BWT Travel Guide

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The coast at the
southern end of
Taiwan, showing
the beautiful
forested hills
Grey-chinned
Minivet
this spectacular hawk were displaying.
With our eyes now partly in, we hit the
northern tip of the island, at Yehliu Geo
Park. The car park was jammed with
coaches, and the paths densely crowded
with parasol-wielding, shuffling masses.
But, after a couple of hundred yards, the
crowds vanished and our group ploughed
on to the Magic Toilet, a shaded loo block
renowned as a migrant stopover, where
we added Japanese Paradise Flycatcher
and Arctic Warbler to our trip lists.
In the early evening, we paid our
respects to a pair of local celebrities. At
the Chingsui Wetland at Jinshan a young
Siberian Crane had arrived in 2014. By
autumn 2015 it had developed a healthy
symbiosis with a local farmer, who dug
in the paddyfields while the Crane stood
beside him, looking for morsels.
Also there were great flocks of mixed
herons and egrets, Black Drongos,
Spot-billed Duck and best of all,
a beautiful female Painted Snipe.
For the next few days we would
venture south. Despite having
a population of
24 million people,
most of Taiwan,
away from the
western plain, is
covered in lovely,
forested hills and
mountains. It
didn’t take too long
driving through the
hills to encounter
Alpine Accentor
(endemic
subspecies)
A classic Taiwan
endemic, the
Swinhoe’s
Pheasant
(this is a male)
our first flock of the one bird I wanted to
see above all others, Taiwan Blue
Magpie; a spectacular, blue, black and
white, red-billed, long-tailed beauty of an
endemic bird! Taiwan Scimitar Babbler
(like a big grumpy, white-throated Wren)
was very pleasing, too, rather rescuing
a rainy second day, largely on the road.
On our third morning we made
a tactical decision to check out the car
park area, first thing, at nearby Taroko
National Park. It is
curious how often
car parks are the
best places! This
one yielded some of
the best birds of the
trip, with the small
trees dripping with
endemics, flocks of
them: Taiwan
Yuhina, like a
Crested Tit, but
unrelated, and
calls like a
Goldfinch; Yellow
Tit, a big, feisty tough guy tit with an
open yellow face and long crest; and
Varied Tit, of the potential split Taiwan
subspecies/species. Then there was the
gorgeous Grey-chinned Minivet (like
a colourful, arboreal, red wagtail).
That morning we rose through the
spectacular Taroko gorge, heading up
into the mountains. We stopped off for
a coffee by a Sacred Tree (don’t ask me
why it was sacred), where we were given
honey on a cocktail stick (don’t ask me
why). And, as luck would have it, a group
of endemic laughingthrush-like bird, the
Steere’s Liocichlas (don’t ask me how to
pronounce it), were in the bushes nearby.
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