After relaxing at the hotel and eating at the lounge it is time to explore the city again and we plan to start with the Da’an Park. This time we take a different subway line and exit at the Da’an subway station, there is an exit right into the park.
There are lots of things you can’t do in the park but birdwatching is not one of them. Nor is squirrel watching for that manner, which is what we do right when we exit the subway station.
The trees here are full of herons and egrets and we egret-watch for a while enjoying their interactions as they fight for every inch of space in the trees.
We then find a few new birds including our first Black Bulbul and the rarer Malayan Night Heron. Which is not actually that rare in Taiwan in our experience but a fun bird to see nonetheless.
We then continue exploring seeing lots of cattle egrets and other birds just enjoying the outdoors. It seems that they are not scared at all by people, they are really used to them in the park at least.
There are also a few doves on the ground but they are outnumbered by the night herons and egrets that are everywhere.
The central lake especially has lots of waterbirds and of course also turtles. Lots and lots of them also, they can barely find a place to sun themselves as they stack three or more high on every stone in the water.
We continue exploring the park which is quite a nice one as we circle the lake and visit a restroom on the way back towards the entrance.
But not before we see another Taiwan Barbet, we can recognize their calls already, and our first Oriental Magpie-Robin surveying the area from above.
And then we finally find the exit, we try for a different one as we want to find a geocache nearby. We find it relatively easy, it is the first one in Taiwan for us, and then descend to the subway as we have to hurry to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall which is nearby but closes at 6PM.
