Meet Our Feathered Friends

In April 2023 the Taiwan Wild Bird Federation (TWBF) published an updated “Checklist of the Birds of Taiwan,” which includes 686 bird species, with 32 endemic species and 52 endemic subspecies. One of the causes of this high number of endemic birds (ones found only in Taiwan) is the geographical isolation of Taiwan since the ice ages, which led to divergent evolution of the separate populations. Our islands also provide crucial stopover sites on East Asian bird migration routes, enabling birds from different places to shelter here for various lengths of time.

A birding tour

At 5:30 a.m., English-speaking birdwatching guide Hung Kuan-chieh arrives in his car to pick up Paula and Robin at their hotel. The Canadian couple, who came to Taiwan on business, have booked a one-day birding tour with Hung. Their destination is the mountainous region of Daxueshan in Central Taiwan, where they wish to acquaint themselves with the island’s endemic birds.

Setting off along the Daxueshan Forest Road, Hung puts down his window and listens attentively to the world outside. When he hears birdsong, he pulls over safely, and we all get out to look for our feathered friends.

Hung invites us to look upwards. Some birds are tiny, but they like to perch on treetops, as if they saw themselves as lords of the world. Others prefer to hide amid thickets, shying away from contact with humans. At our first stop, we see or hear 24 different birds, including common species such as light-vented bulbuls and black-naped monarchs We also come across a flock of Swinhoe’s white-eyes. Very luckily, having just arrived in Daxueshan, we’re already greeted by an endemic bird: the Taiwan scimitar babbler.

We drive on, following the calls and songs that waft through the air. At the 11th kilometer of the forest road, we see a gray-chinned minivet; at 15 km, a chestnut-­bellied tit turns up; and we cross paths with a black-throated bushtit at 19 km. Then, at a high elevation, we come upon a pair of male and female Swinhoe’s pheasants, a white-eared sibia, and a rufous-crowned laughingthrush.

Whenever we encounter special birds, Hung regales us with stories about them. For example, Morrison’s fulvettas are called siliq by the indigenous Bunun people, who rely on them for divination. The black bulbul (Hypsipetes leucocephalus nigerrimus)—an endemic subspecies common at low to medium elevations—features in Bunun mythology as a bringer of fire.

At 47 km, we run into a flamecrest; at 50 km, there is a coal tit, as well as a Taiwan bush warbler. The latter is hiding in a thicket and is very hard to identify. Towards the end of the day, the rain grows heavy, but we’re lucky enough to spot a Taiwan vivid niltava in the fading light, which brings our birding tour to a triumphant close.

Through birdwatching, we get better acquainted with our natural environment.

Hung Kuan-chieh takes foreign visitors on birding tours across the island. For him, Taiwan is special because we can encounter many different habitats and spot many different species here within a very short span of time.

We came across this ferruginous flycatcher in Daxueshan. A migratory bird that comes to Taiwan in the summer, it likes to perch on branches with sparse foliage in forests, and on overhead power lines.

A white-bellied green pigeon spreading its wings.

Itineraries

Hung Kuan-chieh holds a master’s degree in life science from National Taiwan Normal University. He is one of the few professional tour guides in Taiwan who specialize in avian ecology, and has been offering tours in English for more than ten years. In 2015 he accompanied the high-profile American birdwatcher Noah Strycker on his birding adventures in Taiwan. Speaking of the expectations of birders from overseas, Hung says with a smile: “Of course you want to see endemic species when you go abroad!” In Taiwan, various birding tours that focus on “collecting” endemic species and subspecies are available, lasting between one and 12 days.

Hung explains that a multi-day tour will usually include a night in Taipei, where guests can visit Yangmingshan to look for birds common at low to medium elevations, such as the Taiwan blue magpie, the Taiwan whistling thrush, the Taiwan bamboo-partridge, and the Malayan night heron, the first three being endemic species. Then tourists may wish to spend several days exploring low-to-high-elevation habitats in the mountains of Central Taiwan—including Daxueshan, Hehuanshan, Yushan, and Alishan—where most of the island’s endemic birds can be found. Taiwan shortwings are easiest to spot in Alishan; Mikado pheasants, which grace the back of the NT$1,000 banknote, can be sighted at Tataka in Yushan National Park, but are rarely encountered in Daxueshan.

Hung especially recommends the 50-kilometer-long Daxueshan Forest Road, which has attracted the sobriquet “Street of Endemic Species.” “Weather permitting, we can catch sight of as many as 20 endemic bird species in Da­xue­shan within a single day. You know, Taiwan only has 32 endemic bird species!” After Daxueshan, tourists can travel south to Kenting or east to Taroko National Park to look for Styan’s bulbul, an endemic species to be seen only on Taiwan’s east coast. If there is time, the Ryukyu scops owls (Otus elegans botelensis) on Orchid Island (Lanyu) off the southeast coast are not to be missed. Winter highlights include the black-faced spoonbills, which migrate to Taiwan’s southwest coast to stay for the season. In May, Hung organizes visits to Huben Village in Yunlin’s Linnei Township, an important site for fairy pittas, which migrate there to breed during the summer months.

Allen Lyu tells us fascinating stories about the birds in the Taipei Botanical Garden.

Taiwan’s advantages

Hung recalls hearing a foreign tourist around 40 years old “complain” that he shouldn’t have come to Taiwan while he was still so young. He was actually praising Taiwan for providing an ideal environment that pampers birdwatchers.

