Bird watching in Beijing
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Bird watching through binoculars. Photos: Liu Qin (above) and Wang Zhou (below) |
My friend and I managed to arrive at the meeting place around 7:45 am, just a minute before the scheduled departure, only to find that we two were not alone in braving the cold for a bit of ornithological observation. The bus was almost full of some 30 bird watching zealots, all equipped with professional cameras, telephoto lenses, binoculars and even telescopes. "At least, I won't be the only one disappointed later," I thought with a sense of mild relief.
On the road to Shidu, Mr. Gao Wu, the director and teacher of our bird watching trip, gave us a briefing about our stops and what kinds of birds we could expect to see. "Black storks in Beijing mainly live along the river valleys of lower mountains in Fangshan, Mentougou, Yanqing, Huairou and Miyun areas. They are our major targets in this trip," he explained. "And our destination, Shidu, is in fact made up of many stream crossings, all of which belong to the Juma River basin in Fangshan."
Near 10 am, the bus halted at our first stop, Sandu. Fortunately, it hadn't snowed there the night before; luck was with us.
After setting up the equipment, a shout went out: "Whistling swan!" The rest of us eagerly looked in the direction indicated by that person's finger.
One snow-white swan was leisurely swimming on the stream. Looking through my borrowed binoculars, I could clearly watch this elegant avian creature stretching her wings to fl y along the water's surface. It was my first time to see a wild swan flying in a natural space. With the aid of another's telescope, I was able to take a closer look at the now-settled whistling swan. "Her nose is yellow!" I proclaimed in an excited, if somewhat unprofessional assessment.
Some birdwatchers wanted to move forward for a closer look, but Gao Wu stopped them. "Swans are quite shy. If we go too near, she will fl y away." The discovery of the whistling swan was so encouraging that everybody forgot the bitter cold. We stayed outside for almost 30 minutes until the swan disappeared into the sky.
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