Yesterday I took the train out to 汐止 Xizhi, over in Taipei county, and spent a very pleasant day pottering around with the artist behind the marvellous Beastlyworlds blog, looking at rivers and lakes and streets and birds and things.
The weather cooperated nicely, with blue skies and sunshine and the occasional breeze, and the wildlife joined in, too. The usual suspects were out and about, including the Common Mynah, or Acridotheres tristis, or 家八哥, who behave pretty much as starlings do back in Europe, in that they make it clear they own the place and will tolerate guests as audience only (my drawings here are a very pale reflection of the poor, beautful, misrepresented fowls themselves – if anyone wants to buy me a superlong shiny new lens I might get better results for you).
Beautifully striped lizards with irridescent blue tails wriggled irritably away through the undergrowth, or stopped behind roots to give passerby suitably hard stares.
Various White-Capped and Black Bulbuls entertained everyone, and a bright green Müller’s Barbet disappeared into the treetops and giggled at our attempts to track it down with binoculars.
A pair of Taiwanese blue magpies bounced about in the branches, making the tree pies and more familiar black and white magpies feel a little dull. The Keelung River was studded with herons and egrets of many kinds, and even the fish were showing off, leaping fully out of the water and falling back only to leap again, up to eight times and almost clear across the channel, looking rather like a skimmed stone.
Over it all wheeled a Crested Serpent Eagle, or Spilornis cheela, or 大冠鷲, and later on the bats took over from the swallows, earning even greater respect from us grounded types as they snapped up mosquitoes and harried flying insects.
Xizhi is an odd little place; this curious abandoned house sits forlornly overlooking a busy bridge and drawing riverside cyclists to take photos and rest. A cat was rummaging hopefully through the overgrowth, but had been spotted in good time by the large gecko that ran around the wall and posed for the onlookers.
Away from the river and the woodland, alongside its residential blocks Xizhi has some great atmospheric alleys, like this one, inhabited chiefly by a golden peacock, jammed behind some plastic piping and glowing in the evening light.
Fascinating, and at 20元 each way on the local Keelung 基隆 train from Taipei main station, easily worth a potter about.
pottering about Taipei 游逛在台北里 