Dasyueshan (5) - Taiwan Nutcrackers

Our choice of lunch venue was the all-but-deserted car park, pretty much at the peak of the range (at 2,800m), and well within the oscillating cloud bank. Unexpectedly we were soon attended by two pairs of these beauties - Nucifraga caryocatactes owstoni, the endemic subspecies of Eurasian / Spotted Nutcracker.



Having only seen this particularly beautiful species at some distance in Scandinavia, it was an unexpected bonus to have them loitering patiently at the mere rustle of a wrapper...

Dasyueshan (4) - Swinhoe's Pheasants

adult male (with mammalian sidekick)


So this is why we got up at 4 a.m.... about a halfway up the mountains, there's a certain place by the side of the road that, if you're lucky, is frequented by Swinhoe's Pheasants - at least, when the mood takes them.



We arrived just as the sky hinted strongly at sunrise, and took up our positions by the roadside. Aware of the odds, it's fair to say we were somewhat taken aback just ten minutes later, when a stunning adult male waltzed casually into view....



.... satisfied with excellent views in the half-light and having watched him wander off, we were even more taken aback when a loud rustle behind us turned out to be a convoy of four Swinhoe's - the adult male, two females and a young male - which passed within touching distance of our quivering fingers, and put on a show to remember.



That we had no such luck with the equally sought-after, equally endemic Mikado, no matter; that we were so spoiled with Swinhoe's will live long in the memory - and that any shots came out in the dark forest dawn is a miracle.

Dasyueshan, Taiwan - Sep 2011 (part 3)

From dawn to dusk over the course of two days, we made the most of our time in the mountains, with productive stops along the winding road both scheduled and unscheduled in nature; the latter mostly a result of crawling along with the windows down, listening for calls, and piling out of the motor when appropriate.


The view from the visitor's centre observation tower - the building in the photo is the (distinctly Bond-villainesque) main lodge, our overnight accommodation


Scheduled stops, meanwhile, included the aforementioned stake-out at the beginning of day one, sessions in Bruce's filming hides along restricted tracks and deep into the forest, lunch at 2,800 metres with certain forthcoming species for close company (see following posts), and dinner, overnight & breakfast at the lodge, itself close to the highest peaks and nestling deep within the foliage.



enjoying the view



Planning day two after dinner in the restaurant

Sympathetically built into the surrounding environment and providing comfortable, basic accommodation, the lodge is located by the visitors centre - itself the very model of sympathetic design and aesthetics, excellent wildlife galleries & displays and hands-on interpretation, and a viewing tower to take the breath away instantly.


In one of innumerable instances of Taiwanese goodwill during our fortnight on the island, once the staff at the centre found out it was our honeymoon, we were instantly showered with free gifts from the shop....


It was at this spot where I discovered you could directly converse with Rusty Laughingthrushes, instantly making them one of the birds of the day

Various mammals (including Formosan Muntjac and flying squirrels), the most dramatic array of butterflies we've ever seen, dragonflies, fungi, insects and plantlife from another planet, consistently beautiful views, and great company conspired to make it (while often unsuitable for photos in the shade of the forest) even more special than we'd imagined.


Lunch at 2,800m or over 9000ft (saving a little to hand-feed the Nutcrackers and Laughingthrushes)


Back to a running theme of recent posts: all this, for precisely nothing (unless one includes our acquiescing to a brief interview for the upcoming Pheasant documentary). Such was the Bruce's generosity, we were dropped off back at our hotel in Taichung late the following evening having effectively been chauffeured and guided around one of Taiwan's most biodiverse and unique environments, by one of the country's best-known naturalists, without even being permitted to dip our hands into our pockets.



The site of one of several landslides while we were gallivanting up and down the road



Of the birds, well, safe to say it was one of the most productive, exciting and satisfying parts of the trip (if not, the most); the multi-species flocks included a bounty of lifers, endemics and some surprises, and the more solitary residents played nicely for us, leaving my notebook worn through with asterisks and capitalisation....









And a few of the many moths at the window of our lodge in the morning - time dictated I could only snap a few before moving on....














(More from Dasyueshan to follow)