Another beautiful blue sky day in Taipei

I'm quite tired and sleepy at the moment, so I will keep this post nice and short.

Today's weather in Taipei was wonderful! A rare day with clear blue skies. Unfortunately, the tropical sunshine penetrated directly through the atmosphere and it was quite hot today (and painful if you stand underneath the sunshine for too long).

In the morning, I helped volunteer observers with identifying the barbet pair in this locaton. Turned out there is one fledgling left in this nest (there used to be two).

While helping the volunteers with observing the barbets, a couple of other birds had my attention as well, such as Common Moorhen (Gallinula chloropus), Spotted-necked Dove, and Black-crowned Night Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax).

After lunch, another TV program came to the botanical garden to videotape some footages. After helping them getting what they want, we went over to some nests to see the latest status. While walking, I saw another beautiful Black-crowned Night Heron.

Afterwards, we accidentally found two more barbet fledglings that we aren't sure who the parents are. We still caught them and brought them back to the lab for the standard procedures. After we finished, we released them (and the subadult found yesterday) and observed them until it got dark.

PS - I finally had the chance to release the Red-banded Snake caught at the beginning of the month. Even though the snake was found in the botanical garden, it is a species living along side streams in the mountains; therefore, we suspect it was abandoned in a city garden. Fortunately, there is a large stream near where I live (which is at the base of the mountain) so I released it today after work. Hope it will like its new home.

By the way, the PTS TV station that had being "bothering" us for quite a while now will finally air the show (about the Muller's Barbets in the TBG) tomorrow afternoon at 6 pm. I suspect everyone (in the office) will tune in to watch it.

That's all for now. Time for bed.

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