Seeing how there seem to be a lot of nature lovers repsonding to “Taiwan bear”, maybe someone can point me in the right direction. I’ve been dying to go birdwatching here, but I don’t have access to a car and can really only make out-of-town trips on the weekend. People I’ve talked to say Wulai is too crowded on the weekends…are there any spots closer to Taipei, perhaps within walking distance of an MRT stop or bus stop that are any good?
The management of the Taipei Times decided long ago that birdwatching per se was no longer necessary, and so decided to reproduce pictures of Taiwan’s indigenous birds every week in the newspaper.
Thay also decided that birdwatchers had vast amounts of disposable income, and are banking the future of the newspaper on people such as yourself, who would (theoretically) buy a subscription to the Taipei Times to satisfy your ornithological urges.
I’m also a bird lover, but I live in Jiayi County, so I don’t know the best bird watching spots up in Taipei or Taoyuan. But I don’t think you’ll see many birds near any of the MRT stops (other than sparrows and doves), so you’ll definitely need your own transportation to get to the remote areas where the exotic species are.
Here’s my favorite websites about bird watching in Taiwan:
1. “Formosan Blue Magpie Homepage”
2. “The Beauty of Wild Birds in Taiwan”
3. “Do You Want to go Birding in Taiwan Today?”
The best website is definitely the first one (“Formosan Blue Magpie Homepage”). Despite the name of the website, it gives information not only about the Formosan Blue Magpie, but about dozens of other species as well. In addition, the website also tells you the best places to go, the best time to go, how to identify a bird, different kinds of binoculars, etc.
Mark
Hopefully this is considered related. Does anyone own parrots here and have any pointers about looking after them?
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Originally posted by shimmers: Hopefully this is considered related. Does anyone own parrots here and have any pointers about looking after them?
Pointers? Yeah, buy some earplugs! Those buggers are NOISY and they start as soon as it gets light. Its also hard to tell if you’re buying captive-bred or birds captured in the wild.
They’re also labor intensive, which is why most of the ones you see here are owned by retired people.
Did I mention the noise they make?
There’s quite a few wild ones in the mountains around Ankang, including a flock of sulphur-crested cockatoos that began with just a couple a few years back and now numbers around … a pretty big bunch.
Oh, and most parrots are very noisy!
Yep, I have to admit, there’s nothing like bird-watching. My favorite is the truck that sits on the corner from time to time, turning those little chickens on spits into mouthwatering delights. Round and round they go…
I also like to watch those chickens tossed into the de-feathering machine and sent on a spin-cycle from hell.
Watching the pigeons is not so fun unless one is sucked into the turbine engine of a plane landing at Sungshan Airport, and then it can get interesting.
Or those little migratory sparrows or larks or whatever it is they catch in nets and sell barbequed, four on a stick, down in Hengchun. Crunch 'em up bones and all.
Yummy!