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BIRD-WATCHING TRIP REPORTS

Taiwan Trip Report

This 39-page report is available exclusively through the Oriental Bird Club and American Birding Association, where profits generated go towards conservation. Contents include:

Itinerary:
May 22 Botanical Garden, Yangmingshan Park (Taipei), night at Anmashan (Taichung Co.)
May 23 Anmashan: Trail 220, Tienchih, Trail 210 (Taichung Co.)
May 24 Anmashan: Trail 210, Trail 220 (Taichung Co.), Kuantu (Taipei Co.)
May 25 Kuanyinshan (Taipei Co.)
May 26 Kuanyinshan (Taipei Co.)
May 28 Yehliu, Jinshan (Taipei Co.), Keelung Harbor (Keelung)
May 29 Tayuan (Taoyuan Co.), Tsengwen River Estuary, night at Guantian (Tainan Co.)
May 30 Guantian, Tsengwen River Estuary (Tainan Co.), return to Taipei
June 1 night at Fushan (Taipei Co.)
June 2 Fushan, Wawaku (“Doll Valley”), Kuangshing (Hsintien) (Taipei Co.), National Taiwan University Experimental Farm, Changhsing Street (NTU faculty dorm), Botanical Garden (Taipei), Shihmen Reservoir, night at Lalashan (Taoyuan Co.)
June 3 Lalashan, Ta-han Bridge (Paling) (Taoyuan Co.), Wuling Farm (Taichung Co.), night at Meifeng (Nantou Co.)
June 4 Reiyenshi Reserve (Meifeng/Tsuifeng), Hohuanshan, Wushe (Nantou Co.)
June 5 Peitungyenshan (Nantou Co.), night at Anmashan (Taichung Co.)
June 6 Anmashan: Trail 210, Tienchih, Trail 210 (Taichung Co.)
June 7 Anmashan: Trail 220, Tienchih (Taichung Co.), Huisun Forest (Nantou Co.)
June 8 Huisun Forest (Nantou Co.), night at Yunlin (Yunlin Co.)
June 9 Huben, Linmao (Yunlin Co.), return to Taipei
June 12 Taroko Gorge, Fuyuan, Nan-an Falls (Hualien Co.), night at Fukang Harbor (Taitung Co.)
June 13 Orchid Island (Taitung Co.)
June 14 Orchid Island (Taitung Co.)
June 15 Orchid Island (Taitung Co.)
June 16 Orchid Island, Chihpen, night at Taiping Ecological Farm (Taitung Co.)
June 17 Lijia (Taitung Co.), Inda Ecological Farm (Pingtung Co.), night at Hsitou (Nantou Co.)
June 18 Hsitou (Nantou Co.)
June 22-25 Matsu (cancelled)

    I was born and have lived in Taiwan for most of my life. Although I am currently an undergraduate biology major at Cornell University in New York, I returned to Taiwan during the summer of 2001 with Timothy Tucey, a teen birder from Colorado who lived in my residence hall (Ecology House) at Cornell. This was Tim’s first trip to Asia, so our goal was to see as many species as possible during this time frame. Whenever I had a chance, I also looked for herps, collected specimens for the Cornell University Insect Collection, and recorded animal sounds for Cornell’s Library of Natural Sounds. We did not have a set itinerary and, aside from the car rental and transportation to Orchid Island and back, made no reservations. I had a list of sites that we could possibly visit, and we just traveled from place to place at whatever pace we were ready for at the time, sometime making ambitious journeys in one day and taking it easy on others. Migration was coming to an end by the time we arrived in Taiwan, so the plan was to target the remaining migrants first and save the resident and endemic species for later. However, we also had to accommodate the visiting dates of two groups of birders from other countries whom I’ve agreed to help find the endemics. The itinerary above is the route that we ended up traveling (APPENDIX I). This report is intended to be a comprehensive account of the major birding sites in Taiwan.

APPENDIX I: Map of sites visited
Map of sites visited

APPENDIX II: Birds seen on this trip
    This chart includes all 163 species that we saw and heard* in Taiwan broken down by locality. The taxonomy is based on James F. Clements’s Birds of the World: A Checklist, 5th Edition published in 2000 by Ibis Publishing Company.

APPENDIX III: Birds not seen on this trip
    This is the list of species that are possible to find in Taiwan at this time of the year but we did not encounter. These species are possible either because they are residents1, summer residents2, have been reported during this period3, or just have a fairly high chance of appearing4. Some are common species that we missed due to bad luck (e.g. Little Forktail), some require special trips to see them (e.g. Roseate Tern), and others are rare or possibly extinct (e.g. Australasian Grass-Owl). Because Clements’s Taiwan list does not include Kinmen and Matsu Islands, birds that are possible at those places this time of the year (e.g. Collared Crow, Chinese Crested Tern) have been omitted.

APPENDIX IV: Useful sources and contacts
    These are some references that we found useful during this trip and the websites and some contacts of places that were helpful or were mentioned in the report. More information about birding in Taiwan, including additional resources and past trip reports, are on my website at http://www.oocities.org/fbmagpie/birding.htm. More photos from this summer are also online at http://albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=1439081&a=13772588.

APPENDIX V: Birds seen on a later trip
    Between July 14 and July 20, I went on more compact birding trip with Daniel Philippe and Mike Chalmers, two English birders from Hong Kong. The itinerary we followed was short but still allowed at least two opportunities for finding each endemic and a good variety of resident species (including most endemic subspecies and potential endemics). We recorded 104 species, and we saw all the endemics except the Taiwan Partridge. On July 20, we joined the Wild Bird Society of Taipei’s second tour of Matsu, where we saw an additional 15 species (including a nesting pair of Red-rumped Swallow and an albino Barn Swallow, but no Chinese Crested Tern). The following list includes all 119 species that we saw and heard* on this trip.


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