The birdman from Jiangxi
A bird expert from Taiwan was in search of the pheasant-tailed jacana, a rare water bird, which was known to habitat East China's Jiangxi Province. The local guide had no idea where to look and headed for the mountains, a very unlikely place to find a water bird.
Lin Jiansheng has helped experts find many rare birds, such as the yellow-throated laughingthrush (above) |
The middle-aged driver recognized the bird instantly, he had seen it at the ponds and lakes. Thanks to the driver, the pheasant-tailed jacana was soon spotted. The serious birdwatcher was absolutely thrilled. The expert then showed the driver several more birds. The driver found them one after another.
This episode turned Lin Jiansheng, or Lao (senior) Lin, from a professional driver with the Jiangxi branch of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) into the country's first-ever professional bird watching guide.
At first, birdwatchers from Taiwan and Hong Kong thought Lin was only a driver who knew where to find birds in Jiangxi. Soon they realized he had better eyesight than they did
Scaly-sided merganser , in East China's Jiangxi Province. |
His sharp eyes have earned him the nickname "Shenyan Lao Lin" Old Lin with Magic Eyes.
Keen hunter
The tall and stout man confesses that his super eyesight is not just natural born. It also came from "too much killing". The 52-year-old had been a keen hunter for more than 20 years before becoming a birdwatcher.
As a boy he loved playing with a slingshot and birds were his favorite targets. Born into a military family, he left school and started working at 13 and at 16 gained a driver's licence.
At 17, he joined the army and served for five years. During this period, he became a crack shot and started hunting for fun. After Lin entered the Jiangxi branch of the CAS in 1979, scientists soon discovered his special hunting skills. They not only needed a driver, but also a specimen hunter. When a CAS biologist needed birds to study parasites, Lin hunted them down.
"I can't remember how many animals I had hunted," Lin said. "Many friends said they could feel an aura of death around me."
Lin said his bloody hobby was partly to blame for his wife and daughter leaving him.
Lin Jiansheng, or “Old |
An encounter with Professor He Fenqi with the Institute of Zoology of the CAS in 2001 helped Lin to treat bird watching even more seriously.
The ornithologist, a contributor and translator of A Field Guide to the Birds of China, was studying yellow-throated laughingthrush in Wuyuan of Jiangxi.
First spotted in 1923, the bird was not seen until it was rediscovered in Wuyuan in 2000. Lin not only helped the professor locate the bird, he also spotted a pair of pied falconets, another rare bird only found in Wuyuan.
The professor began to introduce Lao Lin to more birdwatchers.
Their targets were usually yellow-throated laughingthrush, pied falconet and scaly-sided merganser in Wuyuan and Yiyang.
In the Wuyishan Mountains, the most popular birds were the Cabot's tragopan and the Elliot's pheasant.
"Believe me, I know where to find these birds better than anyone in the country," said Lin, who retired from driving in 2004.
Between 2003 and 2006, he spent up to two months every year helping the professor monitor the yellow-throated laughingthrushes breeding in Wuyuan. He only charged the professor 300 yuan ($40) a day for the use of his van. The price is usually 500 yuan ($64) a day for mainlanders and 800-1,000 yuan ($100-130) for watchers from Hong Kong, Taiwan and foreign countries.
To find the laughingthrush in other parts of the country, he went with the professor to Southwest China's Yunnan Province twice.
In May, 2005, Lin saw a strange parrot in Caiyanghe Nature Reserve in Yunnan. The bird turned out to be a blue-rumped parrot and it was the first time it was recorded in China.
Good pictures
Because of the successful collaboration with the scholar, Jin's bird photos regularly appear in academic publications.
Lin is now applying for a small grant from China Program of World Wide Fund for Nature for a two-year program of monitoring the breeding of the Japanese swamp warbler.
"Few people know this rare bird actually breeds in this region," Lin said. "I know its breeding ground in Jiangxi and expect to record its breeding behavior by photos through the program."
He started taking bird pictures after Cheung Ho-fai, chairman of Hong Kong Bird Watching Society, sent him the gift of a Canon EOS 10D camera and a Canon 300mm/F4 lens for his good service in a birding trip in March 2003.
His photos cannot bring him a proper income but they do bring him a great deal of satisfaction.
"I can get only 60 yuan ($8) for a photo published in an academic magazine," he said. "But with the camera and lens, I found the kind of thrill similar to that of hunting. Now I often take photos of birds even without guiding any customer."
He said he bought his binoculars in 2004 only for use in his profession.
"Every birdwatcher carries good binoculars," the "Magic Eyes" said. "I don't really need it. But it can help me look more professional. And by the way, I do use it sometimes to enjoy the better views of birds."
For his job, he even learned how to communicate with foreigners in very basic English.
Because of his job, he has won the trust of the authorities of some national nature reserves and got free access to these reserves.
"The Wuyishan National Nature Reserve in Jiangxi allows me into the reserve even in anti-fire seasons," Lin said. "The only requirement is that I give the reserve my annual record of birds in the reserve at the end of a year. It has helped add dozens of birds to the reserve's checklist of birds.
"When people show their respect to me and my work, I feel no reason to let them down."
(China Daily 01/24/2007 page20)
