The Final, Final Post

 I am back in Taiwan, and I have started a new blog: The Taiwan Adventure 2: The Triumphal Return!

An excerpt from the first post:

As you may or may not know, I have been living in Tucson, Arizona for the last four years.  I like Arizona.  The only problem with Tucson is that it’s right in the middle of the Sonoran Desert. It’s really hot in the summer and so dry that my skin kept cracking and falling off.  You have to buy moisturizer in 55-gallon drums, or settle for clouds of skins cells surrounding you every time you move around. 

Taoyuan is nice and humid.  A hot day is like walking around in a sauna.  Tucson is dry, a hot day there is like being slowly roasted in an oven.  I don’t know, it seems like people complain about the weather either way. 

Desert Cottontail

The desert is beautiful, though, especially the Sonoran Desert.  There’s Saguaro cactuses, (they only grow in Arizona) and a variety of wildlife. Birds, rabbits, lizards, snakes, coyotes, bobcats and javelinas.  Javelinas look like pigs, but they’re actually peccaries.

"Peccary

A peccary is a medium-sized animal, with a strong resemblance to a pig. Like a pig, it has a snout ending in a cartilaginous disc and eyes that are small relative to its head. Also like a pig."  -Wikipedia

A pig by any other name is a…Peccary, I guess. 

 They eat plants but have razor sharp tusks, so you probably don’t want to fight one.

Anyway, for what it’s worth I have returned to Taiwan. I’m glad to be back, I missed it while I was in Arizona. I’ve eaten all the Mexican Food I needed to last a while. Now, I’m looking forward to classic Taiwanese fare. I’m especially looking forward to street food, which I’m sure I will consume with great gusto, along with the other things that make Taiwan great.

I want to talk a bit about this version of the Taiwan Adventure. It’s going to be the same only different. Hopefully, I’ll still be able to bring a bit of humor to my observations, but I want to focus a bit more on photos and a bit more on wildlife, (okay, I really mean birds, unless something really cool happens to wander up and get in front of my camera.) and tea. By the way, I will add some video blogs with Shabai/Elizabeth. I might even make some of my own, (We’ll see!)

I will try to add something every week starting today. Please feel free to comment, in fact I hope you will, and subscribe! Here We Go!

The Final Post

 It's been a good run writing the Taiwan Adventure Blog, but things have changed in my life.  I havemoved back to the USA and landed in Tucson, AZ.  So Taiwan Adventure Publications will no longer be publishing this blog.  Oh, we'll leave it up so that you can refer to it if you're going to Taiwan for a visit or an extended stay.  It's a great place to live - I lived there for 11 years.

We're starting as of this week a new blog called Tucson Living.  We'll explore Tucson, the restaurants, the city and other local places, just like we did in Taiwan, but we're going to add a new twist.  In addition to the blog posts we'll collaborate with Birch Leaf Productions to supplement the blog posts with video.  In each post we'll add a video that brings more depth.  

I'll give you an example:  We plan to do a blog post on a visit to Tombstone, AZ.  Tombstone is famous for the Gunfight at the OK Corral.  The post will talk about our visit to this historical city but the video will talk about Tombstone's most famous historical figure: Wyatt Earp.  We'll talk about the man and retrace his steps to the gunfight and what happened to him afterward.

Videos will contain history or science, or be an interview with a chef or restaurant, or maybe just document an adventure.  In any case it will be in the same style as the Taiwan Adventure.  So, look for our new blog Tucson Living.  Here's a handy link: The Tucson Living Blog

Goodbye Taiwan

I've lived in Taiwan for almost 11 years and it has come time to head home!I will be leaving in January 2021 to move to Tucson Arizona.  So we will be posting a new blog called, surprisingly, "The Tucson Adventure."  I'm nothing, if not creative, that is for sure!  The blog will start as we prepare to move.  Things like

1.  Buying a House in Tucson while living in Taiwan. 
2.  Packing and shipping our whole life and all of our stuff to the US.
3.  Adjusting to a new place.
4.  Culture Shock in your own native country!

And anything else that comes to mind that seems interesting. 

