the latest beijing bird watching "green book" is out! there are these stories behind the wild bird illustrations
2024-09-16
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recently, a new generation of "beijing common wild birds illustrated book" was published. this book was created by a team of senior ornithologists and ecological photographers and was carefully compiled over several years. it encourages people to go out of their homes, walk into nature, discover with their eyes, and feel with their hearts the beauty of the ecology around them, and jointly protect our beautiful homeland. let us explore the wonderful world of beijing's wild birds together and contribute to building a beautiful future of harmonious coexistence between man and nature.
shuxiang talked with li zhaonan, the editor-in-chief of "illustrated guide to common wild birds in beijing", current director of the beijing zoological society, and teacher at the dongcheng district youth science and technology museum, and shared the story behind the writing of this book.
beijing bird watching map designed by li zhaonan and wang ruiqing illustrated by yang sen
illustrated guide to common wild birds in beijing
edited by li zhaonan, wang ruiqing and li qiang, machinery industry press
shuxiang: can you share your personal bird watching story?
li zhaonan:i grew up in the alleys outside deshengmen in xicheng district, and was exposed to the plants, fish, insects, birds and animals around me. when i was a child, there were people raising birds in the yard, so my initial observation actually started from the cage. of course, at that time, i could also see woodpeckers on the trees and swifts flying high in the sky in the yard... this was the enlightenment of my interest. the first time i heard about "bird watching" was from my high school biology teacher. after the college entrance examination, i participated in the first real bird watching activity, which was a bird survey organized by the friends of nature bird watching group at the temple of heaven in july 2009. although it was my first time to participate in the activity, they said that i was not a "novice" and was considered a "skilled" bird watcher, because i had mastered some basic bird identification at that time, and could also help everyone identify some plants and insects. and soon "got into the pit" and entered the crazy bird watching stage. in the summer vacation after the college entrance examination, i appeared in various parks in beijing almost every day.
shuxiang: beijing has a rich variety of bird species. is there anything special about them?
li zhaonan:beijing is located at the northwest end of the north china plain, surrounded by two major mountain ranges. to the north is the jundu mountain of the yanshan mountains, and to the west is the xishan mountain, the remnant of the taihang mountains. the two mountain ranges intersect in the guangou area of changping. forming a semicircular mountain bay that spreads to the southeast, american geologist bailey willis described this semi-enclosed small plain as the "beijing bay" in his 1907 book. in addition, beijing has five major water systems: the yongding river, chaobai river, beiyun river, daqing river, and jiyun river. it is under the scouring of these five rivers that this alluvial plain in front of the mountains, the beijing plain, was formed.
beijing has a land area of 16,400 square kilometers, accounting for 0.17% of my country's land area, but the number of bird species recorded so far is as high as more than 500, which is more than 1/3 of the number of bird species in the country. why beijing can have such a wide variety of birds is inseparable from the complex and diverse environment and geographical location of beijing: first of all, from the perspective of animal flora, beijing belongs to the palearctic, but there are also many infiltrations of oriental bird species and the appearance of some widespread species. according to the chinese animal geographical division, beijing belongs to the north china region. the taihang mountains in the west divide it into the loess plateau sub-region and the huanghuai plain sub-region; the grassland sub-region close to the mongolian-xinjiang region in the northwest of beijing; the mountainous area in the northeast is connected to the changbai mountain sub-region in the northeast region. beijing is located on the dividing line of the four sub-regions of these three regions, and bird species in all major regions and sub-regions have infiltrated. secondly, beijing is located on the east asian-australasian migratory bird route, so the migratory bird species that migrate through the country in spring and autumn every year are particularly rich, even reaching half of the bird species recorded in beijing. beijing is also adjacent to the bohai bay, so some marine birds occasionally come to beijing. finally, we have to mention the observer effect. beijing has a large number of bird watchers, and it is their contribution that the number of bird species distributed in beijing has increased year by year in the past 20 years, and now has reached more than 520 species. this is by no means an overnight achievement, but the result of hundreds of years of continuous accumulation by generations of chinese and foreign scholars and bird watchers. but this will still not be the end of the number of bird species in beijing. with the natural spread caused by climate change and other reasons, more stray birds have been observed and recorded, and the increase in bird species due to changes in classification, perhaps in the next ten years, the total number of bird species in beijing may exceed 550.
shuxiang: can you tell us about the history of bird research in beijing?