Taiwan boasts well-established infrastructure, with public roads reaching into even the remotest areas and offering access to places more than 3,000 meters above sea level. Birders here do not need to undertake strenuous treks. For example, the Daxueshan Forest Road is a joy to travel. We can stop anywhere along the road to watch birds, without having to penetrate tangled woods or constantly guard against the onslaught of leeches. Nor need we worry about malaria, dengue fever, and ticks. These conditions make Taiwan especially welcoming for elderly people and business tourists. Moreover, Taiwan’s borders are open again following the Covid-19 pandemic, and it offers visa-free entry to travelers from more than 60 countries, so visiting could not be easier.

“Taiwan is all packed within a small space. A journey of just 50 kilometers can take us from 300 to 2,500 meters above sea level, allowing us to find different kinds of habitats and see different things within a very short span of time,” says Hung, who recommends that Western birdwatchers make Taiwan their first port of call in Asia.

Of course, the pleasure of birdwatching is largely serendipitous. Hung often says jokingly: “No refunds even if you see no birds.” During our birding tour in Da­xue­shan, we were followed by thundershowers wherever we went, but despite the poor weather, Hung’s eBird record for the day includes 54 different bird species, 15 of which are endemic.

Blessed with a wonderful variety of plants, the Taipei Botanical Garden provides a rich diversity of habitats that attract many different species of birds. (Eurasian moorhen)

White-breasted waterhen

Black-naped monarch (photo by Allen Lyu)

There is no lack of birders in Taiwan. They haunt urban parks to observe their feathered friends at close quarters.

Metropolitan birdwatching

Birders may also find metropolitan Taipei and its surroundings worth exploring. Places like Yangmingshan’s Qianshan Park, the Taipei Botanical Garden, Da’an Park, the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, National Taiwan University, and Guandu Nature Park all promise the delights of birdwatching.

At 6 a.m. we meet up with Allen Lyu, secretary-­general of the TWBF, at the Taipei Botanical Garden. Lyu observes that the vegetation in the garden is dense and complex; there are also a variety of habitats here, including ponds. These characteristics account for the garden’s rich diversity of birds.

Here too, the way to find birds is by listening. “We make a distinction between ‘bird songs’ and ‘bird calls.’ Simply put, we believe songs are used primarily to attract mates or declare territories. Calls, on the other hand, take various forms and respond to various situations; they serve to contact, warn, or threaten others, and are used to beg for food.” Upon hearing three or more vibrant “wi” sounds in a row, Lyu knows immediately that it’s a black-naped monarch. Because these tiny birds like to hide in dense woodlands, we don’t often see them, even if we’re able to hear them. If you ever spot one, you’ll marvel at its beautiful blue plumage. In the botanical garden, we often hear a series of bubbling notes in the background. Lyu tells us that they’re made by Taiwan barbets. These endemic birds favor luxuriant green places, so there are many of them in ­Yangmingshan. During their nesting season (April–­August), their songs often fill the entire mountain, accompanied in summer by chirping cicadas. “When you’ve learned to identify bird sounds, if you have the opportunity to go birdwatching abroad, you’ll realize that these sounds are distinctively Taiwanese,” Lyu says.

Amid the trees and bushes, we notice a subadult crested goshawk practicing its hunting skills. Under the trees there’s a Malayan night heron that doesn’t mind our presence. It stoops and leans forward, keeping its head down to look for food. With deadly precision, it seizes an earthworm in its beak. This heron, which many refer to affectionately as a “stupid big bird,” is one of the species on Western birders’ must-see lists when they visit Taiwan. In a pond, there are Eurasian moorhens paddling slowly. Near them, a white-breasted waterhen and its chicks are foraging amid the plants growing on the banks. On the footpath, several photographers are holding their breath, closely watching a nest of Swinhoe’s white-eyes in a nearby tree. They’re waiting to capture perfect images of the adult birds feeding their little ones.

Lyu’s fascinating explanations bring each of the bird species in the Taipei Botanical Garden alive. If you don’t have access to a personal birdwatching guide, Lyu recommends two helpful apps: eBird and Merlin Bird ID. The former not only provides a database of bird sightings that can be used alongside Merlin Bird ID to locate information on individual bird species, but also tells us which birds are frequently sighted in our local areas, as well as the seasonal variations in sightings.

Apps such as eBird and Merlin can help us locate information on individual birds. They can also tell us which birds appear frequently in our locality, and in which seasons.

The crested goshawk (Accipiter trivirgatus formosae) is one of the birds of prey that live very close to human beings.

Experiencing Taiwan

With the passing of the pandemic, national borders have reopened, and birders are once again flying around the world. In December 2022, the TWBF welcomed Zdeněk Vermouzek, director of the Czech Society for Ornithology, to Taiwan, where he attended the New Year Bird Count and went birdwatching in Tainan, Daxueshan, and Taroko with his family. His account of the tour has been published in Feather, the TWBF’s open-access quarterly journal. In addition to recounting his acquaintance with Taiwan’s endemic birds, he praises the “variety and richness” of our natural environment and the “hospitality and friendliness of virtually every one” he met.

These words from Vermouzek’s article are particularly pertinent: “Birds really connect people across continents.” The untrammeled freedom of birds catches our eyes and our imagination. Through birds, links have been forged between individuals and between countries, and birdwatching can further catalyze international exchanges. Birding is an activity that requires patience, and that brings us into the mountains and forests, where as we walk on scenic trails we can experience the beauty and grandeur of nature. It promises to open up new vistas of our islands.

Come and meet Taiwan’s birds. Put yourself in the arms of nature and immerse yourself in the beauty and grandeur of Taiwan’s forests and mountains.