Rare bird photographed in Yunnan's nature reserve

KUNMING -- An image of a rare bird was captured by a photographer recently in Napahai Lake Nature Reserve in Yunnan province, Southwest China.

The bird has been identified as a yellow-breasted bunting, which is under first-class national protection, according to the reserve's management and protection bureau.

After referring to the archives and speaking with Liu Qiang, an associate professor at the national plateau wetland research center of Southwest Forestry University, the bureau confirmed that this was the first sighting of the bird in the Napahai Lake area.

The bird's most distinctive feature is a plume of bright yellow feathers on its chest. Native to Northeast China and Siberia, Russia, its population was not under threat in 2000, but numbers have decreased sharply in recent years.

The yellow-breasted bunting was rated "critically endangered" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 2017 and listed as a national top-level protected wildlife in China in 2021.

Napahai Lake Nature Reserve is in the resort city of Shangri-La and is an important ecological barrier of the Yangtze River basin. It is also one of the world's most important wetlands.