It’s March again when bead trees bloom. After starting birding, I pay more attention to the change of seasons, with a stronger sense for the passage of time. The bead trees remind me of the coming of spring migration: an exciting time for birding, and Yehliu being one of the best birding spots at this time.
Picking up the birding anniversary story a few months ago, in this post I share about my first birding trip to Yehliu in 2021. In addition, some birding news for everyone: the 2023 Tamsui River Bird Count will take place on April 23, welcome to join us!
We are honored to welcome a new member, Weiru Chen, to our reading club! Weiru is a lover of art history and literature. It was wonderful to have Weiru in our discussion of A Thousand Moons on a Thousand Rivers last month.
We hold a monthly reading club that mainly focuses on Taiwan literature. Anyone interested is welcome to join us. The next meeting will be held online at 10:00 am (Taipei Time) on April 9 for My South Seas Sleeping Beauty by Zhang Guixing. If you are interested, feel free to leave a comment, reply to this e-mail message or write to me at transcreation@substack.com to register by April 2.
《翻譯鳥事一籮筐》是中英文雙語電子報。如果只想收到中文版,請到網站右上角的「My Account」內進行操作。有任何問題都歡迎來信聯絡,請直接回覆這封 E-mail 或寫信到 transcreation@substack.com。再次感謝你的訂閱支持!
這篇文章的中文版在這裡。
My Birding Anniversary (2): Birding in Yehliu during Spring Migration
When I first started birding, I couldn’t even tell the difference between Swinhoe’s pheasants and mikado pheasants, and I more or less valued rare birds more. Not long after I came back from Dasyueshan in April (2021), I heard that there was a rare migrant bird in Yeliu: Japanese paradise-flycatcher. I managed to spare half a day, took the bus for two hours to Yeliu, hoping to see a male Japanese paradise-flycatcher in breeding plumage, with long, elegant tail feathers. Yehliu was full of tourists on that Saturday morning. Besides Japanese paradise-flycatchers, I also looked for other birds: I had learned from the e-Bird lists that during spring migration, it was possible to see dozens of species of birds in Yehliu in a single trip.
Not long after entering the Yehliu geopark, before reaching the coast, I heard bursts of special birdsong from the bushes, like a series of notes, “ring—ring, ring, ring, ring, ring,” and sung again in a short while, “ring—ring, ring, ring, ring, ring.” I waited and waited, but in the end still caught no sight of the great singer. On the way to the coast, I saw three birds flying across the sky and immediately raised my binoculars to take a closer look — only to find that they were just common Eurasian magpies. Disappointed, I continued to go deeper into the cape of Yehliu, and on the way there was an elderly birder stopping on the trail. Attracted by some movement in the upper branches, he raised his binoculars, and I followed his example, but the bird flew away before I could see clearly. He was very kind and told me it was a tree magpie. Not a pity not to see it as it was another common bird then, I thought.
On the way into the woods, I paid close attention to the movement around, and raised the binoculars at the slightest noise or perturbation — however, I was not familiar with the binoculars, and it took me a long time to focus on the target, with the views obstructed by the dense, impenetrable woods. So what I saw was but light-vented bulbuls and black bulbuls, perching and singing on the top of the branches. Walking to the end of the cape, looking at the blue sea and the azure sky, I comforted myself that the weather was fine, that I saw blue tigers (butterflies) and crabs in addition to birds, that the trip was not for naught.
I sat in the pavilion to feel the sea breeze, rested for a while, looked back at the cliff — and suddenly noticed a bird jumping on the edge of the cliff: a most uplifting sight. After observing carefully and consulting my field guide, I finally confirmed that it was a blue rock-thrush. Just as I took out the camera and was about to take a picture, the blue rock-thrush took off and disappeared in a few seconds. Although I didn’t take a picture, I was most satisfied to be able to see the bird and to identify it.
On the way back, I saw more than 20 cameras with telephoto lens by the trail: a Japanese paradise-flycatcher just flew by here. On learning this, I also stopped to wait for the bird. Just as I saw nothing after waiting for more than 10 minutes and was about to give up, others suddenly started whispering that “a female one just appeared.” I moved quietly together with everyone else, looked up and saw the bird jumping around in the upper layer of the forest, and aimed at the target clumsily with my binoculars. Fortunately, the bird lingered long enough this time, and I finally saw the female Japanese paradise-flycatcher clearly through the binoculars, just as excited as seeing a big star with my own eyes. Some birders whispered that there was a male bird below, but it had flown away when I went down. After waiting for a while, I decided to leave for an appointment with my friends in the afternoon. Before leaving the geopark, I saw two common mynas on the grass, which anyway added one more species of birds to this trip.
I saw only a total of six species of birds during the trip to Yehliu, which was in ironic contrast to the dozens of species I intended to see before departure. Sometimes I went to a hotspot for birding expressly, but either because of the wrong time or the wrong place (maybe the actual hotspot was on the other side of the river or a few hundred meters away), ended up with seeing no birds at all, hearing them call or sing without actually seeing them, or seeing just some common birds such as little egrets and light-vented bulbuls. After getting frustrated again and again, I was gradually able to appreciate whatever I saw, feeling very grateful when seeing a new species of birds or two.
Only after birding for about half a year did I realize that what I heard in the groves of Yehliu was the song of yellow-bellied prinias, a very common bird in low-altitude grass and bushes. And only after another half a year did I see a yellow-bellied prinia hopping out of the bushes by a stream. Because it was distant from me, I mistook it for an eastern yellow wagtail at first, and wondered if a yellow wagtail would actually hop around bushes — I realized only later that it was a yellow-bellied prinia instead, and that the number of species of birds I could see and record depends on my knowledge of the habitat. Only with sufficient knowledge may I see the rich ecology; otherwise, even if countless birds are singing and flying around me, I will not be able to see them or identify them.
And even for common birds like light-vented bulbuls, with their varied singing and wave-like flight, though having seen them for countless times, I would sometimes still be surprised when, unable to identify them in naked eyes, I raised the binoculars only to find that what I thought new and strange was just another light-vented bulbul. Later, I spent a month watching birds in a neighborhood park every day, honing my basic skills, observing the movements of twigs, branches, and grass from top to bottom. I gradually became able to distinguish the movements caused by breeze from those caused by birds, became familiar with the songs and calls of different birds, and felt myself better familiar with common birds such as light-vented bulbuls, black bulbuls and spotted doves: I knew whether they liked to stay in the middle or upper forests or grasslands, and I could recognize them by their songs. From Swinhoe’s pheasants to light-vented bulbuls, I now possess a better knowledge of birds.
In birding again and again, I finally realized for myself the meaning of “biodiversity,” an old textbook concept: only in habitats with less pollution and rich resources will there be rich and diverse bird species. Birds with strong adaptability such as little egrets and light-vented bulbuls are visible almost everywhere, but those more vulnerable and sensitive to the environment show up only in well-protected habitats. Also, the more I get into birding, the more I want to contribute. I found that the records of birding may be uploaded to databases such as eBird, contributing to research and habitat surveys, as a part of citizen science — it turns out that birding is much more than an activity of accumulating lifers.