Fushan Botanical Garden
-the most accessible wildlife reserve in Taiwan
Seasons, rhyme with colors here.
Blossom from spring to summer, dawn redwood and green maple redden the autumn, snow may cover the whole area if it was cold enough.
Black bulbuls (Hypsipetes leucocephalus), the legend bird, piercing the overcast sky with a call of awakening instead of a message of fire*.
They are one of the most common birds spread in lower montane forest, cheerful and vocal, perching on the topmost branches, performing like the energetic vendor in a Disney opera.
Muntjacs and Swinhoe’s Pheasant sharing the feast from the land together, Formosan serow, like an easter egg hiding in scenes, only the lucky photographer can smell where it has been.
Formosan Reeve’s muntjac, the most common mammal you can find here, are always busy to search sprout on the ground near the path and people can get a shot by mobile phone in a very close distance.
Most tourists describe them as “cute deers” before being startled by their barking.
They bark like dogs, short and loud, and it’s common in mating season or being provoked, and the upper canine teeth in males become offensive weapons while fighting.
However, Muntjac is not the only animal whose calls are easy to be recognized.
I was on the way to “Ethnic plants” district.
Rain dropped, splashing the breath from the moss into my nose, fresh and bracing.Something stirred in the grass.
Chinese bamboo partridges are common but timid.
They live in the lowermontane forest, and most mountaineer can only hear their typical calling- “GI-GO-GWAI,” loud and repeated, embed in the memory of childhood in the past.
Fushan Botanical Garden is a shelter for them.
Without the threat of being hunt by humans, they seemed to be relieved, came out with less alert, pecking and pacing as if I was out of its’ sight.
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Stopped in the booth, I could hear people’s talking from a few miles away.
I was close to the entrance, and it should be the end of my visit.
But I returned to scavenge along the stream. Crab-eating mongoose (Herpestes urva) did not show up yet.
Monkeys were communicating on the bridge.
Formosan macaque is notorious in Taiwan. They have different ways to rob your food or damage farming.
One of them meditated in the rain for a while,
limpid amber iris glanced into my lens, without judges.
The baby monkey was attached to mother’s hug with a pair of eyes glisten in innocent.
The gentle rain did not bother them too much.
Others were communicating on the bridge.
Gray-chinned Minivet flew onto branches with its’ radiant feathers.
Gunther’s frog croaking at the pond and Partridges’ call was far away.
Formosan leaf-nosed bats hang out upside down inside the topmost of the octagonal pavilion, waiting for the coming night.
Nocturnal animals can make this paradise more thriving, bustling at night, all the residents who are awakened will join the party.
As for human, absence would be the only invitation.
