Presentation on the last day of internship & Sky-watching Friday

Yesterday, I spent most of time correcting and editing my PowerPoint presentation to be presented today. This morning, I rehearsed in front of my supervisor and fellow research assistants and listened to their feedbacks and edited some more - just an hour before the actual presentation. Yikes.

This presentation (titled Preliminary investigation on the breeding biology of Taiwan Barbet (Megalaima nuchalis) in Taipei Botanical Garden) marks the end of my summer internship. However, I still have a scientific paper to write and hopefully I can submit it to a journal; therefore, I will be continuing working here for two more months. Still, I have been very very fortunate so far in terms of working in TBG and with such a close group of researchers, and me being from a volunteer to an intern to a summer research assistant. I am just overwhelmed and feel blessed.

After my presentation, I felt very relieved and headed back to the office and just relax. Then I saw how beautiful the setting sun was in a window's reflection so I headed to the rooftop of my work building and took photos of Taipei's setting sun.

So lovely.
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Butterfly, Orchid, and Endoscope

Last Wednesday I tagged along our noise-bird assemblage project. Well, I was too tired these days to go again today. But in the morning, I did saw my friends hard at work again.

Before I arrive at work, I photographed a Peacock Pansy (Junonia almana) flying gracefully among flowers.

Junonia almana

Then there were these pretty Bamboo Orchids (Arundina graminifolia) standing tall waiting for me to photograph them.

Arundina graminifolia

For my PowerPoint presentation this Friday, I need photographs of our equipments, so here's our very very important (and sensitive) endoscope that allows us to see what's happening inside nests meters above our head. Who knows what we will do if we do have this trustworthy tool. The below photo shows the LCD bulbs and the small auto-focusing pin-point lens, and the top photo shows the entire endoscope about two meters tall.
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Photographing dragonflies during lunchtime

In two days, my 6-week internship will officially be over and what a strange feeling it is. I started one month before the actual internship and will stay for at least two more months afterwards, so to me, this job is not over yet. Not when there's still data to be gathered, organized, and analyzed.

Anyways, I spent most of the time today working on my PowerPoint presentation to be presented this Friday. Then during lunchtime, I went outside and ate alone when everyone brought their own homecooked lunch boxes. While crossing TBG, it gave me the opportunity to reflect on some of the first memories of the garden and how surprising the biodiversity is in it.

Entrance to TBG

However, it was extremely hot during lunch hours, so very few animals were photographed - except these cooperating dragonflies.

Scarlet Basker (Urothemis signata yiei)

Red Percher (Neurothemis ramburii ramburii)

There were some late crocus flowers blossoming after the first beautiful wave of pink flowers along the path.
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The aftermath of Typhoon Morakot in TBG & Watching UP with friends

Today, in the morning, one of the first things we heard in the office was that two of the nest sites had fallen during the weekend after the strong wind and rain of typhoon Morakot! [Edit: Morakot had brought destruction to many parts of Taiwan - see here.] One nest was still hanging by the bark, so we had to go quickly to salvage it before the garden maintainence tam cut it down and throw it into the junkyard. The other, however, was already in the junkyard and needed us to go and find it in a whole bunch of wasted plant matters from the typhoon.

TBG maintaince team hard at work all weekend and Monday. The second photo shows our nest tree - the branch had snapped just below where the nest entrance is.

The maintaince team removing the branch.

Piece by piece.

The broken nest site still attached to the tree (left), and inside the nest cavity (right)

The effects of the typhoon are not just broken branches or trees. The super wet weekend had sprouted mushrooms on a (dead) nest treee. According to a mushroom expert at TFRI, the mushroom species is Coprinus disseminatus (a.k.a. Little Helmet or Fairy Bonnet). We wonder if there some symbiotic relationship between these mushrooms and barbets?

After work, everyone in the office packed up and went to watch the movie "Up" in 3-D. I have to say it was one of the best cartoon movies I have seen in awhile, and I am glad to have done it with such a close group of co-wokers and friends!
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Crested Goshawk and Comic World Taiwan in NTU

Last night was unbelievable with the howling wind and heavy rainstorms. This morning, however, the typhoon turned much milder and we had light rain ever since.

Today, a friend invited me to see the Comic World Taiwan (CWT) hosted at National Taiwan University. Not wanting to miss out on a chance to understand Taiwan's unfamiliar culture (to me, that is), I immediately said yes and headed towards NTU. While there, my friend pointed out a Crested Goshawk that flew right by her clawing a Chinese Bulbul. I guess work habits die hard (my friend is also my co-worker at TBG). What a handsome bird.

If you look closely, you can see the feathers from the bulbul in the goshawk's beak.

Returning to the main focus of the day, CWT was an eye-opener in terms of quantity and quality of the underground Taiwanese anime artists and fans of the costume roleplay (cosplay). What an intriguing part of Taiwan's culture. After checking out different booths and photographing some generous cosplayers at CWT, my friend and I headed to Ximending to eat a late lunch, and she showed me around the area which was full of her childhood memories.

Overall, it was a great day considering that otherwise I'd be staring in front of the laptop all day and be unproductive.
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World exclusive: Muller's Barbet's eggs and embryo

I'm currently sitting in front of the laptop at home enjoying a rare Typhoon Day and listening to the rain platters on the metal window roof shelter. The entire island nation is facing the onslaught of Typhoon Morakot, and land and sea warnings are issued to keep people indoors. Time to sit down and wonder about my proximate and distant futures, I guess.

Yesterday (August 6) was also a hard-raining day where my co-workers working outside were completely drenched when they entered the office. Yikes. Thankfully, I was indoors all day yesterday.

