Hi All
Just back from a fantastic 2 week trip to Taiwan with 3 other birders.
The major target was Chinese Crested Tern and we had a brilliant trip
to the Matsu Islands where we managed to find no less than 20 of these
magnificant birds. Our elation was tempered however by the discovery
of one adult bird which had pierced a plastic canister with it's lower
mandible. This bird will almost certainly no longer be able to feed.
This whole story made the front page of the China Times the next day.
As for the rest of the trip as far as I know this was the first ever
trip to see both Fairy Pitta and Chinese Crested Tern in the same trip.
On top of that we saw ALL of the endemics and potential splits that
will surely one day soon become accepted full endemics. We saw males
of both Swinhoe's and Mikado Pheasants, Taiwan Partridge, Malayan
Night Heron, Black and Mountain Hawk-Eagle, 4 Owls (Mountain & Ryuku
Scops, Himalyan Tawny & Northern Brown Hawk), Taiwan Barbet, Maroon
Oriole, Black Paradise-Flycatcher, the awesome Taiwan Blue Magpie,
Spotted Nutcracker, Varied, Green-backed, Yellow and Red-headed Tits,
Collared Finchbill, the recently discovered Taiwan Bush Warbler, Black-
necklaced and Taiwan Scimitar Babblers, Taiwan Hwamei, Taiwan, Rusty
and White-throated Laughingthrushes, Taiwan Barwing and Steere's
Liocichla, 3 Fulevttas, Taiwan Yuhina, Vinous-throated and Golden
Parrotbills, Taiwan Island and Whistling Thrushes, 6 sp of Robin,
Taiwan Niltava, Vinaceous Rosefinch and Grey-headed and Brown
Bullfinches.
It was awesome and the only things we missed we could have got were
the rare and hard to see Slaty-legged Crake, Himalayan Brown Wood-Owl
(heard) and Tawny Fish-Owl. We did this inspite of having to sit out a
Typhoon for 2 days before going for the Terns and losing 2 other half
days to rain.
A really excellent place and V rewarding but takes a lot of organising.
Phil.
===============================
www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
To unsubscribe from this mailing list,
send the message:
unsubscribe
(in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to:
===============================
|
