Common Sandpiper

     As near as I can figure, this little feller is called a common sandpiper.  If anyone out there can identify it as something else (don't tell me that it's a giraffe, because I'll know it isn't), please let me know.

    I saw it walking across rocks and along the grass near the park next to Shuang Shi Creek.  At low tide, I see a lot of smaller, but otherwise similar, birds tramping about the mudflats nearby.

     In case you're wondering about the green net material, it was placed there to keep the rocks from being washed away.  The rocks were placed there to keep the soil from being washed away.

     For more information on the common sandpiper, click here.

Black Bulbul

     Black bulbuls are sometimes seen in parks in the city.  I saw this one in a small park running below the MRT (mass rapid transit) line near the Zhi Shan station.  In 2009, I found a nest of black bulbuls in a tree there.

     The lighting is low, which makes it hard to get a clear photo of them.  This is the best I can do for now.  The picture to the left originally had the bulbul sideways on the tree.  I rotated it clockwise to get this perspective.
     (For an Internet article on black bulbuls, click here.)

Malayan Heron

      Until fairly recently, one I knew had been able to tell me what kind of herons these birds are.  Of three birding books I have, not one of them has any photos of them.  Two other Americans I know have seen them, and we agree that they're a species of heron.  I found them along Shuangxi Riverside Park in Shih-lin one night during the summer of 2009.

      They stand taller than black-crowned night herons.  If you get too close to them, they walk away rather than fly away.  I did see a couple of them fly, and I took a picture of one in flight.  I've never seen them during the day, which is why all of these pictures are night shots.

     On July 31, 2010, also at Shuangxi Riverside Park, I saw the following heron near the Wen-lin Road Bridge.  This time it was in broad daylight.  Unlike the other occasion, though, the bird wouldn't let me get close.

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     Now I know what  they're called.  They're Malayan herons.  Ray Heberer III, the Taiwan District Commissionor of the Boy Scouts of America, told me while we were on a Boy Scout trip.  Below are some more recent, fairly close-up photos I took while biking to Danshui.

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Black-crowned Night Heron

      As recently as a year ago, it was next to impossible to get close enough to a black-crowned night heron to get clear, unobstructed photos.  I took these two photos (below) during the summer of 2009.  That was the closest I'd ever been able to get to them.

     In July 2010, however, I found that they'd grown used to humans coming within ten meters of them.  After taking the following photos, I discarded most of the other photos I had taken of black-crowned night herons.

     (For more information on the black-crowned night heron, click here.)