Ice and Snow Covered Rivers and Grounds in Northern China. Most Migratory Birds have Flown South｜CBCGDF Bird Status Bulletin

If they don't want to freeze and starve to death in the wind and snow, migratory birds can only migrate long distances to the south. Since mid-December 2023, China's largest winter cold wave has invaded from north to south. Wherever the big cold wave goes, temperatures have plummeted, forcing migratory birds that go to the south to spend the winter to speed up their migration. At present, most of them have basically reached relatively warm wintering habitats.

The big cold wave around the winter solstice (December 22) is caused by the rapid movement of strong cold air from the Arctic or Siberia. In the short term, It swept from Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Ningxia and other provinces in northern China to the North China Plain, the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and cross the Nanling Barrier. In the north, the temperature in the coldest Mohe area once reached minus 52.3 degrees. In the northern wilderness, dripping water turns into ice, and rivers, lakes and swamps have been frozen by ice and snow. When cold weather lasts for a long time, local wildlife will suffer from food shortages to varying degrees, and birds are no exception. Except for a few resident birds, most migratory birds had quickly left the north before the big cold wave.

In Hunchun City, Jilin, thousands of migratory birds that originally stayed in the harvested rice fields have disappeared; in Shuangyashan Wetland, Heilongjiang, the ice and snow in the wild are solid and the ground is frozen. The occasional natural water bodies that can still flow are mostly factories. The hot water discharged outside the area is very small, and there are basically no wild birds to be seen. In the Bohai Rim region, bird observers said that except for some migratory birds that stayed here for the winter, others that continued to migrate south also flew away. As in previous years, the migratory birds currently staying in the Bohai Rim area to overwinter are mainly gray cranes (about 1,000), a small number of red-crowned cranes (about 10, staying in the Luanhe Estuary Wetland), and geese (about 5,000-6,000), as well as a larger number of wild ducks (tens of thousands) and small and medium-sized skylarks, Mongolian white owl, etc., they will return north again from the Bohai Rim area at the end of February and early March of the following year.

At the same time, areas south of Shandong, Anhui, Hunan, Hubei, Poyang Lake in Jiangxi and further south have welcomed a large number of migratory birds this year. A large number of dense flocks of wild geese and ducks have appeared in Wucheng County,  Chaqizhou in Yugan County, and Nanchang County Wuxing Farm around Poyang Lake in Jiangxi. Thousands of cygnets have appeared in East Lake in Chaisang County, Jiujiang City. Bird observers said that the current water level at the Xingzi Hydrological Station in Poyang Lake is 7.73 meters, which is slightly higher than the same period last year, but the lake water is still receding rapidly; last year, 90% of the wintering white cranes were concentrated in the Shahu Station area of the lake area, and the number of migratory birds this year has decreased significantly. It may be related to the rapid retreat of water in this area. However, around Nanji Township in Nanchang County, bird observers have seen hundreds of little swans flying over to spend the winter, as well as some Oriental white storks. On the grass island inside the Poyang Lake embankment in Yugan County, we can see at one time  more than 300 Oriental white storks. Recently, the number of birdwatching crowds accompanying the grand gathering of migratory birds around Poyang Lake has exceeded one million.

For power grid companies that are in areas where a large number of migratory birds are overwintering, our suggestion is to patrol and monitor severe weather such as heavy snow and wind. Once migratory birds are found to be injured due to collision with power lines, joint rescue can be carried out with the local wildlife protection department; At the same time, we can cooperate with local government departments, environmental protection volunteers or social organizations to carry out patrols or popular science promotion activities in the wetlands around the line network or migratory bird wintering areas.

(Thanks to the bird observer volunteers in Heilongjiang, Bohai Rim, and Jiangxi for their real-time assistance)

 

Original article:https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/sUlTz3ALm0Kr8OtAXYeH6g

Translator: Daisy

Checked by: Sara

Editor: Daisy

Contact: v10@cbcgdf.org; +8617319454776

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