Don't Judge a Book By Its Cover

After Sun Link Sea, we planned to sat a night in Chiayi and continue our next part of the exploratory trip the day after to a wetland. After a quick lunch, while on our way to Pizitou Botanical Garden we try our luck looking for Northern Lapwing. We are just not at the right place/right time. We didn't manage to find any. After a few rounds, we go straight to Pizitou Botanical Garden.

After parking the car, just realise that the entrance to the botanical garden is over the other side of Xianghu Park. Since we are here, we just leave our car and walk through Xianghu Park to get to the botanical garden. I have no idea why this park was called Xianghu (香湖）, which means fragrant lake. Perhaps there are  lots of flower that will produce nice fragrance?

We need to cross over an canal to get to the entrance of the botanical garden. I believe this area is the back mangrove before the development as the water flow below the bridge isn't very clear and have a mild stench that usually found in mangrove area. What could we possibly find here?

There is a nice sculpture in the garden though.

So happy to finally see some movement in the canal. First is this Little egret.

 Follow by lots of Eurasian Moorhen.

Then I spotted this pair of Wood Sandpiper & Common Sandpiper walking side by side.

I was like hit a jackpot!! There are Greater Painted-snipe nicely camouflage on top of the rocks!

There are more of them! Both male & female. Greater Painted-snipe is the only bird that I knew that the female is having a brighter colour than the male.

With such a rare bird found, we really can't judge a book by it's cover! Who will expect to find them here? With this rare gems found, we saw more birds in the garden - first a Black Bulbul

 Follow by Black-naped Monarch

 Follow the call, 2 Gray Treepie was spotted.

 Follow by the Brown Shrike

A common but I didn't see them the last few days at higher altitude. Good to see this Eurasian Tree Sparrow too.

Just before we exit the garden, there are few Mallard.

When we arrived at the Pizitou Botanical Garden, the staff told us that the park is closing soon. So, we just go one round but no new birds species found. We call it a day and move to check in to our hotel. Night market a head and can't wait for tomorrow program!