My co-worker had been paying attention to a particular nest outside of TBG because he had not saw the barbet parents returning and incubating their three eggs. Two days had past and still no signs of parents coming back. It is very likely that the eggs are all dead now (especially with the rainy weather), so we decided to take action and saw off parts of the tree branch and bring the eggs out.

While it was raining hard out, they painstakingly took 80 minutes to saw off the nest opening piece by piece and finally took out the eggs.

When they brought them back into the office and we smell them, the eggs were indeed all bad. It is surprising to see the size of the small eggs (measured at about 3-cm long and 2-cm wide). While trying to preserving them, I accidentally cracked one of the eggs and yolk immediately flowed out.
Holding the cracked against the light, we saw a dark shape at the side of the egg. It was an embryo of a Muller's Barbet.
Holding a small dead embryo between my fingers brought strange feelings and thoughts to me. It made me realize how small and fragile these protective eggs are, as well as the life inside them. How unforeseen causes can decide death and life of anything and anyone, and how special a life is from a developing egg to a beautiful individual.

I do not know what other people's reactions are when holding such a precious thing in your hands, but it certainly made me value life even more, and that's the truth.
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Outdoor work, yay!

After not doing any kind of field work in awhile, I am beginning to miss the greenaries, the sun, and the work-out of being in a natural sauna. Our research lab also has a project studying the relationship between noise and bird abundance, so today I woke up extra early to tag along the experiment inside TBG. I am not a part of this project, but I just enjoy being outdoors, especially in the morning when there're fewer people and more urban wildlife to be seen.

My co-workers working hard recording the noise levels and observing birds.

Meanwhile, I was just wondering around photographing anything I saw interesting.

Barringtonia racemosa flowers on the ground.

A juvenile Chinese Bulbul still lacking the white crown.

An interesting-lookinh Trema orientalis (L.) Blume tree. This species is quite useful in that the trunk can be built into oars and canoes, or made into ropes, and the leaves can become food for herbivores.

A beautiful Chilades pandava peripatria

Green Pond Frog - a common but suitable name.

Water Lily

Gray Treepie is a common bird in TBG. But its behaviour of hiding underneath canopies makes them very difficult to photograph (I remember my first time seeing them almost three months ago). Today, a young Treepie caught something and flew right above us to enjoy its meal.

Gray Treepie (Dendrocitta formosae formosae) enjoying an insect larvae or something.

Here's a site with some information on this interesting Corvids.

Colorful Plumeria rubra flower lying on Giant Elephant's Ear (Colocasia gigantea)

As the research came to an end, an all-black feline walked right in front of me. At first I thought it was a panther. Given it a second look, I realized it is a handsome stray black cat.

Black cat or not, I think today was a pretty lucky day for me.
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River tracing adventure to Golden Gorge - Part 1

On July 31, 2009, a group of us hikers met up after work in Taipei to head southeast to Hualien County to get an early start of our weekend trip to Golden Gorge.

In less than four hours (past midnight on August 1st), we arrived at the town next to the Sanjhan South River where we will begin our hike when dawn arrives. We parked our cars in the local elementary school and camped along the hallways of the empty school. It is a pretty common thing-to-do, especially for a small town in the mountains.

Sanjhan Elementary School

Waking up the next morning by barking stray dogs and chanting buddists.

An elementary school surrounded by mountains...

And a river

First light of August 1, 2009

Since this was my first time taking up river tracing, I wasn't quite sure of the safest techniques or routes, so I didn't take my camera out to take the beautiful scenaries along the way. Thankfully, my co-worker Genie (an experienced climber) had her camera and graciously allowed my use some of her photos. Thank you, Genie!!!

The starting point of our incredible journey

Time to start walking and walking and walking...

Along the way, we saw some pretty interesting wildlife.

Especially this mysterious monkey skull placed on a boulder. RIP.

The beautiful views of Sanjhan South River
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Common Moorhen - Parent and child

Before arriving at the office for another indoor workday of data analysis, I watched this pair of adult and chick Common Moorhen in TBG.




They were just standing on the reed and not doing much - no danger, no caution, I guess. A bird's life is pretty wonderful.

PS - I do not think I have mentioned this before, but our barbet research lab has a blog (in Chinese) (http://blog.xuite.net/twbird/blog) that reached 1000 views today! A pretty incredible feat, I must admit. Go team!
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Sky-watching in Taipei

I returned to Taipei this morning (past midnight) from my river-trekking trip in Hualien, then I had to go to work today so forgive me if I am a bit tired, grumpy, and am not ready to show any pictures from my amazing trip yet.

First of all, for those not familiar with river-trekking, it's an outdoor activities common here in Taiwan (and maybe Asia) where we basically hike along rivers or wade or swim in rivers and streams. Our destination was Golden Gorge on the Sanjhan South River. To reach Golden Gorge, we needed to hike along the river with humongous boulders in our way, so sometimes, we had to cross the fast-flowing river too. Then to reach the narrow gorge and see the spectacular waterfall at the end of the gorge, we climbed up three different leveld (natural) obstacles/waterfalls. And the sight was AMAZING!

Anyways, enough of the cliff-hanging. I will post the photos once I organized them. But for now, here're the sky-watching photos I took during lunchtime today. I love sky-watching during the typhoon times here in Taiwan because the clouds are so expressive and inspiring, and two of them are suppose to come at once this time.

I stayed indoors most of the day organizing data again, so I had nothing interesting to show off at work today. Have a good night, everybody.
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