Taiwan 2009 12/11/2009
Jump, jump!
Half a dozen of us were on a night walk watching the brilliant glowing eyes and torch-lit form of a Red and White Giant Flying Squirrel peering back at us from the highest branch of a massive dead cypress reaching into the starlit sky on the ridge above us. I assured all that they never jump when illuminated by powerful flashlights. Animals always like to prove tour leaders wrong so it launched itself into the night sky and the beam picked it out perfectly as it glided down towards us before banking smoothly to the left and disappearing out of sight behind some epiphyte-clad oaks, still going after eighty metres. There were some sharp intakes of breath and then whoops of delight. It had been an impressive show by one of the world’s largest squirrels, its gliding area measuring nearly a square metre, and what a striking red and white pelage too!
This was our first tour to Taiwan and a conspicuous success it was too, notwithstanding enforced changes to the itinerary resulting from the devastation wrought by typhoons earlier in the summer and an unseasonably late one that meant that we had to cancel our visit to Lanyu Island. This typhoon never landed on Taiwan and sucked all the moisture out of the island’s beautiful mountain air giving us amazing sunny days almost through the tour – that too is unusual! Instead of Lanyu we went to Taiwan’s tropical south and Kenting National Park. Butterflies were everywhere including those magnificent birdwings and the gorgeous tree nymph Idea leuconome. Swallowtails are prominent everywhere on the island especially the many black, white and red species that are often gilded with iridescent green or blue scales, fresh, these are improbably beautiful insects. We saw twenty-eight species of these fabulous butterflies – and around two hundred out of the island’s 440 species in all. For one of the most densely populated countries in the world, Taiwan has a surprisingly large area of wilderness, the vibrant green mountains of the eastern half of the island are virtually unpopulated and still largely pristine and are crossed by only a few, albeit very good, roads. There are very good hotels, many of them centred on hot springs, and yet virtually no foreign tourists, which is amazing given the great infrastructure, huge tracts of wilderness, and a natural heritage that is both stunningly beautiful and rich in flora and fauna.
Richard, our man in Taiwan, had bought along an impressive library of wildlife books which occupied a whole double seat of Mr Jho’s very comfortable bus. Half of these books were on the insect life and in particular bugs and beetles. Flicking through them showed an array of stunningly coloured and shaped insects – Richard told us that keeping beetles as pets is very popular on the island and they rank close to dogs in popularity. It wasn’t long before we started finding them in the wild. Huge blue, white and black longhorn beetles, a bug with a yellow black-spotted head and turquoise-green wing cases tipped with azure. There were many stag and rhinoceros beetles with some very large ones. How about the shimmering green black-spotted ladybird-like Lamprocornis lateralis, its underbody luminous red and purple? Or the bright golden ladybird? There were stick insects and water scorpions and moths. One moth confused us entirely as it seemed to be a swallowtail butterfly but with wings half the size – it was mimicking one of the windmill swallowtails! At night Richard bought out his moth lamp and draped a sheet over walls by the hotel. At Aowanda this bought in swarms of moths and beetles, we all got covered in whirring buzzing things as we examined the beauties on the show. There were literally hundreds of different moths, many of them large and beautiful, others tiny and even more beautiful! There were some incredible wings shapes too. The hotels often had flowerbeds planted to attract butterflies and it was difficult at times to move far from these, so many butterflies came to them. There were Chocolate and Swinhoe’s Tigers, Great Mormons, the females as big as birdwings, endemic Papilio taiwanus and shimmering Papilio hopponis. Sailors and Sergeants populated forest trails where the golden-backed Heliophorus ila was often common. Looking down from a bridge over a forested stream someone spotted the Orange Oakleaf. This is an amazing leaf mimic and sits in the leaf litter, invisible and drab. Here it sat with its wings open in the sun, its brilliant orange and blue scales shining as damselflies with deep-purple bands on the ends of their wings flitted past. The red-winged dragonfly Neurothemis ramburei was common and we also saw relatives with green wing bases – Rhyothemis regia - and some with brilliant blue wing bases – Rhyothemis triangularis. The turquoise eyed ‘goldring’ Anotogastor sieboldii gave the photographers plenty of material. Other Odonata highlights were the demoiselles Psolodesmus mandarinus and shimmering Matrona basilaris, the yellow damsel Ceriagrion fallax, purple-pink Trithemis aurora and bright pink and blue Orthetrum pruinosum.
Back to the far south and a moment’s excitement as a Chinese Black Cobra smoothly accelerated across the path in front of two of us. Later some found the luminous green Bamboo Pit-Viper coiled up, passive, dangerous, but easy to photograph. Later more of these beauties were found at night, and an impressively large Turtle-designed Pit-Viper. The dry conditions meant we didn’t find the beautiful green and white tree frogs but at least a dozen other species of frog did include beautiful Latouche’s Frog and the enigmatic Stejneger’s Narrow-mouthed Toad!
