Spent a morning (February 6th) trying to get a glimpse of birds while driving the wife (not a birder) and daughter (indoctrinating) around the scruffy hills of Taiping, Greater Taichung. We stayed the night before in a guesthouse just off #136.
Warm,
sunny weather. A representative, not too exciting, collection of birds
for this kind of habitat 30 minutes out of urban Taiwan. Highlights for
the wife were 6 Crested Serpent Eagles at close range, for me was what
looked like a female Siberian Stonechat crossed with a Daurian Redstart scooting around the grounds of
the guesthouse - the Stonechat is rare here and no recent reports exist.
Other birds: 6 Red Dove, 1 Barbet, 20+ Light-vented Bulbuls, 10+ Black
Bulbuls, 20+ Japanese White-eyes, 3 White Wagtails, 2 Plumbceous
Redstarts, 1 male Grey-throated Minivet, 6 Little Egret, 10+ Tree
Sparrows, 1 Peregrine Falcon, 15+ Scaly-breasted Munia, 3 Brown Shrike, 3
Black Drongo, 5+ Pacific Swallow, 5+ Plain (Grey-throated) Martin
(overlooked before), 4 Spotted-necked Dove.After this we went for a stroll through Tonglin Village in Wufong Area - good for Fairy Pitta in a couple months.
New Birds in Taiping, Taichung:
Grey-Throated (formerly in Plain) Martin Riparia chinensis
