The 1-13 content of traveling around the world with birds is summarized, urgent! ! !

Liu Kexiang

Last September, Captain Simpson, nicknamed "Pirate", arrived from Japan as promised.

Captain Simpson went south from Japan with winter migratory birds. When winter migratory birds set off from the sky, he set sail from the sea. As soon as the ship docked at Keelung Port, he couldn't wait for me to take him to Guandu for bird watching and meet the group of bird friends who arrived at the same time.

Captain Simpson and I met by chance. The year before last, when I was still in the navy, a warship was transferred to Keelung. During the holiday, I strolled in the street near the port. As a result, we met him with a pair of binoculars in our hands. We knew each other were watching the eagle in the sky. Because of this relationship, our hearts seemed to have a tacit understanding, so we met and became warm friends. During our stay in Keelung, we either sat in a cafe and talked about birds, or went to the nearby mountains to watch birds together. Until I returned to the outlying islands with the warship, and he continued to drift with the ship.

Captain Simpson is an American. He has been sailing for 2 years. Why did he choose his hobby of bird watching in the sea? I can understand the lonely feelings of the same people sailing, regardless of nationality. He also told me that he couldn't have spent his life at sea if he didn't have a hobby of traveling around and watching birds. However, bird watching is still lonely, otherwise, when he was in Keelung Port, he would not know me and be eager to exchange bird watching experience.

although I started to watch birds at sea, I soon got off the boat and retired. Fortunately, my interest has not diminished, and I continue to follow my professional life, wherever I go and where I follow.

Last September, I was also planning to observe and take photos of waterfowl in Danshui River for one year. Captain Simpson came at the right time because he has more than ten years of bird watching experience.

as soon as we entered the Guandu swamp, I took him directly to the shoal where waterfowl congregated. These waterfowl have just gone south from the north. I think Captain Simpson must have seen them in Japan and is eager to see them.

Sure enough, he shouted happily and read out the names of all kinds of waterfowl. He said that he met them when he was in the inland sea of Seto last month. I thought again, this is probably an old friend in another country, but he met a bird friend.

But his happy expression suddenly turned unhappy. It turned out that he saw several pairs of bamboo poles standing in the shallows where waterfowl gathered. He asked me what it was, and I knew it was a bird net.

at first, I thought it had nothing to do with him, and I wanted to be careless, but I thought he wouldn't be so stupid, so I told the truth.

I didn't expect it to be so stupid that I have never even seen a bird net. He said angrily, "I have never found this thing in other countries. Don't you even have people in charge?"

looking at him, I was really speechless and didn't know how to explain it.

Later, he complained about the shortcomings of this swamp area, pointing out all the noise, pollution and waste soil, as if it were all my fault.

I thought to myself, you don't live here, so why should you blame? My heart was so angry, I replied diplomatically and told him that because of these problems, we had the idea of an ecological protection zone. It may become the first waterbird reserve in Taiwan Province.

Captain Simpson asked me,

"Why not before?"

It's really hard for me to explain this problem, and I can't explain it clearly, so I have to say:

"There are many things that may be more urgent than the establishment of protected areas here."

Of course, Captain Simpson doesn't agree with this statement. He intuitively thinks that the establishment of a protected area is more important than anything else, no matter what the world events are, it should have been established twenty or thirty years ago.

maybe he is right. Anyway, I'm glad he's not from China.

after captain Simpson left Taiwan Province, I continued to travel in Guandu swamp. In the past, I took an indifferent attitude towards bird nets, and I don't know whether I was influenced by them. After the number of trips increased, it became unbearable to see waterfowl trapped in bird nets.

I don't care how deep and dirty those bird nets are in any more, I must wade in to rescue them. It turns out that waterfowl travel from south to north, relying on strong wings. As soon as they fall into the bird net, they struggle desperately, their wings get entangled in the bird net, their feathers fall off one after another, and their bodies become distorted and painful, and they have no ability to resist. Every time I release one, it takes me five or six minutes to get rid of their wings from the mixed bird net. When they are caught by me, they don't know what I'm trying to do, and they often shit with fear. After some waterfowl are released from the net, they may not be able to fly again, either because their wings are injured or their legs are broken. Fortunately, it's better to survive than to stand in a bird roast stall. From saving waterfowl, I gradually realized the reason why Simpson was angry, which should be out of a deep heart.

From my travel experience, I also found that birdcatchers sometimes know more about birds than birdwatchers. I once saw birdcatchers' hunting methods when I was in the Central Mountains. They know how to scare the mountain birds by setting off firecrackers and knocking on gongs, and drive them to the empty area of the valley. They set up a bird net there and let the mountain birds fly blindly and sink in. But in two or three hours, all the birds in the whole mountain were caught empty.

they changed their ways in the swamp. Because when the sea is at high tide, waterfowl will fly in from Danshui River and settle in the swamp area. So they set up bird nets in every possible habitat, and even set up the flight path on the way, so that waterfowl flew in and had nowhere to go. At the beginning, waterfowl were arrested one after another, and after a long time, they moved to other places. So after October, the water birds in the swamp area gradually decreased.

at that time, in order to maintain the survival of these waterfowl, I also went to the police station to sue. As a result, the policeman told me that Guandu is under the jurisdiction of Beitou, which is so big that a lot of things in the weathering site can't be managed. Who cares about any waterfowl? That's right. Later, I learned that there was only one person in charge of the crossing, and he could not stay in the swamp all day, waiting for the bird catcher. What's more, Guandu is not just a swamp area. Guandu Temple, which is adjacent to the swamp area, is full of incense, and thousands of tourists come in and out every day. The problem of catching waterfowl is naturally considered unimportant by the police.

if I failed to sue, I was desperate, so I had to go back to the swamp and act on my own. As long as I found the bird net and looked around, I secretly took out my knife and cut it off. As a result, I achieved remarkable results. I removed a third of the more than 3 bird nets in the whole swamp area.