li zhaonan:the investigation and research of birds in beijing began in the 1950s. several scholars from beijing normal university have conducted research on birds in beijing. in 1988, mr. cai qikan of beijing natural history museum published "beijing birds". based on more than 4,000 specimens collected over the years and previous works, the book included a total of 344 bird species recorded in beijing, including 43 new records. among the new records, there are only three non-passerine species: hawk cuckoo, noisy cuckoo, and white spoonbill. the rest are all from passerines, including baoxing song thrush, blue song thrush, bull-headed shrike, which are more common during the migration period, as well as very rare records such as brown rock pipit, white-winged crossbill, yellow bunting, and dark gray cuckoo. the publication of "beijing birds" is the first systematic sorting of birds in beijing, which can be regarded as an important symbol of beijing bird research. more than 30 years later, we once again reviewed the contents of the "beijing birds". some rare bird species at that time are now quite common in beijing, such as egrets, mandarin ducks, and crested fish dogs. however, some bird species that were numerous at that time are now hard to find, which makes people sigh when reading it today. in 2014, mr. zhao xinru of beijing normal university edited the "beijing birds atlas (2nd edition)", which increased the number of bird species in beijing to 448. by 2021, the beijing municipal bureau of landscape and greening issued the "beijing terrestrial wildlife list (2023)" (birds), which once again increased the number of bird species in beijing to 515.
shuxiang: so how did bird watching and bird appraisal come about?
li zhaonan:on october 5, 1996, the first public bird watching activity in mainland china was held at jiufeng mountain in the western suburbs of beijing, organized and planned by friends of nature and led by mr. gao wu of capital normal university. 1996 is also recognized as the first year of bird watching in mainland china. in 2001, the beijing wild birds atlas, edited by mr. gao wu, was officially published, which included 276 common bird species in beijing. in 2010, when i was a sophomore in college, i had the honor of participating in the compilation of the beijing common wild birds atlas, edited by mr. gao wu. this book was published in 2014 and included 315 bird species. this book has become a popular bird watching atlas because of its excellent content, green cover, and pocket book size. everyone calls it the "green treasure book" or "little green book".
shuxiang: from bird watching to participating in the compilation of the beijing bird atlas, what are your experiences?
li zhaonan:i bought my first bird-watching handbook in the beijing book building during the summer after the college entrance examination. i remember it was called "field identification handbook for common birds". it was a booklet that inspired me to watch birds. at that time, there were some bird-watching forums on the internet. i would read the identification sections of all the bird forums every day, and i was able to accumulate a certain amount of knowledge in a relatively short period of time. when i was a sophomore, i participated in the compilation of the previous generation of atlases. at that time, i was the youngest member of the editorial committee, only 19 years old, and was responsible for the compilation of flycatchers and corvids.
book town: as the editor-in-chief of the third generation of "green book", what new challenges have you encountered this time?
li zhaonan:it has been ten years since mr. gao wu compiled the 2014 version of the "green book". this decade has also seen a spurt in bird watching activities in beijing and even across the country. more and more bird watchers have appeared in parks and wilderness at a speed visible to the naked eye, and it is they who have discovered many new records of bird distribution. in addition, in the past ten years, the classification status and residence time of many birds have undergone major changes, and the text and photos in the atlas need to be updated urgently. as a result, the third generation of the "green book" came into being. this book adds 101 new bird species compared to the previous generation of atlases, and includes 416 bird species. the selected photos are as much as possible bird ecology photos taken locally in beijing, which to a certain extent reflects the habitat of birds in beijing.
shuxiang: i noticed that in addition to the text and photo introductions of each bird species in the book, the locations where they appear are pointed out on the beijing map, as well as the specific time when the bird can be observed. does this require any tedious work?
li zhaonan:this book took more than three years from the first editorial meeting in 2021 to its publication this year. the distribution maps and time bars of each bird species you mentioned were created by the three authors one by one, based on our practical experience, some data collected by us personally, and some data from recording centers, which were then verified and corrected one by one. this workload is actually quite large and very laborious.
shuxiang: what advice do you have for beginners in bird watching?
li zhaonan:i am currently working in an educational unit, and i have been focusing on the classification and distribution of native species in beijing. as a metropolis, beijing may seem to have nothing to do with wild animals, and people may think that they have to go to the mountains and wilderness to see wild animals. in fact, the species abundance in beijing is very high, not only birds, but also fish, mammals, amphibians and reptiles, etc. as long as you observe carefully, you will slowly find that they are actually around you. you don’t have to go far away. you can observe dozens of wild birds in the parks and communities around you every year. now many bird watchers are pursuing bird species, but in addition to bird species, you can also make behavioral observations and pay attention to the relationship between birds and the environment. bird watching is a window for the public to understand and observe nature. we live in the same city with many wild animals. we might as well learn more about the wild animals in our hometown, see if they are doing well, and plan and build our city from the perspective of wild animals.
