Bird watching in Taiwan

My parents are visiting. They like gardening, bell-ringing and bird-watching.

I can put them with a trowel in Ta-an park, the bell-ringing’s a non-starter, what about birds?

where are good places to go to hoist binoculars near Taipei? I can think only Guandu.
And, does anyone have any contact with bird-watching groups that might have an English speaker willing to take my parents under their wing?
I was thinking of taking them over to Matsu too, so any ideas on how to hook up with knowledgable folk there or elsewhere would be greatly appreciated.

I’ve seen birdwatchers en masse at Wawa Gu and Wulai. It’s lovely there at 6am. So I would recommend taking them up to Wulai and letting them spend the night at that hotel at the top of the cable car section near that funny amusement park, and they could get up and take an early morning stroll with their binoculars.
My parents are also gardeners and flipped out at the weekend flower market on Chiengwo. They went back three times, in fact. I suspect my mom considered smuggling in some of the twisted bamboo, but she’s too much of a law abiding citizen to have actually done it!

Try the local chapter of the Wild Bird Federation.

tel. 8787-4551
www.bird.org.tw
e-mail wbft@bird.org.tw

I’ve seen the bird walk signs along one of the rivers at Wulai but never too many birds. It’s that 6 am thing, must be. I’ll draw them a good map.

thanks for the ideas.

Try Alishan - many people with big binoculars - I guess they were for some reason

Salmon,
Wawa Ku (pinyin please?) is particularly good, but your parents will need a car to get there, especially that early. It really only takes about an hour from Roosevelt road, though. Tell them to get an international license and they’ll have no problem renting a car here. It’s a pleasant drive too. And if they stay overnight in that hotel at the tip top of Wulai, they could just do it that way and take the bus there the afternoon before.

We camped at Wawaku a while back and when we awoke from our stupor at 5am due to the damn noisy birds, we saw lots of folks trodding about up the hills with binoculars.
In fact, one of our group was taking a lovely bath in the lower waterfall and found she was spied on from up the path, so it’s not always the birds they’re looking at.