Bird-watchers turn hobby into a citizen science

Tens of thousands are playing a key role in the research and conservation of China's migratory species, as Chen Liang reports

The north wind is blowing and autumn is coming. Many birds, especially water birds and raptors - or birds of prey - have started long-distance migrations from their breeding grounds to their wintering grounds.

From north to south, China is witnessing a massive annual movement of birds.

After taking a one-week break at home in Fujian province in early September, Dong Wenxiao is now busy again in this bird migration season. Dong, 30, is one of the few professional Chinese bird-watching guides, an ardent bird-watcher and regular volunteer for bird surveys.

On Sept 18, he went to Lyushun, a port in Dalian, Liaoning province, where he will stay until Oct 10 to mainly watch birds. On the outskirts of the town lies Laotieshan, one of the country's best sites to see migratory birds, especially raptors and small songbirds, in autumn.

"Besides guiding a group of seven bird-watchers during the National Day holidays here, I will base myself mainly around Laotieshan to count migratory birds," Dong said.

During their annual autumn migration, tens of thousands of more than a dozen species of raptors and more of songbirds pass the area on their way south. "It's really quite a spectacle," he said.

Dong is one of tens of thousands of Chinese bird-watchers whose obsession has played an increasingly important role in the research and conservation of the country's migratory birds.

Major threats

Liu Yang, a biologist at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, said that although they number millions, many migratory birds, especially some shorebirds, have suffered from population declines over a vast area stretching from the Arctic to Australia and New Zealand. The area is known as the East Asia-Australasia Flyway.

Major threats identified in recent years include wetland reclamation for urbanization, environmental pollution, over-exploitation of seafood and illegal hunting. Liu, who is also a bird-watcher, said, "To learn about trends in bird population changes, we depend on volunteer bird-watchers, citizen scientists and bird-watching societies to collect information."

As an increasingly popular hobby, bird-watching has attracted more people to observe and count wild birds regularly. Chinese bird-watchers and bird-watching societies have become a major force in monitoring migratory birds.

This autumn, they are paying frequent visits to the country's major sites for migratory birds to watch them, count them and keep records. They are turning their hobby into a type of citizen science to help ornithological research and conservation of migratory birds.

Liu said bird-watching became an outdoor recreational activity and also a form of citizen science in the late 19th century. The Breeding Bird Census and Christmas Bird Count in Europe and North America are the two longest-running citizen science projects that have depended on amateur bird-watchers to collect data for more than 100 years.

According to Liu, billions of migratory birds, including 50 million water birds, undertake long-distance migrations twice a year in the East Asia-Australasia Flyway. For example, the bar-tailed godwit has an annual migration of more than 20,000 kilometers between its breeding grounds in Alaska and wintering grounds in New Zealand.

Several recent studies show that populations of many of these water birds - in particular migratory shorebirds - have been declining or are predicted to decline, he said. A total of 155 species of water bird are found in the region, but about one third are considered threatened.

China lies in the middle of the East Asia-Australasia Flyway and the country's coastal wetlands nurture a rich biodiversity and are of vital importance to migratory birds, Liu said.

"About 230 species and millions of water birds from the flyway will use our coastal wetlands as their breeding, staging (resting and feeding) and wintering grounds," he said.

"Their populations in China may be declining as global trends show, ... but we are still short of evidence because we don't have long-term water bird monitoring programs launched on a large scale."

This knowledge gap has prevented researchers and conservationists from understanding the consequences of habitat changes in water birds and from drawing up effective management strategies.

"Part of the reason is that the number of China's bird-watchers is still quite small, compared with those in countries like Australia and New Zealand, which have a long tradition of bird-watching," Liu said. "But the rapid increase in Chinese bird-watchers is truly encouraging."

Promising future

Zhong Jia, who started bird-watching in 1996, said it is difficult to estimate the number of bird-watchers in China. A report published by the World Wildlife Fund in 2011 estimated it at about 20,000.

