The place that we most want to visit on Lanyu is Flycatcher Creek, a famous birding spot with good chances of seeing some of the more special birds on Lanyu. It took us quite some time to find the right spot, it is appearing under a different name on Google Maps, but we know we are in the right spot as soon as we get there. It is quite beautiful and it matches the descriptions from other visitors. Parking is on the main road and then you follow a small road to a motorcycle parking spot from where you descend to the eponymous creek.
Immediately we see a couple of the birds that are rare otherwise but quite common here, the Brown-eared Bulbul which are everywhere here and the Lowland White-Eye which can be slightly more difficult to see but still quite common.
After descending the stairs the trail is quite level at the bottom and we enjoy exploring and just seeing the countless butterflies just flying around, we feel like we are in a jungle. Oops we really are in an actual jungle that is sooo cool!
We continue exploring the trail while avoiding the giant spiders on the trail, we are not sure if they are dangerous or not and also do not want to find out.
There are lots of butterflies and insects and we try to take as many photos of them as we can while enjoying our walk and looking for other birds. We hear doves far up in the trees but after lot of searching none can be seen, the trees are really high and the foliage is really dense. So we decide to give up as we are a bit hot today and return the next day before our ferry back to the mainland.
Returning the next day we have a bit more cloud cover and we enjoy the walk even more. In fact we spend the rest of the second day after our hike in Flycatcher creek just enjoying the quiet and solitude, there aren’t any other people ever down to the creek.
And today we are lucky, just from the bridge before even descending to the creek we notice something through the foliage. Looking more carefully we see a beautiful Black Paradise-Flycatcher, the bird that gave the creek its colloquial name. And that is not all we also see a few Whistling Green-Pigeons today, they are quite beautiful and have some interesting sounds as they flit through the branches.
In the creek itself we do not see any birds, quite surprising. At least we see lots of lizards, lots and lots of them while trying to avoid again all the huge spiders.
And then it is time to exit the creek and take one last look at the beautiful landscape before returning towards the ferry landing to return the car.
