Drongo

      Over the years, I've seen many, many drongos; but, until fairly recently, they've been hard to capture on camera.  All of the ones on this page were posing for me on the same day.  While bicycling between Shih-lin and Danshui, I took a path less traveled and got close to a blue drongo near a rice field.  On the way back, I photographed a black drongo (directly below) standing watch over a rice field.

     I had to check the Internet to make sure of whether both of these birds were blue or black drongos.  After all, they both have a bluish tint to them.  Blue drongos, though, are a more vivid shade of blue than the one you see above.  At the time I photographed them, I couldn't tell the difference.  In the pictures, however, I can see it.

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     The one you see perched by the building (the nearby rice field is off camera) is a blue drongo.

     I was fortunate that day.  It was the first time I'd photographed either species of birds, and I photographed both in the same day.

Eleven Mile Hike along Seven Star Mountain

     In early 2011, the Boy Scouts hiked in the vicinity of Seven Star Mountain in Yang Ming Shan National Park in northern Taiwan.  The regular Boy Scout troop (Troop 91) hiked five miles,.  The Venture Crew (Pi) hiked eleven miles.
     The battery on my camera wouldn't cooperate, so I didn't take as many photos as I would have liked.  Here are the ones I took of the occasion.

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Here's a four-second video from that portion of the hike.

In the photo on the right, showing the boy wearing the yellow backpack cover, we're passing through the gate separating Buffalo Meadows from the area used by domesticated cattle.

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Below is a four-second video of some cattle grazing.

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Here are some stills of the same scene.  In the first two photos, a woman is approaching the cows to get acquainted with them

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     This is where our passage through Buffalo Meadows gradually come to an end.  In the background you can see the base of a mountain that Clark and Tina wanted to climb.  We ended up going around it.
     The video below shows a panoramic view from our next rest stop.

      Here are the Venture Crew hikers at the suspension footbridge.  (Yes, Tina is a Boy Scout.)  At right, in front are Tina Gunnerson, John Chen, and John Lin.  In the back, from left to right, are Jonathan Weis, Daniel, and Clark Chen.
     Below is a view from the footbridge.

     Looking back at the suspension footbridge after we had crossed it.

 

    Along the next leg of our journey, we encountered some folks soaking their feet in a hot sulfur spring.  Instead of joining them, we pressed onward and upward. 
     
     In the picture below, the footbridge can be seen in the distance.

      Once we reached the top of the next hill, we walked along a roadway.  In the distance, we could see Seven Star Mountain, pictured below.

     Below us (pictured at left and right) we could see fumaroles.  This is a stark reminder that Yang Ming Shan is still an active volcano.  Also in the distance, and more to forward, we could dimly make out some of the features of Taipei City,

     We had anticipated finishing the hike around 3:00 PM.  In the photo below, we were still an hour away from finishing the hike.  

      Even after we'd reached the end of the trail, the two Johns, Tina, and I hiked to the nearest bus stop, another mile down the road, and caught a bus back to Taipei.  Then we rode the MRT to our respective destinations.

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Taipei International Flora Expo

From late fall of 2010 until late spring of 2011, the city of Taipei is hosting the International Flora Expo.  Since we already paid for it with our tax dollars, we didn't feel like paying for it again with the NT$200 (around US$6) admission fees.  We decided to enjoy what we could see without the extra charges, including what we can see over the gate.

     Here's some of what we saw:

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     The photos in this part are from a sneak preview of the Flora Exhibition when it first opened for a trial run.  It wasn't intended for the general public (the average taxpayers), but the taxpayers didn't know that and went in anyway.  

     I'm sure you noticed that I like seashells.  I have a collection of over 200 different ones, mainly from Taiwan. 

     The ones below are arrangements of flora submitted by people from various places in Taiwan.  At the time I took these pictures, submissions from other countries had not yet arrived.

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