As spring arrives and flowers bloom, migratory birds return north. Please check out this bird watching guide in Beijing.

Spring is here, flowers are blooming, and migratory birds are returning north. Many migratory birds will stop in Beijing during their migration, and meet many bird-watching enthusiasts. Let's go into the world of Beijing birds and find out.

Written by Guo Geng (Researcher at Beijing Biodiversity Conservation Research Center)

Editor/Zhao Ling Photography/Guo Gengding Lin

New Media Editor/Li Yunfeng

Are there birds in Beijing? Of course! The diversity of birds in Beijing is remarkable all over the world, ranking second among the capitals of G20 countries, second only to Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. Among my many bird lovers, there are several foreigners who have settled in Beijing for many years as "bird guides" (guides for bird watching and bird photography).

▲Foreign bird watchers in the bird watching community (Photo: Guo Geng)

Why do many bird lovers from all over the world come to Beijing to watch birds? It is because Beijing’s birds attract worldwide attention!

Beijing accounts for less than 0.2% of China's land area, but it is home to 79.17% of China's bird orders, 68.32% of its families, and 32.68% of its species. In recent years, bird lovers have counted as many as 500 bird species in Beijing.

Beijing is known as the "Beijing Bay" and is like a treasure bowl. It has been home to many birds since ancient times, which is determined by Beijing's geographical location and topographic ecology. To the west are the Yanshan Mountains and the Taihang Mountains, with the Yongding River, Chaobai River, and Juma River running through it. The terrain difference is large, the habitats are diverse, and the vegetation is diverse, presenting various ecological environments of mountains, waters, forests, fields, lakes, grasses, and sands... Ecological diversity is the basis of species diversity. "Only when there are phoenix trees will there be phoenixes" is the reason.

Bird habitat patterns

Birds can be divided into resident birds, migratory birds, and traveling birds according to whether they fly away or not. Not all birds migrate, and according to the type of residence, they can be roughly divided into:

01. Resident birds (birds that stay in a certain place and do not leave in all seasons)

02. Migratory birds (birds that fly away with the change of seasons, including summer migratory birds, winter migratory birds, etc.)

03. Migrant birds (passing through a place but not breeding or overwintering there)

04. Lost Bird (a bird that accidentally came here because it got lost)

05. Wandering bird (a bird that flies and wanders to a certain place at random)

Three-quarters of the world's 10,000-plus bird species are migrating; 10 billion birds fly around in the sky every year; among my country's nearly 1,500 bird species, 560 species migrate in an orderly manner in a year. Scientists used to track the migration patterns of birds by "ringing", but now they have more advanced satellite positioning methods to understand the migration patterns.

▲Beijing is located on the East Asia-Australia route of the world's nine major bird migration routes

There are about 500 bird species in Beijing, including about 130 resident birds, more than 200 migratory birds, 60 to 70 summer migratory birds, and more than 30 winter migratory birds.

Nowadays, bird protection has become a trend. Many caged birds that were commonly used in the past, such as the thrush, mynah bird, sunbird, lark, skylark, and dot-throated bushbird... have been listed as national protected birds. Breeding, transporting, and selling them are all illegal.

Why should we protect birds? It all starts with the value of birds.

Seed dispersal is probably the most important ecological function of birds. In forests, birds help spread seeds for up to 92% of trees. Some tree species even rely on a few specific birds, such as the yew tree and the malaria-fighting cardinal, which rely on hornbills and crested pheasants. The seed dispersal function of jays can save thousands of dollars in labor costs.

In addition, although bird pollen dispersal is not as common as seed dispersal, according to research, birds are believed to pollinate 3% to 5% of the world's more than 1,500 crops or medicinal plants, three-quarters of which cannot self-pollinate. For some economic plants such as eucalyptus, loquat, silver birch, and kapok, birds may provide better pollination services than bees, especially in winter.

At the same time, birds can effectively reduce the intensity of aphid outbreaks and reduce insect pests in agricultural and forestry crops such as apples, broccoli, coffee, corn, cabbage, grapes, oil palm, etc.

Most passerine birds are insectivorous. If there are fewer birds in nature, insects will proliferate and become a pest. If there are too many insects, pesticides will be used. Too much pesticide will lead to environmental hormone poisoning, which will harm human reproduction and health. It will "start with hurting birds and end with hurting oneself"!

Six major ecological groups of birds in Beijing

Birds can be divided into six major ecological groups: waterfowl, wading birds, raptors, climbing birds, land birds, and songbirds.

"Two orioles sing in the green willows, and a line of egrets fly in the blue sky." Orioles are songbirds, and egrets are wading birds; "Thousands of miles of orioles sing, green reflects red" and "The green silk is weaker than the oriole." Willow warblers, commonly known as "little willow warblers," have dozens of species and are typical songbirds.

▲Female yellow-bellied tit (Photo: Ding Lin)

▲Male yellow-bellied tit (Photo: Ding Lin)

As a layman, you can take a quick look at the common birds around us: the common waterfowl in Beijing include mallards and little grebes; the wading birds include herons, egrets, white-rumped snipes, and moorhens; the birds of prey include kestrels and long-eared owls...

