🦩9.1 BirdWatching Society: Qionglai Lotus Ponds the Autumn Paradise of Shorebirds
The long summer is over. Daylight at Lake Baikal has dropped to 13 hours. Migratory birds noticed first. The most impatient have already started their journey. Our Chengdu Birding society chose Qionglai lotus ponds as the first hidden gem for autumn survey. We went to welcome the earliest shorebirds.
The lotus ponds had been silent all summer. Wild grass grew high on the ridges. New lotus leaves sprouted again, taller than a man. The basin’s heat and water make plants explode with life, but also block our sight. Volunteers pushed through the weeds carefully. We searched hard and found almost nothing. The sky was just as empty. No pond herons. No night herons. Only one mallard and one cattle egret drifted past.
Luckily Qionglai has many ponds. We found one already harvested. The scene came alive. The water was busy. Shorebirds were everywhere. They ate without rest, fearless of us, standing closer than usual. Shen(the society’s lead) scanned quickly and said we should look carefully. I knew what he meant. Many species.
I lifted my binoculars. Black-winged Stilts never disappoint. Their wings spread with elegance. One had even lost a leg but still thrived, fat and strong. Next were old friends, the Wood Sandpipers. The water was a little too deep for them. Their bellies almost touched the surface. A snipe popped its head from the far ridge. What kind of snipe? Big question mark. Then Shen spotted a Ruff. Not in breeding plumage, but new species for me. Its yellowish neck set it apart. Two Black-tailed Godwits slept like warriors after a marathon flight. These birds can cross the sky nonstop for days. Their long bills glowed in the light. A Grey-headed Lapwing stood in the middle, calm as stone.
And then the star birds appeared. Several small figures foraged with their bills buried in water. Shen said they were Curlew Sandpipers. Photographers once went all the way to Beihai for them. Here they were, in Qionglai. As a near-threatened species, seeing them in the Chengdu Plain is a rare migration record.
After the survey we went home. Photo checking is a must. Shorebirds are tricky to identify. That mysterious snipe drove us mad. Everyone flipped guides, asked experts, scrolled through references. We stared at pixels until our eyes burned. Still no answer. AI summed it up: separating Gallinago snipes from one partial photo is one of the hardest challenges in bird ID.
So our night was not wasted. We were wrestling with the Goldbach Conjecture of birding.
Qionglai lotus ponds are truly a paradise for shorebirds. For birders they are both heaven and trial by fire.
(And yes the uncovered ponds are hot like an oven.)
