Very long day!

This morning we had to be ready at 6 am in the morning to go bird watching. It was a bit chilly so I decided to wear pants and bring a light jacket but I shortly regretted this decision. I had never been bird watching before so it was very interesting. We only got to see a couple of species such as the Liocichia, White Tailed Robin and the White Eared Sepia also called Taiwan Sepia (because it is endemic). The Liocichia sings a beautiful duet with its partner for life and Dr. Tom mentioned that this is very unique because he can not think of a single bird that does this in North America. The most exciting part though was having the privilege of seeing some bird tagging in action and the injection of little tiny chips into a Sepia by some researchers. One of the researchers mentioned that a female Sepia will lose her feathers on her chest when she is incubating eggs. 

Weigh Table 

Next we took a tour of Meifang Farm. I learned that Macao meaning mountain pepper by the aboriginal people produces a natural insect repellent. It was funny because after the guide had told us this everyone started rubbing the leaves on their skin. The African Lily was very sticky and there was even several types of sage plants that smelled like pineapple and peach. They smelled so good! The Meifang Farm is particularly surrounded by Japanese Cedar and compared to the maple cedar it is not a very good wood because it doesn’t do well in high temperature and rain. At the end of our tour we had the opportunity to make our own potting plant with a bottle and wire.

Straight from here we had a lecture from a man named Pier. He was born and raised in Quebec, Canada but moved to Taiwan a while back and is very fluent in Chinese. It was interesting to see a French man speaking Chinese, and speak English! However he had a very thick accent so it made it kind of hard to understand what he was saying at some points. He gave a lecture on Table Waste Composting and Vegetables. He said that in Taiwan 24% of the garage is table scraps. His work revolved around taking these tables scarps such a meat, fish, vegetables, etc and composting this to use and grow crops. One of the first things I noticed when I got to Taiwan was their extensive recycling. They separate plastic, table scraps and other categories I’m not even sure about. He said that everything was done by the work of nature especially bacteria. As my soil microbiology professor would always say “bacteria are everywhere and we wouldn't be here without them".  Pier essentially took all these scraps added some saw dust and planted sprouts. These sprouts were pest free without the help of pesticides. Somehow the plants would be infected at first but then form a natural immunity, a release of a scent that kept the pest away. I was amazed to find out that Taiwan uses roughly 400x more pesticide than the US! It’s very uncommon to compost these types of materials so the government told him it wasn’t possible. He proved them wrong and as a result he is receiving particular attention from the Japanese in purchasing his organic fruits and vegetables.

After a short break we then headed over for sugar-beet harvesting. It was fun looking for the biggest beet, and I thought the beets tasted just like raw carrots. Emily cut the pineapples, Fan and Jenny cut their beets (they were the two with the biggest ones), and various other students cut some apples. Anbo, Heng-An, Tersea, Jennifer and I made our own combination of a smoothie with very little beet, lots of pineapple and two bottles of yogurt. Okay it’s not really yogurt but a type of drink usually drunk with our lunch boxes and to me it taste like skittles. It tasted mostly like this yogurt, so sweet!

My Beet 

At night we all then headed to see some moths. Some were very beautiful and I even learned of a moth that looked like a hummingbird we had seen in the greenhouse earlier. There are no hummingbirds in Taiwan. It just occurred to me that I should have asked why because I am curious, hopefully I will remember. 

This moth produces alkaloids as its defense mechanism

It landed on Rebecca's sweater. So pretty! 

The stars here are stupendous. I have never really seen stars because I live in the city and I could have just sat there and looked at them all night. Whoa what a long day!