Babel School in Taiwan

Last week the nature class took place in our community. As we live in the mountains there is plenty of "nature" to see and explore just outside our door. We started the class at home, making small "Christmas trees" out of pine cones. Right after we went out to explore the neighbourhood. Our walk led is down, down, down to the stream and further down along the stream. The path was overgrown as even our family doesn't take it very often (we used to when kids were younger, but now everyone is too lazy).  On the way we encountered quite a few spiders. The next few photos are of a black-and-yellow argiope spider (金珠屬 - pająk z rodziny krzyżakowatych) sucking on a ladybug.  Giant woods spider - Nephilia pilipes - 人面蜘蛛 - Prządka olbrzymia Giant woods spider - view of the abdomen A beetle: Citrus long-horned beetle - Anoplophora chinensis - 星天牛 - Chrząszcz kózkowaty And a few ant nests: ...

 There is a short, only 7km long, and narrow river on the border of Taipei and New Taipei City, where Neihu 內湖 meets Xizhi 汐止. The river is called Neigou 內溝溪 and flows into Keelung River 基隆河.  That is where our nature class took place. The closest MRT station is Donghu 東湖捷運站. The park is located along the narrow stretch of waterway, which at times looks more like a canal than a river.  At the beginning of of our nature class we went through a park called Lohas.  Closer to the water many different kinds of Japanese cherry trees were planted. I can only imagine how beautiful the place looks in springtime. Because of the unusually warm winter, some of the trees were blooming even now. Formosan cherry - Prunus campanulata Prunus taiwaniana Prunus campanulata The river looked more like a canal at the beginning of our walk. We actually walked on the concrete embankment. We could see from there an amazing mosaic on the ot...