The Nature Area at Kang Chiao
The Nature Area has been set up for ten years. Among these years this area has attracted numerous bird species to find food and settle, which at the same time has great impact on the ecosystems here.
According to our teachers’ observation, for the past few years, the ecosystems in both Forest Whisper and QingXin Garden are getting more and more similar. After a blue magpie eats mulberries from the orchard in QingXin Garden, it will fly to Forest Whisper to excrete, which at the same time spreads mulberry seeds. That’s why we often see the same plants or trees in both QingXin Garden and Forest Whisper.
Rare birds in the Nature Area
Lately we are beginning to see some rare bird species in the Nature Area.The rarest bird we’ve seen in our Nature Area so far is the bird that we captured once by the infrared camera. It is a rare breed of winter migrant, which is called a Eurasian woodcock. Bird lovers are always excited to hear the traces of Eurasian woodcocks because they’re not easy to see in Taiwan. The Eurasian woodcock once came to the pond in Forest Whisper and stayed for several days. If the Eurasian woodcock is willing to come again to our school, it means that we did a good job preserving the Nature Area, and it is friendly enough for rare birds to come and stay.
Occurrence of Raptors
The fiercest bird breed in our Nature Area so far is the crested goshawk. We once saw it attacking the crested serpent-eagle, which is in fact way bigger than the crested goshawk! The crested goshawk is known for defending territory. Whenever intruders enter their territory, they will immediately fight against them, and it doesn’t matter if they have the advantage of body size or not. There are a lot of small birds in our Nature area. For example, collared scops owl, blue magpies, grey treepies, are all crested goshawks’ prey. They also feed on squirrels. That’s why we think the crested goshawk is the fiercest raptor in the Nature Area.