Seabirding off northeast Taiwan, 20th to 24th March 2025 - Part II

March 21st - Shen'ao Port

An early morning taxi delivered us from Rui Fang to Shen’ao Fishing Port, northeast of Taipei City.

Our boat for the day was a relatively luxurious cruiser for anglers. A tasty seafood congee was provided, and the coffee percolator was kept primed !

The weather was warming up and clear and sunny. This made for good viewing conditions, but there were far fewer birds around than we had seen in the gloom off Fen Niao Lin the previous day.

 This one of several Brown Boobies seen.

Our “Bird of the Day” was a “Stage 2” Short-tailed Albatross (Phoebastria albatrus) that passed quite  close to the boat early on.

For the rest of the day we contented ourselves with trying to photograph the pods of Indo-Pacific Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) and Pantropical Spotted Dolphins (Stella attenuata) seen surfacing in the calm, blue waters of the west Pacific Ocean. 

Jemi got most of the best shots with the 7D2 and 100-400 zoom.

Most of my photos, however, featured mysterious, distant fins and tail flukes which I lacked the experience to confidently identify.

False Killer Whales (Pseudorca crassidens) - when identifiable - were the pick of the cetaceans seen. 

We enjoyed the scenery of Taiwan's Northeast Coast National Scenic Area, this is the lighthouse at Cape Bitou. 

March 22nd -Shen'ao Port

Another comfortable cruiser, and more bright sunshine.  Flying flocks of what I took to be migrating passerines turned out to be large groups of Taiwanese Racing Pigeons, flying far out to sea.  “What a quaint hobby !” I said to our hosts.  They corrected me politely  “The popularity of Pigeon Racing is due to gambling !”

Great Crested Tern - (Thalasseus bergii)

Peregrines are celebrated for nesting on geologically outstanding cliffs near Shen’ao Harbour, and one evening we all made time to photograph them.

March 24th - Fen Niao Lin

After a very welcome rest day we returned south to Suao and Fen Niao Lin and the “Hoi An No.1” , the boat we had used on the first day.  

Fen Niao Lin Port's resident Brown Booby

In much warmer and finer weather than on the 20th, our hardworking Taiwanese hosts still managed to “chum up” a flurry of Streaked Shearwaters (Calonectris leucomelas) in good light. 

Back at Fen Niao Lin harbour we had a round of “Farewells” and a photo of some of the participants......

Then everybody dispersed. The local photographers and birders headed home, our Taiwanese organisers had some post-chumming cleaning up to do.  

We visitors returned to our accommodation thinking of homeward flights the following day. 

Thanks again to to Hiroyuki and Shoko TANOI for news of the trips, and to everyone else for their good humour and good company.  

Seabirding off northeast Taiwan, - 20th to 24th March 2025

Back in October 2024 we got a message out of the blue from Hiroyuki and Shoko TANOI, whose “Seabirding Japan” (here) is a go-to reference for seabirders from all over East Asia.

We were invited to join a series of pelagic day trips from northeastern Taiwan, with the objective of seeing seabirds in general and Short-tailed Albatross (Phoebastria albatrus)(hereafter, “STA”) in particular.  Places were reserved for us, all we had to do was get to the rendezvous points with the cash for the trips.

We didn’t know who else would be on the trips, apart from ourselves, the TANOIs and some local Taiwanese birders and photographers, but as it turned out, there were several other HK birders who had committed to the trips, too.

We found the public transport in Taiwan relatively easy to navigate, especially with our Taiwan “Easycards” (like HK “Octopus” cards). Our first place to stay was the historic port town of Suao.  An early morning Taxi on March 20th got us to the dockside at Fen Niao Lin, south of the town. 

Our boat was the fairly basic Hoi An No.1, pictured above.

After identity documents of all had been checked by the coastguards we set off on a cool and blustery morning. The young and enthusiastic local organisers, including Tom Yen and his colleagues had prepared plenty of “chum” for the birds.

We were only about half an hour out to sea that we saw our first Black-footed Albatross (Phoebastria nigripes) (“BFA”), and in due course the boat was attended by 15-20 of these birds.

We were also able to record a ringed BFA - the first our hosts had seen on these trips, apparently. 

(This bird K-066 - was ringed as a chick in April 2024 on the island of Hachijo Kojima (IZU Islands), Japan. Thanks to Tom Yen and Yun-Hsuan for the information)

In mid-morning a cry went up - our Taiwanese hosts had spotted our target bird - an almost-adult ("Stage 5") Short-tailed Albatross which made a couple of lowish swoops near the boat.

Short-tailed Albatross (formerly “Steller’s Albatross”) has two distinct populations on breeding islands, with about 80 % on the Japanese Island of Torishima, and 20 % on Minami Kojima in the Senkaku group, west of Okinawa, and close to northeast Taiwan.  (A few of the Torishima birds now breed on Midway Island, too.)

The background of research into these birds is fascinating, but suffice it to say that  the DNA and morphological evidence indicates a “split” is on its way.  Individuals from the rarer western STA population are the ones usually seen in waters off Taiwan.   

Eda, M. and Higuchi, H. (2012). Does the Short-tailed Albatross Phoebastria albatrus consist of two species? Jap. J. Orn. 61(2): 263-272.

The most numerous birds, however were Streaked Shearwaters (Calonectris leucomelas), with dozens in view for most of the voyage and a total of 4-500 seen in total on the day. The light remained challenging, but there was plenty to look at.

“Also seens” included four or five Flesh-footed Shearwaters (Ardenna carneipes), -

 

 ....and a single Pomarine Skua (Stercorarius pomarinus).

"You say "Skua", I say "Jaeger".....

Masked and Brown Boobies and Great Crested Terns didn’t add up to a great deal of seabird variety, but we felt we had plenty of excitement by the end of the day.

Then it was a Taxi back to the train station to reposition ourselves for a different port and a different boat the following day….  

End of Part I