Watching over and coexistence: Stories of wild animals and their protectors amid extreme drought

Treat the guests from far away well

How many birds are there in Poyang Lake? When they fly, you cannot see the clouds and the moon. When they land, they cover all the grass on shore, as a saying goes.

It was a sunny day on December 9. Over 50,000 migratory birds were resting in the rice fields of Chaqi branch of Kangshan farm in Yugan county. They shook their wings, combed their feathers and lowered their head to search for food. Together with the blue sky and the beautiful Daming Lake, one of the plate-shaped water areas in Poyang Lake that come into being every dry season after water levels go down, they comprised a vivid and harmonious ecological picture.

These little birds are smart! The terrible drought in Poyang Lake left many fish, shrimp, snails and clams dead. Compared with last year, the number of migratory birds wintering on the lake went up by 20,000. They came 10 days ahead of the usual time. There are now almost 2,000 white cranes, over 500 Oriental storks, and more than 400 swans. Almost 50,000 wild geese outpaced all other birds in number. There are also some grey cranes, said Zhang Keshun, a ranger with the Poyang Lake wetland ecological protection center of Yugan county.

Zhang was asked to devote himself to the mission of patrolling the birds 15 days earlier than usual. To quickly find injured migratory birds, he has patrolled more frequently than he did last year. In 2021, he patrolled the Daming Lake once every seven to 10 days. Now he patrols once or even twice a day.

Several days ago, a resident from a nearby village sent an injured swan to him. Zhang fed it with rice. He found, however, the swan failed to notice his moving hands at all. There must be something wrong with its eyes. I called the county forestry administration immediately and then sent it to the administration for treatment, he told us.

To ensure that migratory birds can winter in the area in a safe and sound way, the Yugan government paid farmers to leave the rice they planted in about 1,000 mu (67 hectares) of field as a kind of canteen for the birds. Fifty mu of the rice belong to Zhang. For that, he was compensated more than 60,000 yuan. If he harvests the rice to sell, he expects that he could pocket another 3,000 yuan. But he didnt complain about the loss at all.

It doesn't matter. I consider that as a treat for guests from far away, he said.

In the Duchang county natural reserve for migratory birds, which is over 100 kilometers away from Yugan, Li Yue, head of the reserve administration, is resorting to another protective approach.

Duchang is an important wintering area for migratory birds in the northern part of Poyang Lake. This year, however, several plate-shaped water areas that saw large numbers of migratory birds last year dried up much earlier than normal.

The plate-shaped water areas boast rich biodiversity resources, and are paradises for migratory birds. To enliven the plate-shaped water areas, we have been busy for several months, he said.

In late September, after figuring out the conditions in the plate-shaped water areas that saw large flocks of migratory birds in previous years, they carried out remediation through water supplementation in a plate-shaped water area near Zhupao mountain close to the shipping lane of Poyang Lake that has good conditions for water diversion.

As an almost natural approach, the so-called ecological water supplementation is to build dikes with soil rather than cement and steel bars to help divert water into the plate-shaped water area before the arrival of large flocks of migratory birds, Li told us.

He said the plate-shaped water area near Zhupao mountain once shrank to just over 300 mu. To supplement it with water four high-powered pumps worked around the clock to fill an almost 200-meter channel they built.

To ensure that all emerging problems could be immediately addressed in the water diversion operation, some patrollers lived in grass-covered tents on an island for dozens of days, he recalled.

Almost two months later, the water supplemented to the plate-shaped water area near Zhupao mountain reached over 400,000 cubic meters. Thanks to the supplementation, the water level in the area rose by over 40 centimeters, and its surface area expanded to more than 800 mu. On November 4, they released almost 2,000 kilograms of fish fry into the area.

On November 28, over 90,000 migratory birds were found to have come to winter in Changdu. The plate-shaped water area near Zhupao mountain received over 3,000, including white cranes, white-headed cranes, white-naped cranes and oriental storks.

To make the guests from far away feel right at home, Jiangxi province has supplemented a total of 6.1 million cubic meters of water to plate-shaped water areas in Poyang Lake this year. A total of 130,000 mu of old marsh grass have been mowed, 5,370 mu of canteen have been set and 51,000 kilograms of grain have been reserved as food for migratory birds.

A crane dances in Poyang Lake. Thousands of birds fly happily. The scenery today is as beautiful as ever.