Huh? Ducks can climb trees...

"Ding Dong Ding Dong..." The spring breeze greened the willows, and the mud swallows cut the spring waves. The ice and snow that had accumulated for a winter melted the purity of nature and played the guitar of spring. With the flying of willow hairs, the accumulated ice surface was in the shape of flowers. Wild leeks, mountain celery, bracken, prickly ash buds..., the delicious spring freshness of every mountain and valley, stretched out their tender little hands, sucked the moisture of the spring rain, and danced with the warm breeze of spring. Changbai Mountain - the girl who has returned to spring. Flocks of wild geese, flocks of swans and wild ducks, fluttered across northern Jiangsu, across the west coast of Qingdao, across the Shandong Peninsula and the Liaodong Peninsula, and flew back in groups!

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Careful people will find that among the huge wild duck tribe, there are occasionally a few strange ducks that are very different from other ducks. They have long and obvious crests, double crests, long and narrow beaks, and red color. Males and females are different in color. The male has black head, upper back and shoulder feathers, white lower back, waist and tail coverts, white wing mirrors and lower body, and black scales on both sides; the female has a brown head and neck, with a crest. The throat is light brown, the upper body is gray-brown, and the chest is white with brown scales. There are fish scales on both sides of the body, and there are double crests on the head, just like the flower feathers on the heads of Qing officials.

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——This is the amazing Chinese merganser! When you look at her graceful and charming appearance, you will be shocked from the bottom of your heart that she is a fairy bird! The Chinese merganser is a living fossil of birds that is more precious than the giant panda. She is a bird of the genus Merganser in the family Anatidae in the order Anseriformes.

It is said that she has been surviving since the Tertiary Ice Age, and there are less than 40 of them left in the country. So rare! Yes, her rarity is also related to her living habits. The Chinese merganser has extremely demanding requirements for the living environment, and there cannot be any pollution. It has been found before at the mouth of Fenghe River on the west coast of Qingdao. But her breeding ground is mainly in the Changbai Mountain area and Lesser Khingan Mountains in the northeast. What is even more surprising is that her nest is not built in a place with dense water and grass, but in a tree hole more than ten meters above the ground. It turns out that she is a duck living in a tree!

In fact, this is not surprising at all. The tree holes in the primeval forest are quieter and more refreshing, and are a blessed land without any pollution. They lay an egg here almost every day, and when they have accumulated 14 to 16 eggs, they begin to hatch. When the ducklings grow up a little, the mother duck will take them to learn how to swim, forage and fly. But this is precisely the most difficult time for the Chinese merganser to survive. Falling from a tree hole more than ten meters high, the consequences are really sad, and I dare not even imagine it.

Even so, they still survive tenaciously to this day. When early winter comes, they no longer miss the red leaves all over the mountains and the upcoming snowy world, and rush to the south with other wild ducks to find quiet rivers and streams to escape the cold winter. Therefore, on our west coast, in the season of winter to spring, we can sometimes glimpse the graceful figure of the Chinese merganser.

[Science Tips] The Chinese merganser is a species of wild duck unique to China and the oldest wild duck in China. It has survived on Earth for more than 10 million years and has become a relict animal like a living fossil. The Chinese merganser has been listed as EN (endangered) in the "Red List of Endangered Species of the World Conservation Union". At the same time, as a national first-class protected animal, it has also been included in the "National Key Protected Wildlife List" in my country.

Chinese name: Chinese merganser

Other name: Scaly-sided Merganser

Scientific name: Mergus squamatus

Family Anatidae

Genus: Merganser

Species: Scaly-sided Merganser

Protection Level

Endangered (EN) IUCN standard, China's "National Key Protected Wildlife List" Level 1, rare species, I conservation category