I am looking for the books about Birds of Taiwan in English.Any suggestion.Thanks
Iāve never found one, but I have a very good field guide in Chinese, which has the English names, Linnaean taxonomy and distribution maps. Not sure where you can get a copy but itās proved very useful to me over the years.
So, I was sitting in a conference room at work an hour ago, way up high over the city, and I looked out the window and there was this beautiful hawk, sitting on the ledge just 15 feet away. I got out my iPhone and took a few photos. Maybe Iāll post one later. But he just sat there for at least 15 minutes, stretching this wing, then that, walking a few steps this way, then craning his neck around and watching me. He watched me for a long time and didnāt appear to be at all frightened (even when irishstu entered the room!). He was a beauty, maybe 18 inches tall, grey with black stripes, black wing tips, a white/gray striped breast, a light-colored chin, and big beautiful yellow feet. Any idea what bird he might be?
Anything like this critter? Bigger I guess.
Have a look around this excellent website http://www.birdingintaiwan.org/birdsintwn.htm
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I canāt find my bird guide or Iād have a go. I saw a few trees full of those little yellow finches today. Cute little guys. Opposite side of the spectrum I guess
A Snake Eagle?
It sounds similar to the one we saw on the telephone pole while riding up the back road from Jinshan to FKK.
Possibly, that is similar, but thatās a lot lighter than what I saw, though I was looking from behind, not from the front. Presumably that guy would look darker from behind. Still, I suspect that may not be him.
Excellent? Yes and no. It would be nice if one could browse through and they grouped similar birds (hawks, eagles, kestrels) together for comparison. Also, it would be nice if one could select properties on a photo there in order to post it on a site such as this for discussion.
The closest I saw there was a kestrel, which are apparently common here in the winter, but that definitely appeared to be too light in color also.
Wookie, yes, the one on the telephone pole may have been the same.
According to my coworker the biologist and the guide book:
Common Kestrel
He says it tastes good in soup. 
A kestrel? Rubbish! Kestrels are basically chestnut-coloured with a pronounced black stripe over their eyes.
MT, what you saw was most probably an immature goshawk. Like this?
As opposed to a kestrel
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Crappy cellphone pic, Iām afraid. Not to mention it being in the shade and with a very bright background.
It looked very nice in real life.
Right. Itās a falcon, not a hawk, so scrap the immature goshawk. Iām looking at a peregrine ā well-suited to urban living ā pity you didnāt see it hunting. A stoop of 200mph on a flying pigeon. They bunch their talons into fists and hit it, rather than grabbing.
Iāve gone after grouse with peregrine before. The grouse usually would get split into pieces on impact. Pretty spectacular.
Iāve seen that (peregrine vs pigeon) in Sydney, from my 14th floor lab at UTS. Spectacular! unless youāre the pigeon, of course. A pair nested for years in the radio tower on the opposite building (12 floors high)
Definitely. Peregrine Falcon. Spitting image of what we saw.
Hereās the view we saw.
I could tell it had beautiful stripes on its chest. Too bad we couldnāt get a head on view though.
Those things really ARE arguably the lords of the air. There is really nothing quite like a peregrine.
Whatās THE most advanced fighter jet in the world? Thatās the peregrine.
In the days of heraldry in Britland, I think it was only royalty that were allowed to carry peregrines.
Hereās a PBS vid of what these things can do.
http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=15297
My biologist coworker says that as long as he hasnāt performed a through autopsy and dissection of the bird, he cannot be certain of what it is. 
He says he doubts it was a peregrine falcon.
[quote=āIconā]My biologist coworker says that as long as he hasnāt performed a through autopsy and dissection of the bird, he cannot be certain of what it is.
He says he doubts it was a peregrine falcon.[/quote]
He canāt tell a peregrine from a kestrel? And he calls himself a biologist! :roflmao: Yeah! Letās kill it and cut it open! THEN weāll know! 
I used to do a fair bit of falconing and have actually handled these birds, as well as MANY other raptor species. Iāve also watched them in the wild here in Taiwan for over two decades. I can tell you without any shadow of a doubt that the bird Irishstu photographed is a peregrine.
Why does he doubt it? Theyāre not that uncommonly seen in Taiwan and they commonly live around high buildings in urban areas.
Plus, I used to be a member of the Young Ornithologist Society of Great Britain! So THERE! With a wee enamel badge and EVERYTHING!
And I doubt heās a real biologist, but perhaps a thorough autoposy and dissection might reveal the truth.
users.cybercity.dk/~ccc12787/rap ā¦ rinus.html
[quote]Species Listed on the Taiwan Red Data Watch List
Malayan Night Heron Gorsachius melanolophus (Raffles 1822) Resident.
[color=#FF0000]Peregrine Falcon Falco Peregrinus [/color](Tunstall 1771) Rare Visitor.[/quote]
centraltaiwanbirder.blogspot.com/
Hereās some pics and videos of peregrines flying around in Kaohsiung and tearing apart pigeons. :lick:
and as usual for taiwan, a site that only works in Internet Explorer.
MORONS.
Iāve had a bit of a sniff around for similar books and have managed to acquire these two:
A Guide to the Threatened Birds of Taiwan, Woei-horng Fang; advisor Nigel J. Collar, Richard Grimmett, Taiwan: Owl Publishing House, 2005.
This appears to have good info, but only for IUCN threatened birds. Owl Publishing have a website in Chinese: http://www.owls.tw/
I also have:
Birdwatcherās Guide To The Taipei Region, Taipei City Government, 2004
Which is more of a āwhere to goā book than anything else. In Page 1 I saw:
The complete guide to birds in Taiwan, Jin-yuan Wang, Government Information Office, 2000
But it IS NOT EVEN REMOTELY CLOSE TO BEING COMPLETE. :bluemad: So I didnāt buy it, on principle.