After a day's break, I went to Bijia Mountain again to observe the forest birds. Before the trip, I was full of confidence, thinking that with a change of equipment, it would be easy to capture bird photos. But reality hit me hard. Under the scorching sun and carrying heavy gear, I searched for birds in the forest for three hours, only to capture very few photos.
Waterbirds, as the name suggests, in habitthe water's edge, with open water and usually shrubs along the shore. However, for bird watchers, the view is still expansive. Forest birds, on the other hand, are quite different. They dwell in dense forests, hidden among the leaves, making it hard to trace their movements. We mainly rely on listening to their calls or observing abnormal leaf movements. But both methods have their drawbacks. In the first method, you may not hear the bird's call clearly, or even if you do and accurately determine its direction, you might find yourself facing a large expanse of forest with no starting point. Moreover, the bird may be hiding directly at the center of the forest, making it impossible for binoculars or cameras to penetrate, let alone capturing a photo before it flies away. The second method is also challenging. Looking at the green foliage densely covering the trees, it's difficult to directly notice which branch or leaf is shaking. Therefore, a combination of both methods is often used. It is clear that observing forest birds is much more difficult than observing waterbirds.
Faced with difficulties, I still gainedsomething. First, I encountered two Rufous-necked laughingthrushes feeding each other, showing great intimacy. Are they a couple or mother and child? Since the breeding season has not yet completely passed, the young bird should not have such a large size. Boldly speculating, they are a couple. They feed each other
and hop around in the thickets, seemingly playing and frolicking Interestingly, we were actually not far from them, and they didn't avoid us but continued to hop on the branches. Humans and birds coexisted harmoniously.
Along the way, I discovered a bird's nest on a large tree, with a Red-billed Blue Magpie feeding its offspring. Looking at the photos, you may wonder: how did its chicks grow as big as the adult bird? In fact, this is a very common phenomenon among birds, known as brood parasitism. Some bird species lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, relying on them to raise their young. We can understand it as a somewhat shameless act of parents sending their vampire-like children to mooch food from others. What's even more audacious is that the offspring of parasitic birds may cruelly kill the host bird's own chicks. For example, the cuckoo lays its eggs in other birds' nests. When the young cuckoo hatches before the host bird's own chicks, it will push out and smash the other bird's eggs, claiming sole access to the food. In the photo I took, the laughingthrush placed its egg in the nest of the Red-billed Blue Magpie, allowing the magpie to raise it. Interestingly, in such cases, even if the nest owner discovers that the chick is not its own, it will not abandon or kill it but continue to dutifully feed it. We don't know whether birds are aware that these are not their own offspring, but they seem to have a programmed instinct to feed any young bird in their nest until it grows up. That's why we often see very small birds feeding a fledgling that may be several times their size.
That day, my biggest disappointment was not failing to capture the Barn Swallows or Fork-tailed Swifts flying across the sky, nor not finding the elusive birds singing in the forest. It was because I had to rush to get a nucleic acid test done for school the next day, so I left
early. Just two minutes after I left, a Crested Serpent Eagle and a snake appeared one after another. These were two creatures I had longed to add to my field guide. The eagle was majestic, strong in battle, soaring high in the sky with an imposing presence. The snake fascinated me because it was rare, and I had always wanted to document more about it, even though many people consider snakes dangerous or fear them. My thoughts only represent personal opinions, so please refrain from criticizing if you disagree. Sigh, such is life, such is fate.
Bird photography is not always smooth sailing, and occasionally, setbacks occur, especially when photographing forest birds whose shooting opportunities are fleeting. A bird that you desperately search for may disappear into the depths of the forest in the blink of an eye,
never to be found again. This is actually what fascinates me about ecological photography. I am not a masochist, and I don't want to carry a camera for hours without any rewards. But the excitement and thrill of seizing an opportunity cannot be faked. Regret and satisfaction intertwine, disappointment and joy coexist. That's the pleasure I find in birdwatching.
