How many types of birds can be seen in an ordinary village? 84 species... a father son rural bird watching story, Shanghai Sparrow | Wuzhai Village | Village

How many species of birds can be seen in an ordinary village in Shanghai? Perhaps some people would say, isn't it just sparrows, swallows, wild pigeons, and egrets? The answer given by Tang Lei, a villager from Fengxian, is 84, and this number is constantly updating and increasing.

Drive all the way south from People's Square, pass through the Hongmei South Road Tunnel, and turn east along the Jinhai Highway into a rural path. The white houses deep in the forest are Tang Lei's home in Wuzhai Village, Xidu Street, Fengxian District. His home is nestled in contiguous rice fields, surrounded by towering public welfare forests that separate the village from the main road. From time to time, a few birds fly out of the forest, either flying in the branches and leaves of jujube trees or landing on power poles. Tang Lei's 9-year-old son, Tang Guo, runs on the field ridge, carrying a camera to guard the birds.

Tang Guo is patting birds by the rice field, Shen Siyi/Photo

More than a year ago, when Tang Lei and his son officially identified the first northern red tailed robin in Wuzhai Village, it was hard for them to imagine that there were so many bird species living in this village on the banks of the Huangpu River and southwest of Shanghai. In Tang Lei's view, bird watching in the village is like a local experiment to rediscover the connection between humans and nature.

Retrieve the connection with nature

On one wall of Tang Lei's study, there are photos of him and his son Tang Guo taking bird photos of the past year. What is the beginning of bird watching in the village? Tang Lei couldn't remember clearly, "It seems like a bird's cry outside the window."

On one wall of Tang Lei's house, there are partial photos of birds taken in the past year, taken by Shen Siyi

Tang Lei is a staff member of the Integrated Media Center in Jinhui Town, Fengxian District. Last March, due to the epidemic lockdown, Tang Lei and his family moved back to the countryside. One day, while taking online classes, a "sparrow" flew onto the electric pole at their doorstep. Tang Guo never heard the bird's chirping, which made him feel new. After class, the father and son put on their cameras and tried to search for the bird in the village.

In retrospect, Tang Lei stated that it was just a northern red tailed robin, one of the most common birds in Shanghai. Perhaps it was because when I lived in the city before, the sound of traffic and hustle and bustle overshadowed the chirping of birds, or perhaps high-rise buildings blocked the way people and birds came into contact, which made them feel novel about this bird chirping. But it was also from that day on that the father and son realized that they had never paid attention to the nature around them before.

Tang Guo goes to explore the "Magic Forest" in Wuzhai Village

So, bird watching in the village became their way of interacting with the land beneath their feet. Due to Tang Guo's need to live back in town while studying, on weekends and holidays, Tang Lei and his son would seize the opportunity to carry cameras and telescopes and travel through the rice fields, fish ponds, reed marshes, small forests, and wasteland in Wuzhai Village, searching for the traces of birds. At the beginning, the father and son knew almost nothing about bird species. Every time they saw a flying bird, they immediately pressed the shutter button, and when they returned home, they followed the instructions. Whenever a new bird species appeared, it was recorded in the corresponding mini program. Their latest data shows that over 84 species of birds have appeared in Wuzhai Village.

Tang Lei and His Son Watching Birds in Wuzhai Village by Shen Siyi/Photo taken

"After bird watching, we realized that the previously assumed 'sparrows' were not actually sparrows. They could be tree larks, Chinese climbing sparrows, gray headed bunting, and so on. By the spring and autumn migration season, the village's paddy fields were in the pre sowing water storage period, and the wetland like properties would attract egrets, green footed sandpipers, fan tailed sand cones, long footed sandpipers, cattle backed egrets, and so on. In the noisy reed marshes, there were hidden brown headed sparrows, white waisted Wenniao, reed bunting, field bunting, and even green winged ducks, small grebes, and black water chickens..." Now, let's talk about it again... "Tang Lei talks endlessly about the birds in Wuzhai Village.

Dai Shengniao

The white headed bulbulbul stands in the rain

A rare forest bird named Beipiao in Shanghai captured in Wuzhai Village

The process of bird watching is often full of surprises. For example, one evening, while taking a walk, Tang Lei and his son discovered a rare eagle landing on the top of a towering cedar tree, with a oppressive look that looked down upon the world. Tang Guo also noticed that not far from the eagle, a magpie was staring intently, and the atmosphere was tense. "Magpies have a strong sense of territory. Rumors have it that there will always be magpies next to raptors, and seeing them with their own eyes this time is indeed the same," Tang Guo said.

Goshawk

For Tang Guo, returning to the village to watch birds is not only a brief escape from academic pressure, but also a valuable natural educational experience. He and his father Tang Lei were invited to share bird watching photography in the school class, and the rich and vivid rural experience also made his classmates envious. "Children are very interested in birds, but they usually live in high-rise buildings and rarely have the opportunity to have close contact with them," Tang Lei said.

Bird watching sharing

Becoming a bystander in nature

Tang Lei once witnessed a group of dark green embroidered eyed birds jumping back and forth between cherry blossoms, with an old farmer holding a hoe and working under the flowers. In his view, watching birds in the village brings happiness from truly experiencing how other life forms in nature interact with humans in an equal and organic way. He was once driven away by a pheasant in the wasteland, flapping his wings and guarding the grass behind him. The unique territorial consciousness of the creature once again deepened the meaning of "anthropocentrism", "we share every piece of land in the village with the birds."

