Tainan Young Birder Blog

    The Mountain Hawk-Eagle is one of the biggest raptors native to Taiwan, and is also one of the rarest and hardest to observe. It's wingspan is a bit small for such a big eagle, which is one of the easiest ways to identify it. A big body with wide wings. The Mountain Hawk-Eagle is not easy to see because it lives only in places with almost no human disruption. It also only comes out to hunt a couple of times a day, so you might not be able to see it even if you are in a suitable habitat. The Mountain Hawk-Eagle is considered very sacred by some indigenous tribes in Taiwan, and the tail feathers of the eagle are used to decorate the headdresses of local tribal leaders. I also consider the Mountain Hawk-Eagle as sacred because I have only met it a couple of times, and it is the bird that started my birding journey. Of the four times I have seen it, three times I saw it in Ali, the place where I first started birding. It is still one of my favorite places to do mountain birdin...

An Oriental Pratincole, a summer migrant that breeds in Shalun Shalun is an awesome birding spot that’s quite near the edge of Tainan city and right by the High-Speed Rail Station. You can easily see easily see the otherwise rare Ring-necked Pheasant and the locally common Barred Buttonquail. The area was formerly all sugar cane fields owned by the Taiwan Sugar Corporation. Over time, they sold off most of the land for development, and now there are many fancy high-rise apartment buildings, an outlet mall, and lots of new developments and parking structures … and not a sugarcane field in sight. A Lesser Coucal Shalun is one of the last remaining grasslands in the Tainan area. It has a very diverse habitat, with grassland, farmland, a small creek, a bamboo forest, and a broadleaf forest. Thus, there are lots of different birds to be found, including skylarks, pipits, shrikes, starlings, Black-winged Kites, Oriental Pratincoles in the summer, and of course, the famous Ring-necked Pheas...