Today's Flower #104: TianLiaoYang (田寮洋)

Now, what is this.  There is no flower in it, way too late.  It is a ripe rice field ready to be cut down.  The yellow color is from the golden grain of the rice plant. TianLiaoYang was the last stop of my bird photographing trip of last Sunday.

The newly constructed Route 2C is a bypass road that went across mountain range to connect Taipei to the northeast coast of Taiwan.  The route went through very pretty valley which before the construction of Route 2C could not be access easily.  We visited the area several times before and have a blog of it here.  TianLiaoYang is several kilometers inland before Route 2C joined the costal Highway 2.  It is a wetland surround by low rolling hills with a railroad track went through its middle.  It was quite amazing standing on the hill watching the train went through the middle of the rice field.  It is really a Shangri-la frozen in time.  The wetland has been converted into rice field for years and farmed by the local farmers for generations.

As you can see here, the water of the rice field has been drained and the rice was cut down manually, the stalks have been tied up and let dry under the sun.  The place has been made famous for two reasons.  First, it has been a staging ground for migrating birds passing through Taiwan.  Several very rare birds have been spotted here.  The other reason is as the Route 2C opens, the government would like to convert the rice field for development, that has the local farmers up in arm.

The rice field was dry and the season was not for the migrating birds.  The only birds I saw was several egrats hanging around the edge of the rice field.

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