Birds fall in love with the Yellow River Estuary —— A visit to the Yellow River Delta National Nature Reserve

　　Xinhua News Agency, Jinan, December 16th: Birds fall in love with the Yellow River Estuary — — Visit to the Yellow River Delta National Nature Reserve

　　Xinhua News Agency reporters Wang Nian and Wu Shuguang

　　Since the beginning of winter, the scenery of the Yellow River Delta Nature Reserve in Shandong Province is more like a beautiful picture of a scenery film — — Between the waves, the reeds on the shoals are like snow, and groups of migratory birds are strolling comfortably or spreading their wings, and the beautiful songs are one after another.

　　The Yellow River flows into the Bohai Sea from Dongying, Shandong Province, and its alluvial Yellow River Delta has a complete wetland ecosystem in warm temperate zone. In 1992, a national protected area with a total area of 153,000 hectares was established here, which played an important role in protecting the newly-born wetland ecosystem and rare and endangered birds. In 2013, the wetlands in the Yellow River Delta were listed in the list of internationally important wetlands by the International Convention on Wetlands; In 2018, Dongying ranked among the first batch of "international wetland cities" in the world.

　　When the reporter visited the nature reserve, he saw that the red-crowned crane walked gracefully, the white crane, the wart-nosed swan and the white spoonbill were hovering at low altitude, and the solitary oriental white stork stayed quietly in the nest most of the time … …

　　In the Yellow River Delta Nature Reserve, the nest of oriental storks with a diameter of several meters is on the telephone pole. Xinhua News Agency reporter Guo Xulei photo

　　Liujing, head of the Ecological Monitoring Center of the Yellow River Delta, told the reporter that the number of birds in the nature reserve has increased from 187 when it was built to 371 now, including 25 species under national first-class protection and 65 species under second-class protection. The number of 38 species of birds exceeds 1% of the global total. Millions of birds migrate here every year, and some of them even spend the winter and breed here.

　　This is a great egret shot in the Yellow River Delta Nature Reserve. Xinhua News Agency reporter Guo Xulei photo

　　"This is an important transit point for bird migration, with ‘ Bird International Airport ’ The reputation of the migration peak is extremely busy. " Zhao Yajie, a researcher at the reserve, said that among the nine bird migration routes in the world, two routes, East Asia-Australasia and the Pacific Rim, pass through the Yellow River Delta.

　　Two red-crowned cranes in the Yellow River Delta Nature Reserve perched among the aquatic plants. Xinhua News Agency reporter Guo Xulei photo

　　Since last year, rare birds such as white pelican and spoonbill snipe have been discovered in the Yellow River Delta. However, in the view of researchers, the national first-class protection of birds, Oriental White Storks, is a testimony to the continuous improvement of the ecological environment. They only passed through the Yellow River Delta in their migration at the earliest, and began to nest here in 2003. In 2005, they first bred two nests of seven young birds in the wild. Observations show that this year, Oriental white storks have bred 324 chicks in 120 nests, with a total of 2278 chicks. "According to the information we have, it is undoubtedly the largest breeding ground for oriental storks in the world." Zhao Yajie said.

　　This is a bird flock taken near the dampproof dike in Kenli District, Dongying City. Ren Xiaojie

　　The reporter learned that the reserve not only insists on protection priority and natural restoration, but also takes the initiative and acts scientifically. For example, oriental storks like to nest and lay eggs in tall trees to hatch chicks, but there are no such trees in the Yellow River Delta. After careful research, the reserve has built 115 artificial nests for oriental storks, which proves to be effective. The reporter saw that the bird’s nest with a diameter of more than 2 meters on the high cement pole was quite eye-catching.

　　At the same time, since 2002, the local area has taken advantage of the favorable opportunity of the Yellow River to adjust water and sediment to replenish water, and successively implemented habitat protection projects for key species such as oriental white stork and black-billed gull, and the species and number of birds have increased significantly.

　　"Water is the life of the wetland. There are water, fish and birds." Tianpeng Wang, the stationmaster of the 1,200-meter management station in the nature reserve, said that continuous water supply for many years has effectively curbed the degradation of wetlands, restored the ecology, and steadily increased the biodiversity of wetlands, attracting more and more birds to inhabit and breed here. According to the introduction of Shandong Yellow River Bureau, Diaokou River was the flow path of the Yellow River before its diversion in 1976. Since 2010, the ecological water supply of this flow path has reached 381 million cubic meters.

　　Because of the strict requirements for breeding sites, the black-billed gull, a national first-class protected bird, is often regarded as an indicator species of wetland ecological environment changes, and is listed in the Red Book of Endangered Animals in China and the Red List of Endangered Species of IUCN. In 1992, two breeding grounds of black-billed gull were discovered for the first time in the Yellow River Delta Nature Reserve. Since then, its population has been expanding. The survey this spring showed that its breeding population exceeded 10,000 for the first time.

　　The reporter learned that the Yellow River Delta Nature Reserve is also the largest new wetland natural vegetation area along the coast of China, with 1,630 species of wild animals and 685 species of plants respectively. Xu Mingde, secretary of the Party Working Committee and director of the management committee of the nature reserve, said that they insisted on using an ecological approach to manage the ecology, and the wetland area of the nature reserve has increased by 12.3% and 188 square kilometers since 2017.

　　The endless wings of Suaeda salsa dye the vast beaches red. Xinhua News Agency reporter Guo Xulei photo

　　It is understood that the Yellow River Estuary National Park, which is integrated from eight nature reserves such as the Yellow River Delta Nature Reserve, has entered the stage of creation and implementation. In line with the goal of building the first land-sea integrated national park in China, the local government is solidly promoting a series of ecological protection and restoration projects to promote a healthier ecosystem and further enhance biodiversity.