Some 231 species of bird have been recorded at the Dongsha Marine National Park in the South China Sea, the highest number in any of the country’s parks and more than a third of the 560 species identified in Taiwan, the Construction and Planning Agency said.
The 1.74km² Dongsha Island (東沙島), 380km southwest of Kaohsiung, is a coral atoll that lies in the migratory path of many of east Asia’s birds and provides a good habitat because of its forest, beach and lagoons.
As part of efforts to learn more about bird biology on the island, the park administration commissioned Kaohsiung Wild Bird Society ornithologists to conduct a survey of birds appearing at the park in recent years, an agency official said.
During the study, 231 types of birds were spotted, including the Asian glossy starling, the Himalayan swiftlet and the Sunniculus lugubris, which previously had not been listed among the birds seen in Taiwan, the official said.
Migratory species make up most of the bird population on the island, including the grey-backed buzzard hawk, the Chinese goshawk, the brown shrike, the osprey, the northern sparrowhawk and the Japanese sparrowhawk, the official said.
The ruddy turnstone can be seen almost all year round and in November, two black-faced spoonbills were found to have stayed there for three days, he said.
Some rare Taiwanese species have also been spotted on the island, he said, naming the fregeta minor, the yellow-billed grosbeak, the chestnut-cheeked starling, the purple-backed starling, the long-billed dowitcher, the Asian koel, the Brambling, the Chinese pond-heron, the whiskered tern and chestnut-winged cuckoo.
Aside from the white-breasted waterhen, however, no species has settled on the island, as the environment there has been destroyed by human activity, the official said.
The park administration will continue its efforts to restore native vegetation to the island and make it a bird paradise, the official said.
In 2007, the Dongsha atoll was designated by the government as the country’s first marine national park.
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