I walked too much at night and finally met a ghost. Once I was cutting a net, and someone found me, yelling and screaming from a far paddy field, chasing me all the way. I had a guilty conscience, so I started to run, got on a motorcycle and hurried back to Taipei. However, I still didn't give up. The next day, I went to Guandu again. I didn't expect that they had sent someone to guard it. However, I don't believe he can come here every day, but I can appear at any time. They may have guessed that I did it later, but they were silent. As soon as I arrived in the swamp, I carefully monitored my actions.

As a result, we didn't succeed, because the weather was getting colder and colder, most waterfowl crossed the border, and the bird nets were often blown down by the strong wind, so they had to give up catching birds. I wonder where they have gone. I travel more and more, and I concentrate on taking pictures of birds.

birds are afraid of people. Shooting birds is the same as fishing. There is only one way: wait. When I first started filming birds, I was very frustrated. Before I got close, they had already flown away. After several contacts, I learned to be good and know how to choose hidden Woods and grass to hide and wait for migratory birds to appear. This way of waiting for him, later also feel unwise. I often sit around for a morning without seeing birds passing by me, but when I first decided on this position, the most important factor was that birds often appeared here. I thought those birds must know that I was hiding in it, so I gave up.

I changed to an active way. When I saw a bird, I crawled close to it from a place more than ten meters away. This way only lasted for a while. Later, several times, when I was shooting waterfowl in the swamp area, I didn't hesitate to crawl on the rotten mud. As a result, it took me more than half an hour to stop and climb, and I finally got close to four or five meters. When I raised my camera, they flapped their wings and flew, making me stand in the shallows stunned. The price of getting covered in mud is so high that I have to give up.

Fortunately, I thought of another way. I found a bamboo fence nearby, put branches on it, disguised myself as a soldier of a field task force, and hid behind it all day. Push the fence where there are birds.

One day, I dressed up like this and went to Danshui Estuary. I took my camera and moved on the beach. Unexpectedly, I went unnoticed, followed by a coastal defense soldier. When I was aiming at the bird to press the shutter, he also pointed a gun at me.

He shouted behind me, "Don't move!"

I was startled when I heard a noise behind me. I stood up quickly, and stamped my feet with anger when I saw that the bird in front was scared away.

when I looked back, I found that he probably saw that my equipment was very special. He thought he had caught someone and pushed me step by step with a rifle. At this time, I didn't feel that things were wrong, and I quickly changed to a smiling face.

"What are you doing?" He still asked me with a tight face, and the rifle continued to point at my chest.

I raised my hand in panic and explained to him, "I'm taking pictures of birds!" "

"according to the bird? Where are the birds? " He looked around with his eyes wide open. There was nothing but the beach.

"I ran away." When I said this, I thought to myself, "You idiot, the birds are scared away by you. How can you see?"

This soldier really did his duty. Seeing my dress and sneaking around on the ground, he naturally didn't believe my story, so he took me back to the battalion with a gun. Fortunately, I brought my bird club certificate, and the negative was not used yet. It took a lot of talking and they let me go.

after this lesson, I became very careful when I went to the seaside or went back to the inland to shoot birds. I am not afraid of the above things, but I am afraid of being noisy and losing the opportunity to take a valuable shot. Because passers-by look at my dress and hide in the grass, they will always stop curiously and sometimes come to my side, and the birds will be scared away.

As I have been photographing waterfowl in the swamp area for a long time, I am naturally familiar with the local environment, and I am also very concerned about its changes.

in spring, I see trucks full of waste soil coming in every day, and then dumping the waste soil into the swamp. I feel like they are stabbing me with a knife every time they dump waste soil. The swamp area is only the sum of the size of more than a dozen paddy fields. Trucks are packed every day, and in less than a year, the swamp will be covered sooner or later. When the swamp is lost, where do you get waterfowl? Not to mention any plans for ecological conservation areas in the future.

At the end of last winter, the waste soil brought in by trucks had split the swamp in two, and illegal pig houses were built on the waste soil. Now, according to local people, it is also necessary to build a bigger pig house. How can illegal construction expand the project? What's more, it is an ecological conservation area to be established soon. Where are the law enforcement people? I'm alone. How can I stop it?

I think by the time the plan of waterfowl ecological conservation area is drawn up and ready to be implemented, the swamp area must have disappeared. No wonder even captain Simpson, a foreigner, feels sorry and impatient for us. Later, I remembered what he left when he left: "Anyway, your land is hopeless. You might as well go out with me and let's watch birds everywhere."

that's true. besides, I'm a sailor, and my heart is inevitably shaken. Just for the birds here, I have an indescribable feeling in my heart, and I care a little more. I still dare not travel too early, really, I dare not say where I am going again.

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Liu Kexiang is famous as a "bird man" and a "bird poet" in Taiwan Province literary world. He has traveled all over Taiwan Province for decades, engaging in bird observation, photography and reporting. This article is selected from his collection of essays "Walking with Birds", and describes the author's observation and shooting of waterfowl in Guandu Marsh. At first, the author only looked at birds with an ornamental attitude. Later, under the influence of Captain Simpson, he began to consciously pay attention to the situation of waterfowl being killed, the swamp being polluted and the birds losing their homes, and took the initiative to rescue waterfowl, expressing the author's deep concern about the destruction of nature. Read the text carefully, think about what the author mainly wrote, and which of them are very emotional, and feel the author's feelings.