In the leafy branches above water, birds are singing with rhythm, and performing a charming spring-welcoming variation. On April 1, the Hubei Gong'an Chonghu National Wetland Park presented a landscape of bird gathering.

A manager of the wetland park said: “As the ecology becomes better, birds in more varieties have returned, and we can often see a flock of birds flying by the lake.” The manager stated that if we observe these birds with a telescope, we can see some rare bird varieties, such as Baer's pochard, white spoonbill and tundra swan.

On January 13, through the investigation of the population quantity in the wetland park, the staff found the appearance of Baer's pochard, known as “the panda in birds”, a critically endangered species. Through the observation for more than nine hours, they found 78 Baer's pochards swimming and preying on the lake.

The Gongan Chonghu National Wetland Park, located in the east of Gongan County, has a total area of 1,475.11 hectares, of which the wetland area is 1,454.91 hectares, with a wetland rate of 98.63%. In recent years, with the continuous construction and upgrading, the environment has further improved, and animal and plant resources have increasingly enriched in the wetland park, attracting many wild birds to settle in.

“Baer's pochard is a very rare bird species, with less than 1,000 in number worldwide, which has a high requirement for the habitat environment, and likes natural wetlands, so it is rarely seen that 78 birds of this species have been founded in one place,” said a principal from the department of wetland and wild animal and plant conservation, Jingzhou Municipal Bureau of Natural Resources and Planning.

A good environment can attract the aggregation of hundreds of birds. On January 12, in the Honghu Qingshuibao Wetland, four Baer's pochards were observed in 50 minutes; on January 14, wintering waterbirds such as tundra swan and white spoonbill flew to the Shishou Milu National Nature Reserve and inhabited there; on January 16, 109 Chinese mergansers, an animal species under the first-grade state protection, perched and preyed at the Hubei Songzi Weishui National Wetland Park.

In the past few years, a growing number of bird species have chosen to breed and inhabit in Jingzhou, becoming a miniature of the achievements the city has made in forest city and wetland park construction. Through a series of treatment measures, such as afforestation, returning ponds to wetlands, water purification and drainage guarantee, Jingzhou has gradually improved the water quality of river and lake wetlands, promoting the lush growth of aquatic plants.

Currently, the city owns 26 nature protected areas, including eight natural reserves, 11 national and provincial wetland parks, four forest parks and three tourist attractions, creating a green home for the perching, staying and foraging of rare bird species.