In March, the purple chinaberry trees bloom in Qigu, Tainan. it's also the time when black-faced spoonbills leave Taijiang. The Taijiang National Park Headquarters held the “Season of the Black-Faced Spoonbill in Taijiang - One-Kilometer Walk to Bless the Black-Faced Spoonbill on their Way Home” event on March 31. The purpose of the event is to bless them safely on their thousand-mile journey to their breeding grounds in north. We want to invite visitors to go to the Zengwen estuary in Qigu, Taijiang for a one-kilometer walk. Visitors can see flowers and fiddler crabs, learn about the features of the wetland environment of Taijiang, and bless the black-faced spoonbills safely on their way home.
 
Hsieh Wei Sung, the Director of the Taijiang National Park Headquarters, stated that the global census data show that over half of the black-faced spoonbills fly thousand miles to the Taijiang National Park and its surrounding areas in September for wintering. When the purple chinaberry trees at the Zengwen estuary in Taijiang bloom in March, the black-faced spoonbills resting on the north coast of the estuary (primary habitat) will return to their breeding grounds in the north for reproduction. The Taijiang National Park Headquarters hopes that people can visit the Black-Faced Spoonbill Reserve to watch the black-faced spoonbills moulting into their golden breeding plumage, and bless the safe return to their homeland in the north. Therefore, the Headquarter holds the “Season of the Black-Faced Spoonbill in Taijiang - One-Kilometer Walk to Bless the Black-Faced Spoonbill on their Way Home” event. Visitors can cosplay the black-faced spoonbill and make the flying black-faced spoonbill. In this event, we will guide visitors to walk one kilometer from the Black-faced Spoonbill Ecology Exhibition Hall, Endemic Species Research Institute, to the Black-faced Spoonbill Watching Pavilion in the Black-Faced Spoonbill Reserve. During the walk, we will send our blessings to the black-faced spoonbills. In this event, staff of the Headquarter will explain the static illustration in the Black-faced Spoonbill Ecology Exhibition Hall and guide the visitors to the Black-faced Spoonbill Watching Pavilion in the Black-Faced Spoonbill Reserve to obtain the complete knowledge on the black-faced spoonbills and the wetlands in Taijiang. A “Black-faced Spoonbill Pop-up Card DIY” event will be held at 2 pm at the Black-faced Spoonbill Watching Pavilion. We want to use the cards to emphasize that we must protect the land in Taijiang where we live with the creatures here and we hope that the black-faced spoonbills will keep coming to the wetland paradise in Taijiang.
 
A total of 200 spots will be available for the “Season of the Black-Faced Spoonbill in Taijiang - One-Kilometer Walk to Bless the Black-Faced Spoonbill on their Way Home” event. Those interested can sign up for the event on the website of the Office on March 11 at 10 am. To encourage visitors to sign up for the event with family and friends, visitors in groups of three can get a Black-Faced Spoonbill Fat Mug. Visitors in groups of three and above can get one more for every two more visitors. A group of five can get two Black-Faced Spoonbill Fat Mugs, a group of seven can get three, and so on. To encourage families of three generations to visit the Taijiang National Park, such families signing up for the event can get one more Black-Faced Spoonbill Fat Mug. Visitors can go to the Black-faced Spoonbill Watching Pavilion in Qigu to join the “Black-faced Spoonbill Pop-up Card DIY” event on the day at 2 pm.
 
Note: Please wear windproof, sunblock or warm long-sleeve shirts and pants and a hat, and bring enough water, if necessary for weather conditions.