Taiwanese Belly Dancers

     During the fall of 2011, while biking to Danshui, I saw a belly dancing exhibition.  I came, I saw, I photographed and made video recordings.  Toward the end of their performance, their leader, Lucy Chen (above left), asked if anyone in the audience wanted a free belly dancing lesson, or words to that effect.  I was the only taker.  
     The ladies were very helpful and friendly.  They even had someone used my camera to take pictures of my belly dancing lesson.  At the end of the performance, we all posed for a group photo.
     Check out the video below:

     To watch it on YouTube, click here: (video)

     For further information on their troupe, you may want to check out Lucy's Belly Dance Blog, at http://lucybd.xxking.com  To read it, you can select English or Chinese.
     In part two of this series of articles, I take a belly dancing lesson.  (link)
     Part three of the series features candid photos of the dancers waiting to go on, and posed photos.  (link)

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.