Should we mention the birds? On our first full day in the field we pulled into the Basianshan car park and found those magnificent Formosan Blue Magpies flying around with their less gaudy cousins, the Grey Tree-pies. Up on Mount Hehuan’s ten thousand foot road pass one bird party contained no less than six island endemics. Many of these endemics we saw often, indeed the Styan’s Bulbul, for which some concern has been voiced over its future, was locally abundant. We did struggle with the game birds, with only myself seeing (glimpsing) the Taiwan Hill-Partridge and only two members of the group seeing the glorious Swinhoe’s Pheasant. The tameness of the high mountain birds was quite amazing and allowed for good bird photography especially of species like Vinaceous Rosefinch, Brown Bullfinch, White-whiskered Laughingthrush, Johnston’s Bushchat and Alpine Accentor. The sight of one of the group photographing an Alpine Accentor as another hopped over her foot was one to remember!
And the mammals? Well we saw only two of the island’s three endemic species of flying squirrel but didn’t we see them well. Both were seen flying too, on more than one occasion and on two nights we recorded double figures of flying squirrels, and those who stayed out had cracking views of them. Indeed both Mountain and Collared Scops Owls were also seen at such close range that good photos were possible. Other mammals were scarce but the undoubted highlight was a Formosan Serow spotted on a near vertical slope sitting chewing the cud as our breakfast approached!
Owen reports that we identified over 800 species of plant on the tour, including some that are now widespread throughout the (sub-)tropics but many others that are endemic to the island (over 25% of the flora of 4500 species). Amongst the real botanical highlights were the extremes – the southern tropical tip, the 3000m mountains of the centre, the precipitous gorges and the fern-full forests of misty Mingchih.
Wherever the climate was more temperate (further north and at higher altitudes), the vegetation was in autumn and relatively few species were in flower, but there were gems to be found. Dwarf Yushania bamboo covered the highest slopes, looking like ordinary grassland from a distance but clearly showing its relationship to tree-bamboos when viewed closely. Japanese Knotweed was both native and quite distinguished in appearance on montane screes, with a carnation (Dianthus pygmaeus). Coniferous forests (cypress, hemlock and spruce) give way below to mixed forests with climbing gentians (Tripterospermum lanceolatum).
The cloud forests of Mingchih had a dazzling array of ferns but also delicate herbs on the mossy slopes like a willow-herb (Epilobium nankotaizanense) with huge pink flowers on a very short stem and a mysterious wintergreen-like herb Shortea (a member of a very small family of arctic and alpine herbs). Most of the orchids we observed in the forests were epiphytes (usually non-flowering at this season except Bulbophyllum melanoglossum and Liparis cespitosa), but the humid climate of Mingchih produced flowering terrestrial Calanthe species, such as the bright yellow Calanthe speciosa and the slim pink Calanthe puberula.
Lower still and in drier forests were the dramatic endemic conifers Taiwania and Cunninghamia, mixed in with Chamaecyparis species, clearly related to the dreaded “leylandii” but altogether more stately and grand. A fantastic variety of laurels, figs, oaks and nettle-relatives made up the deciduous forest but the “queens of the forest” were Gordonia, a relative of tea with fine white flowers, and the majestic Liquidambar.
The high mountains were dissected by magnificent gorges, none more so than the Taroko gorge. Here the sheer faces had orange-yellow crowns of Lycoris aurea (a relative of the daffodils) and the rather distinguished Titanotrichum oldhamii, a member of the Gesneriaceae whose yellow foxglove-like flowers had spots and blotches of red in their throats. For those committed to the strange, rather than the beautiful, the gorge held a few tufts of Psilotum nudum, the closest living relative of the first vascular plants and little changed from fossils dated 400 million years ago.
A most peculiar vegetation was that of the jagged coralline rocks and shores near the tropical town of Kenting. Here cliffs supported endemic Kalanchoë garambiensis and yellow sea-lavenders, whilst lower raised beaches had a short scrub variously dominated by Pandanus, the silvery clumps of Messerschmidia, scrambling Pemphis dotted in tiny white blooms, aromatic Vitex rotudifolia and the weird Scaevola sericea, with fan-like flowers (one of a group mainly found in Australia).
Maybe the most diverse group we saw were the ferns and we probably saw some 100 species in all during the trip – of the five volumes of the Flora of Taiwan, one has over 90% devoted to ferns. Mingchih was possibly the richest site (or at least the place where Pteridophyta accounted for the greatest proportion of the flora) but everywhere we went there was a remarkable display of both the delicate (e.g. filmy ferns) and the grand (tree-ferns). Amongst the prettiest were the Woodwardia species, such as Woodwardia unigemmata, whose fronds were bronzy at first before turning green. Wherever one went in Taiwan, the theme was diversity.
It was a great pleasure to travel round the island with Richard, ex of Fermanagh but now a long-time resident of Taiwan bringing up his children in the southern city of Tainan. Richard regaled us with tales of life on the island and elucidated many a cultural mystery to us. He was also invaluable in negotiating our way through culinary Taiwan, for though the food is almost universally tasty and good, we’d often have to ask Richard what it was! An abiding memory of this trip will be the smiling populace and their interest in what we were doing, as well as the unbelievably beautiful mountains that rise above Taiwan’s busy lowlands.
For details of our next tour to Taiwan, in October 2010, see the tour details on the Greentours website www.greentours.co.uk. We also plan to run a more botanically focused tour there in late April 2011 when Cypripediums, Trilliums, Primulas and Rhododendrons, and of course, ferns, will be on the agenda!
