Just one short night after my first visit, I once again set foot on Bijiashan Mountain to continue my ecological observation journey. Having discovered rare birds during my first visit, I had great expectations for this time.
As soon as I entered the park, a small squirrel appeared on a lawn. It was a red-bellied squirrel, a nationally protected animal of the second level. It was particularly agile in its jumps, effortlessly leaping four or five meters away, almost like gliding. At that moment, it was busy eating the fallen fruits of the Chinese pistache tree. With its little paws holding the fruit and its mouth nibbling on it, it finished one in just a few seconds. It continued to gather food under the tree, paying no attention to me at all. After it seemed to have eaten enough, it glanced at me, then hopped up the tree and disappeared.
Next, I went to the lakeside, where I had good luck yesterday, but this time I came back empty-handed. An hour passed, and I felt somewhat disappointed.
Suddenly, a dancing phoenix butterfly appeared in the nearby bushes. It kept landing on flowers but quickly moved on, just like a startled swan. Those who have carefully observed butterflies know that their flight patterns are different from birds', highly irregular, and constantly changing direction. It is precisely this elusive trajectory and fast flying speed that make capturing them difficult, but their beautiful patterns and graceful flight are highly enticing. When this butterfly folded its wings, it looked like an ordinary black butterfly, but when it spread its wings, two large white spots could be seen at the tips. I followed it for ten minutes until it quietly landed on a flower to sip nectar. In that moment when it spread its wings in the air, I captured it through my lens.
The weather seemed to play a joke on me as it started to rain! When the raindrops fell on me, I almost panicked. You see, if the camera gets wet, it's ruined. I hunched my body like a shrimp, tightly holding the camera in my arms. Fortunately, summer rain comes and goes quickly. Like surviving a disaster, I lifted my head and unexpectedly discovered a bird's nest! Wasn't this the nest of the blue magpie with a red beak that I saw not long ago? However, it had changed from a family of four to a family of three, as the noisy fledgling of the Asian koel had flown away, leaving behind the parents of the blue magpie and their own little blue magpie. Meeting familiar faces, they performed a feeding show for me. The little blue magpie groomed its feathers on a branch, idle and carefree, while its mother flew around searching for food, carrying it in her beak and then feeding it to the little one.
Continuing my connection with this family of blue magpies filled me with joy, especially witnessing the mother bird feeding her chick.
Later, I kept searching for the Chinese bamboo partridge, only hearing its call but not seeing its presence. However, birdwatching is always unpredictable. Let's hope for a meeting next time.