I have decided in my retirement that I'm going to spend some part of the day writing - EVERY DAY.  Well, that's what I say now but we'll see. I have a couple of writing projects that I want to begin working on in addition to "The Tucson Adventure."  I'll reactivate the Standing Stones Blog and continue to add photos to "Taiwan Wildlife" (although it will probably transform into "Tucson Wildlife"!

I'm retiring so I don't want to make it a job, but I'll try to have at least one new post a week on each blog.  The resolve seems to be weakening already.  I went from a declaration, "I'm going to spend some part of each day writing," to "I'll try!"  What a wimp.  I won't let my resolve...dissolve!

Happy New Year from Taiwan － 新年快樂

Taiwan's welcome to 2018.  Fireworks at the Taipei 101.  This year in addition to the fireworks the 101 added projection to the show.  The projection depicts the 2017 Universiade Games in Taipei, in addition to special kaleidoscopic graphics.  Pictures and explosions, what more could you ask for.

Happy New Year from the Taiwan Adventure Publications!

Source:  Taiwan News via YouTube: (linked)

Merry Christmas 2017

Birds of East Asia: A Review

I have to say at the outset that I am not a “professional” bird watcher.  Although, I could see myself at some time in the future settling down to watch birds do bird things.  My lack of mobility and limited (mobility scooter) transportation means that my main locations for watching birds are fairly specific.  Often, people think that disabilities limit your ability to be involved in something like bird watching, but it can still be a rewarding pursuit, with a few adjustments. 

Taoyuan City is “famous” for the number of parks spread throughout.  Most of them are beautiful little oases in high-rise neighborhoods.  So, my particular area of ornithological study is the urban park habitat.  Occasionally, I am able to go into the more rural areas to watch, but that requires a driver and someone who is interested in a quiet few hours.

I got involved in bird watching because I could recognize only a few of the birds I saw in trees, in rice fields and on poles near my home.  Not all of them are the same as California’s birds.  In fact, I have only seen a few that I recognized without the assistance of my trusty Field guide.

I suggested to my children that a field guide for Asian birds would be a perfect gift during the Christmas gift-giving season.  They laughed.  They told me bird watching is an old man’s sport; oh, the derision, I endured.  I was steadfast; a field guide was all I wanted.  They made other suggestions, I shrugged them off.  I really had no other needs or wants.  As Christmas got closer they got desperate, so they tricked me into revealing, once again, the name of the field guide I wanted:  Birds of East Asia, by Mark Brazil. 

So this is my review of that field guide.  In some ways, I think it is an excellent book.  There are a lot of beautiful, full-color renderings of birds in different positions.  For example, there are drawings of birds standing, flying over head, and flying at eye level.  The advantage of that is that birds rarely sit like museum exhibits for you to look at.  They are usually about some mysterious bird business, whatever it may be.

The descriptions of the habitats and ranges are quite good and the little maps are helpful.  There is some good taxonomic information; genus, and species.  Although, I have a tendency to “Google” them when I find them so that I can find out what order they come from.  For instance, I found a bird just last week called a Malayan Night Heron.  The drawing of the bird left off the crest that was obvious and visible, so to be sure of what I was seeing I used Google, which produced a large number of photos.  In addition to the corroborating photos, I found that the heron is of the order Pelecaniformes.  This is the same order as Pelicans, but according to the description and location of the bird, they are not really water birds.

The only other problem with the book is that it covers a large area:  China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, and Russia.  This is quite a large geographical area, so the range maps are a little too small to see clearly.  Remember, my children called this an old man’s sport.  I’ll cop to being a “not-as-young-as-I-used-to-be” man, I won’t go all the way to old, but even with my bifocals, the maps are a little small.  Taiwan is, after all, a tiny island in that large land mass.

Finally, the last problem, I have with this book is its size.  I think it’s a little heavy for a field guide.  My copy is paperback and I don’t like to take it out into the field because it might get destroyed.  I generally, try to photograph the bird and then come back and look it up.  It can be difficult if I come across more than a couple of birds because I have to take notes in order to remember locations and habitats.

In general, I am delighted with this book.  When I’m stuck in my office I find myself leafing through it and trying to memorize the drawings so I’ll recognize the birds immediately.  

