End of August

Took a couple of photos of the nature of TBG before I went to work today.

Sleepy duck

Water Lily

Black-crowned Night Heron through the lily leaves.

Took this shot while having a break in the office. Good-bye August!
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Handsome Little Black (a.k.a. Blackie)

I just returned back to Taipei getting ready for work tomorrow. Overall, I had a nice time this weekend in my grandparents' home simply just hanging out.

The back garden and a quite traditional old home.

On Sunday, my aunt gave the family dog Blackie a nice clean bath.

He doesn't hate bath, nor like it for that matter.

After his bath, we tied him to a chair to avoid him running around with his wet fur and getting dirty so soon.

Still itching


When can I leave?

How about now?

While Blackie waited for his fur to dry to be released, I took some handsome portraits of him.

With flying ears!

Then I took photos around the backyard garden.

Face?

Spiky Aloe

Aloe pattern


Growing minty leaves

Purple flower

In the afternoon, my aunts dropped me off at the train station, and it's time to go back.
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Back in my grandparents' home

Sorry that I have not been posting for the last couple of days. Work-wise, it had been quite hectic, but I am still working hard on our paper and believing that our research is worth showing to the rest of the world.

For the weekend, I returned back to central Taiwan to my grandparents' home after three months of absence to see my relatives, wish my grandmother an early "happy birthday", and most importantly just to relax and be with loving family again. It's a great feeling when there's still people that truly cares about you irregardless of what. Thank you.

I mentioned before that our research lab has a blog (in Chinese) sharing the latest news on the Taiwan Barbets in TBG and so forth. Anyways, this week was my turn to post and I wrote about the most dangerous predator of Taiwan Barbet - the Crested Goshawk. It was simply just a repost of photos that I put here before, but pay a visit if you are interested. Thanks.

Have a good weekend, everyone.
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Wordless Wednesday & Photos of the day: Common Flangetail, Red-bellied Skimmer, Black-crowned Night Heron, and Water Lily

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Falling the infested nest tree

Thanks to the concerns of my friends. I am still doing fine - just a lot of work lately and tired day after day. But I am confident the rewarding end will truly justify the means.

A barbet's nest tree had been cut down today due to the fact that it was located in an area infected with the Brown Root Rot Disease caused by pathofen Phellinus noxius. The maintainence workers helped us cut down the trees, and our job was to oversee the cutting of the nest tree and bring the nest tree into the lab for future measurements and analyses.

Before arriving at work, this was one of the Crested Goshawks that I saw trying to catch squirrels for breakfast.

This was the nest tree to be cut down.

It was a particularly successful nest tree with 5 different excavation attempts and two successful nest cavities.

The workers working hard under the blazing sun removing the debris.

Boom! The bottom of the nest tree was already infested with termites, so taking it down was a quick 20 seconds (or even less).

The top part of the tree was already decayed so some of the nest cavities turned into rotten wood when it fell onto the ground.

Some of the bottom ones remained in good conditions.
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Loving Life

After a serious discussion with a work friend on Friday, a lot of thoughts were suppose to enter my mind. But instead of overthinking and overworrying, I channeled that drive into coming to work on the weekend and fixing my problems. A lot of work, perhaps, but I am willing to do what is right.

Today, before arrive at work, a group of weekend photographers was just outside the botanical garden photographing the Taiwan Barbets (the one that my co-workers were trying to catch on Thursday but came back empty-handed).

Crossing over the sidewalk, I noticed chirping of the Japanese White-eyes (Zosterops japonicus). Looking closely, I noticed that one of them was a fledgling and its parents were feeding it.

Japanese White-eye fledgling.

After working for the entire (Saturday and Sun)day (and resting a little bit along the way), I had completed what I set out to do. Calling it a day, I decided to head up to the rooftop and just relax.

Watching the sunset.

Marveling over the crescent Moon

Enjoying the wind

And loving life.
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Sky-watch Friday & My thoughts

Tired work day
Sky-watching after work
Watching the orange sky colored by the setting sun
in an urban city.

Then she cried
I apologized.

To be true to myself,
I will not be lazy nor ignorant.
I will carry out my tasks
as honorable and justified as possible.
Otherwise, I will never forgive myself.

I hope I can, and she will too
forgive me.
My friend.
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Barbet-catching & Coffee-tasting

Yesterday (Thursday) morning, I watched my co-workers trying to catch the adult barbets of this particular nest right by the bus stop.

Since the nestling is already poking its head out of the cavity, then it becomes very difficult for us to catch the adults because the parents tend to feed them right outside the nest opening. The only two times that we can set up the mist net (right outside the opening) are when the parents enter inside the nest to feed the nestlings and to removel the nestlings' fecal waste.

Anyways, after work, my co-workers and I went to this coffee shop (http://www.okogreen.com.tw/index.php) that promotes fairtrade of coffee beans from third world countries. This shop is quite unique because there's no price tag to any coffee, instead we have to think about the hard work put into these beans by the low-wage coffee workers somewhere in Africa, Central and South Americans, etc, and how much they really deserve from this delicious cup of coffee.

Quite an experience, I must say.

Nothing of interesting to report from today (Friday), so I doubt I'll post anything later tonight. If that's the case, have a nice weekend, everyone!
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Photos of the day & Working decisions

For the entire day, I stayed inside the office trying to research the suitable scientific journals to submit my just-started research paper to and compiling data. I came to learn all the nitty-gritties when it comes to choosing the journal(s) that you want to submit your paper(s) to, such as the impact factor (IF) of the journal, the amount of time it takes for the journal to reply your submission, the scholars in the editorial board, and so forth. I wish they taught us all this stuff in our undergraduate courses, because this seemed pretty important to me at the moment.

Anyways, I narrowed my choices to:
- The Auk
- Ibis
- Condor
- The Wilson Journal of Ornithology
- Journal of Field Ornithology
- and a few more others

And my supervisor will help me looking into the other important factors that will determine the journal(s) to hand our papers in and the writing style and format of my just-started paper.

Anyways, knowing beforehand that I will be working indoors all day today, I actually came to work a bit early today to photograph the views of the botanical garden.

Water Lily still in blossom

Busy bee and lovely lotus

Beautiful flowers

Common Moorhen

Common Moorhen giving me the stare
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