Competition to log highest number of species adds to avian knowledge, boosts tourism

At 11 am on April 21, Zhong Jia arrived in Nanchang, capital of Jiangxi province, from Beijing by air.

Over the next four days, the 68-year-old retired newspaper editor and former environmental reporter, along with several peers, coordinated a bird-watching competition in Zixi county in the province's east.

Nearly 80 bird lovers from 20 provinces and autonomous regions were organized into 18 competing teams to take part in a "race" from 5 am on April 22 to 7 pm on Saturday to check off the largest number of bird species. Those who are in it for the sport of compiling a list of species are known as "twitchers" and "tickers", while more serious bird watchers think of themselves as "birders". While the Zixi event had some tickers, the majority were birders eager to help expand knowledge of the different species and habitats.

"Before the competition, almost no records of birds from Zixi could be found on our (bird-watching) record website," said Zhong, who is one of the founders of the Rosefinch Center, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting birdwatching and conservation.

"After our race, with three days of records compiled by the teams, Zixi will become a promising birdwatching site." Zhong was one of the first bird-watchers on the Chinese mainland.

The competitors were housed at a hotel in the Mount Dajue Scenic Area, a major tourist attraction also located in one of the competition zones.

Before the event, Zhong, Lei Jinyu, general-secretary of the center, and Wei Ming, head of the group's office in Kunming, Yunnan province, introduced the three competition zones to the participants.

The zones covered bird habitats that included primitive and bamboo forests, paddy fields, tea plantations and reservoirs. The teams－each consisting of four members－drew ballots for a turn to compete in different zones at different times as well as for the allocation of drivers.

"By dividing the race areas, we wanted to spread our teams across wider areas," Zhong said. "A good driver sometimes decides the final score of a team. So we use a lucky draw to ensure everything is fair."

The rules of the competition stipulate that recordings cannot be used to lure a bird and a claimed sighting of a rare bird must be supported with an image. Hearing a bird's song can be counted as points, but a recording of the creature is preferable.

Monitoring

Wei instructed the participants on how to download an app to record their sightings on their mobile phones. The app also enabled judges to monitor and verify contestants' claimed sightings.

After the briefing, some teams went to the wood around the hotel in the evening to familiarize themselves with the terrain. Prophetically, one of the judges heard the calling of a brown wood owl, a rare protected bird.

Wu Shuqin, head of the county, said Zixi had recorded more than 300 bird species. The county has forest coverage of 87.7 percent and is home to a national nature reserve. She said by hosting the competition, the local government hoped to benefit from becoming a popular birdwatching destination and an ecotourism hotspot.

Yu Changhao, deputy director of the Jiangxi Forestry and Grassland Department's wildlife protection division who initiated the competition and helped broker the society's cooperation with the Zixi government, said: "Holding a bird-watching competition is like launching a comprehensive bird survey. It's an effective way to promote bird conservation and raise environmental awareness among the local people."

He Fengqi, an ornithologist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Zoology in Beijing who was one of the judges, said he expected the birders could find Blyth's kingfisher, slaty bunting and Chinese francolin, three rare birds which are theoretically distributed in the area.

Fun and games

On the first day of competition, teams left the hotel at 4:30 am carrying breakfast and lunch packages. Zhong, Lei and Wei and some judges separated themselves into two teams. Any sightings they made would also be added to the final list.

"We have to visit all of the race areas, and watch birds just like the other bird-watchers so that we can make the correct judgement on their claimed sightings," Zhong said.

The judges followed the teams on their mobile phones as the day's events unfolded. After three hours, the teams had recorded a total of 100 bird species. After 10 hours, the number jumped to 150, and when 24 hours had passed the figure stood at 169. "So far the count has been an absolute surprise and very reassuring," Lei said.

In January and March, Lei and Zhong traveled to Zixi separately to visit different sites and plan for the race. Both were disappointed they had only seen dozens of common birds. "Although it was off season for bird-watching, I gained a 'no bird' impression of Zixi and felt a little uneasy about the competition," Lei said.

As the intensity of the competition picked up, one team thought they spotted a Blyth's kingfisher at a stream near the Matoushan National Nature Reserve, but failed to record an image. Without evidence, Lei said the sighting was invalid. Zhong then forwarded the sighting location to a WeChat group and other contestants went to the area to look for the rare bird.

"The bird race is more a fun game than an intense competition," Zhong said. "While seeing some rare or endangered birds, the birders enjoy sharing with others. Also, a double sighting is a solid record of a bird."

The same day, another team claimed to have seen the bird, but failed to capture an image. There were no more claimed sightings, and the kingfisher was removed from the final checklist of birds that might be in the area.

Meanwhile, event organizers had to solve all kinds of "small accidents". One involved a team of birdwatchers who got lost and found themselves in a neighboring city outside of the race zones. Wei and his teammates drove to a deserted resort near a reservoir and found a tunnel entrance to the area was locked. He obtained the mobile phone number of the gatekeeper and shared it with the teams.

A driver of one team lost his way when he left the hotel at 4:30 am and finally found the road to Mount Chuyun, a major bird-watching site on the western zone, around noon. However, it was raining and the team had to leave the site. Still, the team managed to see more than 100 bird species during the competition even though they later titled their WeChat article "A Race Too Despairing to Forget."

The race was exhausting. Often in the afternoon, Zhong took naps in the judges' car.

Final count

After a successful first day, the pace at which teams spotted birds slowed. Forty-eight hours into the race, the number of birds heard or spotted was 194 and by April 24 it just crept over 200.

After the competition ended, the participants and judges had no time to rest. In a ballroom at the hotel, the judges began the final count of the teams' efforts.

They called out members of one team and questioned them about "suspicious species" on their list of claimed sightings. There were no images or audio recordings to support some of their claimed sightings, which were only backed by the team members' descriptions of the birds. After hearing the team's defence of their sightings, the judges decided to rule out some of the records as the descriptions of the birds were inaccurate.

The overall judging went on till midnight.

The final number of bird sightings was 204, including three species under the State's first-grade protection－Carbot's tragopan, Elliot's pheasant and the yellow-breasted bunting－and 30 species under second-grade protection.

The competition added 44 species to the Matoushan reserve's checklist of bird species. A team from Jiangxi won the race, with 136 confirmed sightings. Carbot's tragopan, an endangered pheasant found only in southern and southeastern China, was voted the top bird sighting.

Zhong said the final tally was "surprisingly better" than most of bird races held by the Rosefinch Society in other parts of the country. "It's only lower than that in Yijiang (Yunnan province) and even better than those in Sichuan (province) and Guangxi (Zhuang autonomous region)," Zhong said.

Cheng Songlin, an avian expert from the Jiangxi Mount Wuyi National Nature Reserve and a race judge said, "It proves that a bird race can be an option for a bird survey."

On the way to the Nanchang Airport, Zhong was busy replying to WeChat messages. Another bird race is scheduled for the second week of next month in Jiangsu province and a city in Sichuan planning an event wants Zhong and her colleagues to visit to help with the planning.

"Before another race, I can have a 10-day break in Beijing," Zhong said.