It seems to be a sport's month this month though I really don't concern much about sport events but I noticed that much baseball and basketball games had started recently. Hope I'm right! When it comes to sport, I guess the most related to me may be NBA. Because many of my junior high school classmates watched NBA games and they often talked about them. So I also watched some of them. And what's more is I even tried playing NBA 2K, a famous video game series of NBA.
What I'm more interested in is that you mentioned the Tempe Marsh and the greenbelt. Here in New Taipei City we also have greenbelts, but they might be smaller than those in Scottsdale because our rivers are more narrow. But those riverside parks, as we called, also have bike paths, parks, some basketball courts and a bunch of trees. I sometimes ride bikes on those bike paths because it felt comfortable and it's quiet on every paths. But what they're lack of is somewhere to buy drinks. I had to buy very much water inside the bank and then go to the riverside if I was riding bike with my friends.
I used to research birds because there are many special species of birds in Taiwan, and there are also many kinds of birds near my home. Because there is a very small river in front of my house, so there are some little egrets flying around, and sometimes there are intermediate egrets and great egrets. In the spring, barn swallows come to the nests they had already built to take care of their children and leave in late summer. There are also some night herons now who make scary sounds that used to make me unable to sleep well. Furthermore, there are also many pigeons, Chinese bulbuls (Pycnonotus sinensis) and even Taiwan barbets (Megalaima nuchalis) who are a little bit rare in Taiwan. They make different sounds and it makes me feel excited. Some of the birds mentioned above can't be seen out of Asia, even Taiwan, or is only seen in mountains, like Taiwan Blue magpies (Urocissa caerulea), Swinhoe's Pheasants (Lophura swinholi), Mikado Pheasants (Syrmaticus mikado) (Also, Mikado means Emperor in Japanese so Mikado Pheasant is called as Emperor Pheasant in Chinese), Taiwan Whistling Thrushes (Myiophoneus insularis), Taiwan Yuhinas (Yuhina brunneiceps)...etc. Those birds are incredibly beautiful and I hope to see them some day. By the way, I remembered these names of birds species since I was in first or second grade of elementary school because I was researching them. The following are some pictures taken from Wikipedia.
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| Chinese Bulbul |
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Taiwan Barbets Swinhoe's Pheasant (Male) Mikado Pheasant (Male) Taiwan Whistling Thrush Taiwan Magpie
Taiwan Yuhina
See? They got "Taiwan" before their species name.
We'll have no picture of the week this week because I'm actually a little busy but still thank you for reading this patiently.
Sincerely,
Melvyn Chou, 16.03.2017.
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Melvyn,
ReplyDeleteGreat job on your birds of Taiwan. Animals adapt to their environment, and islands like Taiwan are great places to find unique species. If you enjoy birds, Taiwan would be a great place to explore. Whatg about sea birds?
Tim
Dear Mr. Maher,
ReplyDeleteActually I still prefer those species in mountains or in cities. There are many kind of birds in my neighborhood and I even searched their special calls on Youtube yesterday.