On April 14, 2024, we, the “Bird Caring Line” Working Group of the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation(CBCGDF) took the high-speed train from Beijing, passing through three provinces, and arrived in Jinhua City, Zhejiang province. After staying one night in Jinhua, the next day we took the road and drove for more than half an hour to Lanxi County, which is also the destination of this trip. There will be a Bird Caring Week event at a local rural school.
This journey all the way south, from the fertile dry land of the North China Plain to the hills and mountains of the southeast, the scenery on both sides of the railway becomes more and more lush as the mountains and rivers increase.
(Mountains and paddy fields in Zhejiang province.©CBCGDF media)
On April 15th, we arrived at Lanxi. This is a county-level city located in central and western Zhejiang and administered by Jinhua City. The name, which is very characteristic of a water town, comes from a local river flowing from north to south, which is now called Lanjiang. Approximately in the center of Lanxi’s jurisdiction, the Lanjiang River intersects with the Qujiang River in the southwest and the Jinhua River in the southeast. The low-lying terrain in the basin gives Lanxi a relatively flat landform and fields, but it also makes it vulnerable to flood disasters.
“Sometimes you will find that many villagers’ houses here will also have a door on the second floor to facilitate entry and rescue after the flood.” Mr. BAO Tao, a local staff member of the State Grid Lanxi Power Supply Company,“Everyone is used to being flooded frequently, and the villagers won’t store anything valuable on the first floor during the rainy season.”
(Green trees surround residential houses, and egrets live on the branches. © State Grid Jinhua Power Supply Company)
Led by Bao Tao, the group came to Xiawang Primary School in Youbu Town, Lanxi City. This is a central primary school surrounded by paddy fields and has more than 100 students. Here, we will launch a Bird Caring Week event with the theme of “Improving the Protection System and Protecting the Migration of Migratory Birds”. This event is part of the “Bird Caring Line” jointly organized by the CBCGDF and the State Grid Public Welfare Foundation. It is also a science popularization on bird aring and bird protection for local children. Here, Ms. LIU Hong, local lawyer together with our group gave the children a science popularization class on egrets, biodiversity, and wildlife protection laws. The Lanxi City Power Supply Company also distributed bird-caring and bird-protecting brochures to the students.
After the school activities, we went to a habitat of egrets. Bao told us that 3 years ago, a large group of more than 8,000 egrets consisting of more than 10 populations once stayed in Youbu Nature Reserve, and then stopped for a period of time. Maybe because there are so many people watching birds, the egrets stopped coming because they were afraid of the noise. Now they are back again, inhabiting the edge of the reserve.
(Egrets on the branches are like snow dotted with clouds on the green mountains. © State Grid Jinhua Power Supply Company)
Egrets are called environmental monitoring birds. They are very sensitive to atmospheric conditions and water quality. If the ecological environment of a place is not good, there is no way to keep egrets. Obviously, Lanxi was recognized by egrets.
(A pair of egrets in the branches.© State Grid Jinhua Power Supply Company)
Bao Tao said, “The egret doesn’t look big when it’s standing on a branch, but when it flies and spreads its wings, it becomes a big one. If there are too many birds, it’s easy to have an impact on the power transmission lines, and sometimes they will hit the transmission lines. Bird droppings are also corrosive, and nesting on transmission towers can also cause damage to transmission equipment, tripping, etc. “
(© State Grid Jinhua Power Supply Company)
The power grid is the guarantee of people’s livelihood, and even a few households living deep in the mountains must have transmission lines to pass through. In areas with many birds, bird line conflicts are inevitable. Bao Tao added, “We used to use waste wires to build artificial nests for them on electric towers, hoping to guide the egrets to build nests without affecting the equipment. However, the artificial nests were too high at the beginning and were funnel-shaped, and egrets don’t like it. Later we observed that egrets prefer to build their nests in trees three meters above the ground, so now the artificial nest has been lowered and its shape has been improved, getting closer and closer to the shape of an upside-down straw hat. Some egrets will use it directly, instead of building their own houses.”
(A staff of the State Grid is installing an artificial bird-attracting rack. © State Grid Jinhua Power Supply Company)
Reporter: Daisy
Checked by Sara
Editor: Daisy
Contact: v10@cbcgdf.org; +8617319454776
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