Mission Accomplished!

A large bee on one of Taiwan's endemic flowers (Academia Sinica campus)

A night heron showing off his balance

Yesterday I went out to record at 3:30am, the earliest so far, and was rewarded with a change of fortune. I got good recordings for 3 known individuals and 2 unknowns--bringing the total to 8 known and 10+ total. These are the numbers I was looking for, but they really bely the effort that went into collecting them! Those 100+ songs amount to about 350 seconds, or just under 6 minutes! These 6 minutes required around 13 hours over 5 days of some of the most difficult and highly frustrating recording of my life. I had hoped for recordings from 10 known birds, but the remaining birds are either in the nestling phase of breeding (not singing), or "hate me" and only alarm call when I'm around--so I feel proud and lucky of the samples I've got!


That is to say, my field work here is done and I've now transferred to a (much cheaper) hostel in the center of the city in order to see some sights before I fly back to Colorado. Yesterday, I traveled to the Danshui District in the far northern part of the city, along the coast. I walked around for hours in an extremely uncomfortable heat and humidity reminiscent of Alabama, perusing shops along the riverfront, poking my head into a temple, and visiting the San Domingo Fort overlooking the harbor. It was a really nice change of pace, and I'm enjoying the thought of not recording at 3am for a while! Today I'm planning to go to what was the world's tallest building from 2004 to 2010. More on that later.

Cheers,
Matt

ps--I added 47 new photos