The book is published by Princeton Field Guides, Princeton University Press, copyright 2009.  It is available for purchase at Amazon for $US 26.44.  Birds of East Asia link at Amazon


Other Posts you may be interested in:

Not Quite the Last of the Mountain Men
The Trees Are Alive With The Sound of Music
Eating My Way Through Taiwan:  The Stink of Adventure

Not Quite the Last of the Mountain Men

In the University, many, many, many years ago I studied Biology.  My plan was to be a Wildlife Biologist:   Climbing to the tops of mountains, living with Bighorn sheep for months at a time, counting sheep, or tagging bears, something like that. 

What can I say?  It was the “mountain man” period of my life.  I wanted to be a modern day Jeremiah Johnson, without having to eat anyone’s liver.  You didn’t know about that, did you?  He fought the Crow tribe and ate their livers when he won.  Robert Redford conveniently left that part out.  He was actually called, “Liver-eating Johnson.”  Now, there’s a nickname that would inspire fear among your enemies, am I right? 

Look, I’m not making this up – There’s a book about him called Crow Killer: The Saga of Liver Eating Johnson by Raymond W. Thorpe.  The description of the book mentions his liver eating proclivities AND the fact that the movie Jeremiah Johnson was fictionalized and based on this guy’s life.  I've added link below.

Anyway, I thought these mountain men were pretty cool.  I longed, for the open wilderness, the solitude, cooking over an open campfire.  I actually met the “Last of the Mountain Men” in 1975 up on the Salmon River in Idaho:  Sylvan “Buckskin Bill” Hart.  I worked as a whitewater guide and we rafted right past his cabin once a year.  He was a nice, if somewhat eccentric old guy.  He was seventy-two years old at the time.  There’s also a book about him called Last of the Mountain Men by Harold Peterson.  It was actually written for Sports Illustrated.  There's a link below.

It’s amazing how my mind wanders these days; I really wanted to talk about something else.   As I was saying I wanted to be a Wildlife Biologist, so I carefully studied courses like Zoology, Invertebrate Zoology, Botany, Entomology, Ichthyology, and Ornithology.  I wasn’t particular about what kind of wildlife I counted, tagged, and generally hung out with.  As a result of all of this studying, I could pretty much recognize a lot of different wildlife. 

I moved to Taiwan from California.  In California, I knew and could identify just about any type of bird that I saw.  I even understood taxonomy and could find my way around a dichotomous key.  Those were the days before Google, baby.  I could handle the old DK, like the pro that I was.

Then I moved to Taiwan.  Guess what the birds are different here.  So I recently got a copy of Birds of East Asia; China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, and Russia by Mark Brazil.  (link below) It’s a little heavy for a field guide, but there are drawings of hundreds of birds, along with taxonomic information, range, and seasonal visitation.  So now I’m kind of figuring out local birds.  I spend some quiet time in urban parks near my home and occasionally head out to the mountains to gaze at the birds and try to identify them.  It’s interesting and peaceful.

I’m not dreaming of being a mountain man any longer.  Oh, I still read an occasional F. Pat McManus book, but personally, I’m on to other things.  Here are some birds that I've seen near my home.  I prefer to use my own pictures but I'm way too slow.  By the time I'm ready to shoot a picture, the bird is already over Mexico, just so you know.  There are links to pages of these people, who are much more skillful than I am at photography.  

Pacific Swift - Apus Pacificus

Oriental Stork - Ciconia boyciana

Little Egret - Egretta Garzetta (Summer Plumage)

Chinese Bulbul - Pycnonotus Simensis Formosae

Book Links:

Crow Killer:  The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson

The Last of the Mountain Men:

Birds of East Asia: China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, and Russia:

Photo Credits:

Buckskin Bill: 

Liver Eating Johnson: 

Robert Redford: 

Oriental Stork: 

Chinese Bulbul:  

Little Egret:  

Pacific Swift:  

Other posts you may be interested in:

More Than an Hour at Sun Moon Lake

Taiwan Travelogue:  the North Coast

The Mountains of Taiwan