Letters from Taiwan

Some Animals of the Taiwan Hike

Taiwan is an excellent place for the hiking enthusiast to visit.  There are hundreds of trails all around the country with a great variation in gradient and length.  For the photographer (amateur or professional) there are also lots of opportunities for capturing shots of local flora and fauna.  

Yesterday, EVA and I returned to Bi Shan Yan to finish the hike to the top. At the top, aside from the disappointing and almost obligatory statue of late Dictator Chiang Kai-shek, there was lots of interesting fauna (aside from the human specimens) worthy of a pic or two.  

This beauty was about 10-15cm from toe to toe.  I did get in really close for a shot but a) my Sony Xperia phone has automatic focus that decides for itself what the subject of the focus will be and b) photos taken when I use the zoom function are low quality and grainy. (And no I don’t really want to use a flash and saturate the hell out of the picture) For example I present …

EXHIBIT A - OOPS WRONG FOCAL POINT

EXHIBIT B - OOPS SHIT QUALITY ON ZOOM IN FUNCTION

Moving on from this grumble, one notable thing about Taiwan is the number of stray dogs.  Normally I don’t usually like the stray dogs + mountains combination having more than once been chased by various specimens protecting their turf on remote and deserted back lanes.  However, Bi Shan Yan is a well worn path with plenty of people making their way up and down most days and especially busy on the weekends so the dogs lounging at the top were non fussed, insouciant and perhaps even a little wary (speaking to a possible past of abuse?).

This guy above for example wasn’t too happy with me getting too close for the shot and his expression kind of says ‘hey, what’s your game pal?’

Making good use of the Dictator statue base, the bitch in black and dog above got some shut eye (until I disturbed them).

The dog was very photogenic, obligingly posing for me.

This lady though was very skittish and not in very good shape.  EVA then pointed out some commotion in the trees.  

It took me a while to see it at first, then I realised that the bowls in the trees were there for a specific purpose - squirrels.

The squirrels were quite busy eating the treats left out for them, or fighting over access to them, so I was able to get quite close, close enough for my phone camera to get some half decent portraits:

Are you looking at me? 

Just as we were about to leave I saw this butterfly resting on a rock.  The fact that it didn’t fly away when I approached tells me that it probably wasn’t long for this world.