This bird has something to do with the brothel madam

In the past few days, three great bustards came to Tongzhou District, Beijing, attracting many people to watch them.

What's there to see in this bald bird?

Another close-up:

The Great Bustard is a national first-class protected animal.

Image source: wiki

Let’s not talk about what this bird looks like, you may not even be able to pronounce its name. But if you say “brothel madam”, will you be excited? ?

This bird has something to do with the brothel madam

This bird is actually related to the madam. "Madam" refers to the woman who managed prostitutes in ancient brothels. How did the bird get such a name?

There is a saying that the ancients believed that there were only female bustards but no male birds, and that the female bustard was the wife of all birds, and she would give birth to the child of whoever she mates with.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, a man named Song Quan wrote a book called "Mr. Danqiu's Discussions on Opera", in which he began to associate the old prostitute with the old prostitute. He wrote in the book: "The old prostitute is called a prostitute. The prostitute is like a goose but larger, without hind toes and with tiger stripes. He is fond of sex and never gets tired of it. All birds will come to him if they want him."

Of course these claims are false!

The males of the Great Bustard are larger and the females are smaller, so the ancients may have mistakenly believed that there were no male bustards.

And during the breeding season, it is not the female bird that "shows off", but the male bird. When showing off to a mate, the male bird raises his head and neck, and the feathers on his neck also stand up, and the tail feathers turn up, revealing the white feathers around his hips, and the wings stretch out downward and backward. I can't think of any sexy words to describe this posture. You can see it for yourself.

How about it, my butt looks nice, right?

Image source see watermark

This seems to be telling the female bird: Look at me, I don’t have diarrhea, I’m very clean and healthy.

Here's a close-up from the female bird's perspective:

I know, I know, don’t point it at me!

Image source see watermark

Moreover, the male Great Bustard will keep chasing the female, as if to say: Is my butt clean? Come on, praise me, no bird's butt is cleaner than mine!

Don't come over here. Please don't come over here.

This kind of courtship display behavior of the great bustard appears in the large open grassland breeding grounds on the border between China, Mongolia and Russia. Their traditional wintering grounds are in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River. The place where I went to watch the birds this time was a cornfield in Tongzhou, Beijing. This is a wintering ground that was only discovered five years ago.

The Great Bustard is pecking at corn in a harvested cornfield, but is very afraid of humans. How afraid are they? You can see how far away we are from each other:

Did you see it?

Although I didn't try to find it on purpose, you probably won't be able to find it. Zoom in and take a look:

Did you see it?

The great bustard was at least three hundred meters away from me, and I even had to use a monocular telescope.

Did you see it this time?

The camera shows a female bird, which spends most of its time standing there, occasionally looking in our direction, as if it is very nervous about the humans 300 meters away. Great bustards are a relatively alert bird, and will raise their heads in alertness at the slightest sign of trouble.

They look big, and are the heaviest flying birds alive today, with the male bird weighing up to 18 kilograms. Great bustards have a lot of meat, and many people have hunted them in history, so they are also known as "ground breasts." Birds like red-crowned cranes and whooper swans that look big are actually not as heavy as them.

Taking off with difficulty

Image source see watermark

The heavier the bird is, the greater the risk of being preyed upon, and therefore the more vigilant it is, and will be discovered when its natural predator appears from a distance.

In ornithology, there is even a research direction related to this - the startle flight distance, which is to measure the minimum distance that birds can tolerate (potential) predators approaching under certain conditions. Simply put, it means "if you get any closer, I will feel unsafe and I will have to fly away." The startle flight distance of sparrows is about two or three meters, that of magpies is about three to five meters, and that of great bustards is about three to five hundred meters.

See bustards every day?

In order not to disturb the bustard and to record its natural state, we did not dare to move much or even speak loudly. After a while, for some reason, the bustard took off, but it landed in an open field not far away. We hurried over to look for it quietly, fearing that we would never see it again.

Look at the background. It's different from the cornfield just now.

When we arrived at the open area, we were surprised to find that there were two other Great Bustards, making a total of three Great Bustards, one male and two females. In fact, in actual observation, it is difficult to see three birds at the same time, because there are always one or two birds hiding in the weeds because of crouching or simple feather color.

When they show their heads, they often lower their heads to peck at food, but because they are far away, covered, and in the weeds, it is impossible to accurately infer what they are eating. It may be overwintering insects or plant seeds. Moreover, the frequency of male birds on alert is significantly higher than that of female birds. In addition to being alert to natural enemies, they may also be alerting other male birds.

In China, more great bustards spend the winter in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, flying farther than these three. The 3,000-kilometer journey from the breeding grounds to the wintering grounds requires the great bustards to rest and “refuel” at multiple migration stopovers.

But the areas they pass through are precisely one of the most densely populated areas in China. The typical migration stopover and wintering grounds of the Great Bustard are open farmland, wasteland or river beaches. Over the past thousands of years, river beaches and wasteland have become less and less, and farmland has become more and more. The advantage is that they can eat scattered rice, but the disadvantage is that there are more people and more dogs.

If the great bustard fails to replenish enough energy at a "gas station", or even if there is no "gas station" at all, how can it fly to the next stop?

Ah, freedom!

Image source see watermark

I recall the first time I saw a great bustard many years ago, in Mongolia, where two great bustards flew low over the boundless prairie. The only trace of human beings, the yurts, were surrounded by the prairie. The great bustards flew over the hills, across the lakes, and disappeared into the endless distance.

Back to the present, the habitat of these three great bustards is surrounded by flowing roads and high-rise buildings under construction. Can they spend this winter here without being disturbed? I hope to see them in this cornfield again next year.

Written and photographed by Wu Haifeng

WeChat Editor | Ah She Shuang

Source | Museum