Species Spotlight

Species Spotlight: Taiwan Barwing

November 21, 2025 by Kai Pflug No Comments

The “Diet and Foraging” Section for the Taiwan Barwing in the HBW makes it sound clinical:

“Mostly arthropods such as beetle larvae (Coleoptera), other insects and their larvae … Creeps among epiphytic growths and along branches, rummages among dead leaves, probes moss and pulls apart lichen in search of food, craning around branches and clinging to their undersides. Beetle larvae obtained by probing bark of trunks and branches.”

But for those arthropods, it is an utterly terrifying experience, as this testimonial confirms:

“I don’t know why I’m telling this. Maybe because the tree is too quiet now, and the silence presses on you until you have to speak. Or maybe because I’m the only one left who can.

It began with a rustle—nothing unusual, nothing threatening. And then the world split open. A storm of wings crashed into our tree, and the light vanished behind them. Taiwan Barwings. Not birds—catastrophe with feathers.

They descended on us the way fire descends on dry grass: fast, greedy, unstoppable. You didn’t see them hunting; you just saw what was left. My aunt didn’t even have time to scream. Others did, and I still hear those sounds when the wind moves through the branches like it’s trying to remember them.

There was no running. No hiding. They probed every crevice, every curled leaf, every place we thought was safe. I watched familiar faces vanish between beaks. I watched legs twitching after the bodies were gone. I watched the ground below turn into a graveyard that no one would ever tend.

The worst part wasn’t the dying. It was the waiting—knowing you were next, feeling the air pressure shift as one of them landed close, tasting the fear of a dozen others just as trapped as you.

And then, as abruptly as it began, it stopped. The flock lifted off in a single terrible wave, leaving the tree to sag under the weight of what it had seen. We, the few who crawled out from the cracks they somehow missed, didn’t congratulate each other. There was nothing to celebrate. Luck feels obscene when everyone you love is gone.

I don’t know where the Barwings went next. I only know they will land somewhere, and another tree will learn what we learned: The horror always ends—but only because the monsters move on.

Photos taken at Alishan, Taiwan, November 2025

Written by Kai Pflug
Kai has lived in Shanghai for more than 21 years. He only started birding after moving to China, so he is far more familiar with Chinese birds than the ones back in his native Germany. As a birder, he considers himself strictly average and tries to make up for it with photography, which he shares on a separate website. Alas, most of the photos are pretty average as well. He hopes that few clients of his consulting firm—focused on China’s chemical industry—ever find this blog, as it might raise questions about his professional priorities. Much of his time is spent either editing posts for 10,000 Birds or cleaning the litter boxes of his numerous indoor cats. He occasionally considers writing a piece comparing the two activities.