Backyard Naturalist: One man’s journey from observer to obsessive

Where in the world would you be if you were on an island the shape of a bay leaf, and a little bigger than Massachusetts? Need another clue? OK – the daytime coastal temperature soars past 80 degrees and the overnight low a mere 40 miles away is 41 degrees!

If you guessed Taiwan, you’d be right.

With four times the population of our commonwealth, this island nation efficiently packs its lower and flatter lands with people, offices, agriculture and aquaculture. But the upper reaches promise lightly traveled roads, twisting high into the central mountains, where more than 200 peaks exceed an altitude of 10,000 feet. Imagine being able to drive from Boston to Mount Wachusett and find yourself on a summit soaring 8,000 feet higher.

This is just the kind of situation the Backyard Naturalist and half a dozen of his birder friends crave: the diversity that inevitably results when you have radically varied elevations, and a wide range of land-use schemes. It guarantees a plethora of species for us to discover. Mix in the world-renowned, multilingual Charley Hesse of the Naturally Adventurous podcast series as your guide, find a good native driver and you are off on a bit of a mad dash to meet as many of those birds as possible.

The sweet spot of adventure birding is endemics. Taiwan has 32 bird species that are found nowhere else on earth. We will be up before dawn every day, and out with our lights nearly every night. Sleep is an expensive luxury. Our midday rests match the natural world’s rhythm, when bird activity ebbs. Of course, it’s best to use the hotter hours digesting the obligatory multicourse luncheons on the way to the next birding hotspot.

On the first day we are off to a flying start at Shimen Reservoir Park near Taipei, logging such brilliant endemics as Taiwan partridge, the rainbow-hued Taiwan barbet, the Taiwan blue-magpie (the national bird), the Taiwan scimitar-babbler and Taiwan whistling-thrush, for starters.

This morning we rise at 5 a.m., grab breakfast at a nearby 7-11 and then climb (well, yes, we ride in our comfortable coach) through the clouds and above the treeline to the nation’s highest mountain pass. Our destination: Mount Hehuan. Within five minutes, we all have eyes on the Alpine accentor. After a minute or so of camera chatter, we dash off to find the wine-hued Taiwan rose-finch, who poses nonchalantly in a field of spent dandelions, feasting on beaksful of seeds.

With two days left, the group has located and photographed the vast majority of the endemics (and clearly heard a few more at close range). We’ve paused to appreciate various other taxa along the way, including assorted mammals, lizards, frogs, butterflies, and snakes, not to mention all the botanical wonders.

And we’ve enjoyed extraordinary encounters with most of the 136 species we’ve listed so far. Hey, no pressure, but with a day or so left, who wouldn’t trade sleep for a first look at a Taiwan hwamei or an even better look at a black-necklaced scimitar babbler?