▲Little Grebe (Photo: Ding Lin)

I recently saw the Short-eared Owl, a nocturnal bird of prey, at the Dongjiao Wetland Park in Chaoyang District, Beijing.

▲The short-eared owl photographed by the author in Dongjiao Wetland Park, Chaoyang District (Photo: Guo Geng)

In addition, common land birds in Beijing include spotted doves and ring-necked pheasants. Among them, ring-necked pheasants are distributed in various places, but the rings on their necks vary from place to place: the ring-necked pheasants in northwest China have no rings, the rings in northeast China are large, and the rings in east China are broken in front.

▲Red-necked Thrush (Photo: Ding Lin)

Common songbirds in Beijing include tree sparrows, white wagtails, gray starlings, white-headed bulbuls, mynas, magpies, gray magpies, small-billed crows, great tits, and house martin. In his poem "Poems about Swallows to Liu Sou", the Tang Dynasty poet Bai Juyi made a detailed observation and description of house martin: "There are two swallows on the beam, a male and a female, carrying mud between two rafters, and giving birth to four chicks in one nest."

▲Tree Sparrow (Photo: Ding Lin)

In addition, there is another small bird that is common in Beijing in winter: the wren. As early as the Western Jin Dynasty, Zhang Hua, a native of Daxing, wrote a long poem called "Ode to the Wren" in his book "Records of Natural History". The birds discovered by British Robert Swinhoe in Beijing include black woodpeckers, mountain babblers, greater sandpipers, Beijing swifts, blunt-winged reed warblers, etc., all of which were included in his masterpiece "Catalogue of Birds of China" published in 1863.

We often regard the swift as the representative bird species of Beijing, but in fact it is a subspecies. There is another bird that is unique to China and the "most Beijing" bird, that is the mountain thrush.

▲ Mountain Babbler - the "most Beijing" bird

In addition, the common climbing birds in Beijing include the Great Spotted Woodpecker, the Star-headed Woodpecker, the Hoopoe, the Common Kingfisher, etc. The well-known "Single is so miserable" is the climbing bird Cuckoo. There are also common swifts, including the Beijing subspecies: Beijing House Swift, which are all climbing birds. The mascot of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, "Nini", is based on the Beijing Swift.

▲Grey-headed Woodpecker (Photo: Ding Lin)

Learning bird watching is like getting a ticket to the natural theater, which is free for life. As long as you want, you can go to the wild stage at any time to enjoy the wonderful performances of birds.

Watch birds without locking them up, photograph birds without shooting them

As early as 1999, I participated in the International Bird Watching Competition held in Beidaihe with Professor Gao Wu of Beijing Normal University, a professional mentor of our Beijing Bird Watching Organization. This was the first international bird watching competition held in inland China.

At that time, the British Wild Wing team won the first place in the group with an excellent result of 183 species. The first place in the individual competition was shared by Hannu Yamus from Finland and Paul Hout from the UK; Qiao Zhenzhong from Beidaihe Banding Station won the second place. Our Chinese team, composed of Friends of Nature (FON), won the special group award with a score of 83 species. At that time, I had the honor to speak on stage on behalf of the Chinese team.

I still remember that our foreign aid "bird guide" Dr. Martin from the UK was bird watching when he saw someone setting sticky nets in the mountains. He angrily walked up to the bird catcher and said, "I love your Chinese birds, you should love them even more!" Unfortunately, we were accustomed to this phenomenon at that time.

▲The large bird cage designed by the author for people to think in other people’s shoes (Photo: Guo Geng)

Therefore, please let us call together - if you love birds, don't lock them up, please come and watch them, don't shoot them, you can take pictures of them. In this regard, there is a similar motto in the West: Please take pictures with a camera, don't shoot with a gun (Shoot, with camera, without gun)! Chinese and English, the same idea, both have their own merits.

▲The author's car shooting action is to minimize the impact on the bird (Source: Guo Geng)

▲Still from the American movie "Bird Watching Year"

Chaoyang bird watching, I'm waiting for you!

So, what birds can be seen in Chaoyang District, Beijing, which is one of the most prosperous areas? Don't underestimate it. Chaoyang District not only has the Olympic Forest Park, but also the Dongjiao Wetland Park, Dongba Country Park, Majiawan Wetland Park, Laojuntang Park... They form a green barrier and provide a suitable environment for birds to live.

Recently, I saw short-eared owls in Dongjiao Wetland Park, white-tailed sea eagles in Chaobai River, great bustards in Taihu Lake in the sub-center, and swans in Nanhaizi. Qin Guan, a poet in the Song Dynasty, wrote, "The thatched eaves in the deep alleys are getting longer, and I lie down to watch the flowers and birds competing for the morning sun." This is a vivid portrayal of my nearby bird watching, enjoying the ecology, and feeling happy.

▲Four little swans photographed by the author in Nanhaizi (Photographer: Guo Geng)

So what are you waiting for? Spring is here, let’s go out into the great outdoors and watch, recognize and love birds!

Produced by: Science Central Kitchen

Produced by: Beijing Science and Technology News | Beijing Science and Technology Media

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