The dark green embroidered bird jumps back and forth between the cherry blossoms, and under the flowers, there is an old farmer holding a hoe to cultivate

Flying pheasant

Irrigation has started in the farmland, and egrets, ox backed egrets, starlings, and gray starlings have appeared

But there are also moments of anger. Tang Lei remembers that while observing birds in a certain forest in the village, he accidentally discovered that the villagers had inserted a bird catching net. On this dense and huge net, a blackbird was struggling hard. The father and son cut open the net and successfully rescued the bird, but he still felt worried. "The villagers' awareness of protecting wildlife is not strong enough," he said

Rescue the blackbird

Dismantle the bird catching net

It was during his repeated interactions with birds that Tang Lei began to reflect on the relationship between humans and nature.

A certain experience of "doing bad things with good intentions" made him feel uneasy. This spring, Tang Lei and his son discovered two bird's nests on the eaves of a soon to be demolished homestead in Wuzhai Village. Considering that if the swallows returning in spring do not give up their old nests, there is a high possibility of encountering demolished houses during the breeding period, they decided to demolish the bird's nest to avoid tragedy.

Not long after, this pair of golden waisted swallows flew back from the south and found that their original nest was gone, but they rebuilt it in place. One day during the nesting period, the father and son unexpectedly saw another male golden waisted swallow flying to snatch the bird's nest. Then, the two male birds began to fight in the air, "First pecking at each other, then flapping their wings, sometimes hitting in mid air, and then landing on the ground. Interestingly, the female bird was also flying low to cheer." It was like a scene that only appears in animal world documentaries, which fascinated the father and son all afternoon until the sun set and they had to go home, and the two birds did not determine the winner.

The Golden Waisted Swallow Fighting

"I hope the 'indigenous people' will win in the end." After returning home, Tang Lei felt a little regretful about demolishing the swallow's nest. He suddenly realized that perhaps for natural creatures, human intentional intervention does not always mean good things, and sometimes it can even cause disasters. Living with nature also requires maintaining a sense of boundaries and a reverence for the laws of nature.

This is also the reason why Tang Lei rarely goes to bird watching attractions. He once took his son to the "Magic Forest" in Dongtan, Nanhui, but the atmosphere of a row of long guns and short cannons aimed at a bird, and even using props to bring the bird to the camera in order to capture a satisfactory angle, made him feel uncomfortable. Birdwatching should be a natural encounter between two equal individuals. Therefore, when birdwatching in Wuzhai Village, they never deliberately guard or set traps to capture a particular type of bird. Perhaps it is through chance encounters that they capture more agile and natural moments of the bird.

Brown backed shrike preys

The pheasant in the field

There are too many birds, and people have also returned to the village

Almost all the villagers in Wuzhai Village know Tang Lei's father and son, and when it comes to them, they are the father and son who carry cameras to take pictures of birds. Tang Guo told reporters that when taking photos of birds in the village, occasionally his grandparents would come over to look at the photos he took and marvel at the bird's appearance. "They are also very curious. Although they have lived in the countryside for a lifetime, many birds have hardly been able to see up close, let alone call their names."

Tang Guo shared photos of birds with the village grandmother

Therefore, in early summer this year, Tang Lei and his son held a small photography exhibition and sharing event called "The Elves Around Us" in the forest not far from their home. They selected photos of over 60 bird species taken in the village in the past year and hung them among the trees for free visits by family and friends, as well as the villagers of Wuzhai Village. They led them to meet the "neighbors" who shared the same village with them, hoping to take this opportunity to raise more people's attention to the surrounding land. The unique photography exhibition surprised the villagers and they came to watch it one after another, then exclaimed, "There are so many birds in the village, so this kind of bird is called this name."

Arrange a picture exhibition

Bird watching achievement sharing meeting

Tang Lei is in his 40s this year, but it's not his first time interacting with birds. "When I was young, I even caught birds," he said shamelessly, but because of this experience, the bond between him and birds became even deeper. After more than 20 years, when paying attention to the birds in the village again, Tang Lei unexpectedly discovered that there were really many more birds.

"In the past, when we were hunting birds, we could hardly see magpies or pearl necked turtles here, and even egrets were rare. But now magpies can be seen everywhere, and egrets are everywhere."

Cattle backed Egret

black-winged stilt

He attributed all of this to the increasingly improving ecological environment in the village. Tang Lei introduced that the survival of birds relies on dense forests and wetlands, and a safe and hidden habitat and clean water source are important for them. However, in the early years, many houses in Wuzhai Village were rented to become small workshops and processing plants. Every household's chimneys emitted black smoke, sewage pipes were directly discharged into the fields, and rivers often turned black; The accommodation needs of a large number of migrant workers in the village have given rise to large-scale illegal buildings, squeezing the already limited land resources in the village inch by inch.

All of this has been improved after the promotion of the "Beautiful Countryside" project in Shanghai. Tang Lei witnessed the entire process of change: factories were withdrawn, illegal buildings were demolished, river channels were renovated, and public welfare forests were planted. Nowadays, the forest coverage rate of Wuzhai Village is 33%, and the river water is becoming clearer. While the environment is improving, some villagers are gradually returning from the city to live in their hometowns, and Tang Lei is one of them. In 2018, he returned to Wuzhai Village, repaired his old house, and started a life dungeon of "pastoral songs". "The ecological environment has improved, and what comes back is not only birds, but also us."

Cettia canturians

The blackbird catching earthworms and the grandmother picking vegetables