Dawn of Fushoushan Farm, Taichung City, May 2025

The trail near campsite at Fushoushan Farm, Taichung City, 6:00 a.m., May 31, 2025.

Fushoushan Farm was a place I only visited after I started doing field recordings. Before that, I had only heard people say how beautiful the place was.

The farm sits at an elevation of about 2,100–2,600 meters, and the trails near the camping area are around 2,500 meters.

I stayed at the campsite the night before. Since it’s a popular tourist destination, I knew I wouldn’t have any chance to record during the daytime, so I set out around 4 a.m., while it was still dark. During this season, the frogs are very active. When I walked past the campsite and around Lanyin Pond, I had to keep my flashlight pointed at the ground to avoid accidentally stepping on frogs hopping everywhere.

The soundscape around Lanyin Pond was lively with frog calls, but I wanted to record the dawn chorus, so I headed toward the trail. I reached an open area surrounded by pine forest. It was almost 5 a.m., so I quickly scouted for a suitable recording spot where I could hear the frogs from Lanyin Pond and hopefully catch some birdsong as well.

The wind was strong that morning (I didn’t measure the wind speed), and the gusts through the pine forest created a noticeable low-frequency noise. I placed the microphone on a small tripod close to the ground to reduce the wind noise, but it didn’t seem to help much.

Mornings in the mountains are particularly cold. After about an hour and a half of recording, my clothes were soaked from the early morning dew.

As with many scenic spots in Taiwan, starting from a little after 5 a.m., the sounds of hardworking workers and tourists driving cars and scooters could be heard from time to time. I kept only the segments without human-made noise, though unfortunately, many of the most interesting parts had to be removed because of it.

Among the birds recorded, the one that left the deepest impression on me was the Yellow-bellied Bush Warbler. The last time I heard this species was at Cuifeng Lake in Taipingshan, also at mid-high elevation, but the number of warblers at the Fushoushan campsite was much higher. You could hear a whole group calling intermittently—first climbing in pitch, then dropping in a series of descending notes. Their calls are extremely distinctive.