) Black-faced Spoonbill; no less than seven, often incredibly confiding, Malayan Night Herons; a remarkable 29 species of shorebird including such east Asian delights as Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, Great Knot and Oriental Pratincole. And then there was the Ryukyu Scops Owl and the massive flocks of egrets and Eastern Yellow Wagtails on enchanting Lanyu Island, the prolonged looks at our first Yellow Bittern, the inquisitive Golden Parrotbills, nesting Oriental Pratincoles or the exceptional performances from several Island Thrushes… So many highlights – and these are just a selection of the ornithological ones.
- Paul Holt
We can assist with booking extra nights at our Taipei hotel and airport transfers upon request.
Maximum group size 10 with 2 leaders.