Zhong, chairwoman of the China Bird Watching Association, a national nonprofit organization formed in December, said, "After four years of development, there will be many more Chinese bird-watchers." There are 46 bird-watching societies nationwide and 37 bird-watching groups among college students, she said.

China Bird Report, a website for bird-watching records operated by the association, has attracted more than 80,000 registered users since it started operating in December, while the country's largest bird photography forum, birdnet.cn, boasts 140,000 registered users.

Bird-watching has been promoted as an extracurricular activity among 2,000 primary and middle schools in Guangzhou, Zhong said. "In just one city, it is estimated that there are more than 30,000 new bird-watchers," she said. "That's why we feel the future for bird-watching in China is quite promising."

In May, the peak month for spring migration among birds, China Bird Report collected 1,371 records of 1,046 species - more than 70 percent of bird species ever recorded in China. The records were taken from 330 birding sites in 30 municipalities, provinces and autonomous regions.

"This autumn, we are looking forward to receiving more records from our users," Zhong said.

Liu Yang, the biologist, said water bird population counts have been conducted monthly in several coastal areas by experienced bird-watchers on the China Coastal Census team between 2005 and last year. Data from these surveys have provided a valuable opportunity for researchers, including Liu, to investigate population trends for water birds along China's east coast in the past decade.

In one of his progress studies, Liu and his team analyzed population trends among water birds based on data from the census - estimating the general population trends of water birds based on analyses of 103 species. They also investigated varying trends among different sites and water bird groups that might respond differently to habitat loss and climate change.

"It's the first study to document long-term population trends of water birds in China. Our results demonstrate that bird-watching as a kind of citizen science is an effective way to conduct powerful biodiversity monitoring programs," Liu said.

Endangered species

Zhong said that since being formed last year, the China Bird Watching Association has been trying to integrate the resources of bird-watching societies and groups nationwide to launch surveys on some key species of birds on a large scale.

From September last year to February, the NGO launched a national survey on the wintering grounds of scaly-sided mergansers.

Also known as Chinese mergansers, the duck species is considered endangered by the International Union for Conservation. Its numbers declined due to a loss of primary forests, particularly along major rivers. The union estimates that fewer than 2,500 adult birds remain in the wild. Most of these have been found breeding in the area where the borders of China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Russia meet.

More than 300 amateur bird-watchers from 45 bird-watching societies and groups took part in the wintering ground survey along with some researchers. They covered 200 sites scattered across 19 municipalities, provinces and autonomous regions and along 10 major rivers in China.

"We found 450 scaly-sided mergansers, comprising 149 adult males and 301 females and juveniles," Zhong said. "We will continue the survey this winter and expect to have the funds to do it every year."

After his stay in Liaoning, Dong Wenxiao will go to Xiaoyangkou in Rudong, Jiangsu province, to help a group of ornithologists and conservationists from China and overseas launch a one-week survey on the spoon-billed sandpiper.

The bird was listed as one of the 100 most endangered species in the world by the International Union for Conservation and the Zoological Society of London in 2012, with fewer than 100 breeding pairs left in the wild.

Xiaoyangkou, a small port facing the southernmost part of the Yellow Sea, is known for its rich inter-tidal mud flats stretching for about 250 km and is one of the best sites in the world to see the critically endangered birds.

Dong spent nearly six months counting shorebirds at Rudong every year between 2010 and 2014. Besides the spoon-billed sandpiper, he mainly monitored another critically endangered wader, the Nordmann's greenshank.

In October 2011, Dong counted 103 spoon-billed sandpipers on the Rudong mud flats in three days. "That was probably a world record that year," he said.

Spoon-billed sandpipers are difficult to spot among large flocks of roosting waders, he added. "Finding a roosting spoon-billed sandpiper in a flock of more than 1,000 similar-sized sandpipers is a real challenge for even experienced bird-watchers. That's why the researchers and conservationists need my help."

Contact the writer at chenliang@chinadaily.com.cn