China is the hometown of waterfowl.

February 2, 2008, World Wetlands Day. On this day, Guangdong Haifeng Wetland was officially approved by the United Nations as an internationally important wetland. This is the third internationally important wetland in Guangdong after Zhanjiang Mangrove Nature Reserve and Huidong Harbor Turtle Nature Reserve.

In fact, Haifeng Wetland is also the "Hometown of Waterbirds in China". Water waves ripple, birds fly in the blue sky, people don't catch birds, and birds are not afraid of people. Buffalo graze in the wetland reserve, and birds sing on the back of cattle.

In the sunshine, a row of egrets stood on the bare grass of Haifeng Reservoir, curled up their heads, as if sleeping, and as if watching the movement of fish and shrimp in shallow water.

The breeze wrinkled the water surface, and the waterfowl was disturbed and spread its wings and flew away. Three black-faced spoonbills swimming leisurely in the nearby water seemed to hear something, shaking their heads back and forth, and then plunged into the water, causing ripples on the water.

March is not the best season for bird watching in nature reserves, but the sight of hundreds of waterfowl gathering still makes people living in urban forests feel relaxed and happy.

Haifeng Bird Provincial Nature Reserve, consisting of Fair District, Great Lakes Region and Dongguan-An Wei District, belongs to the Yellow River Basin, with a total area of 1 1590.5 hectares. Downstream from the Gongping Reservoir, about 10 kilometers away, the Yellow River is divided into two parts, which are injected into the Great Lakes Region and the Dongguan-An Wei District respectively. These two places are the only two estuaries of the Yellow River. The centers of the three sections are separated by more than 30 kilometers. From the satellite image, the three areas are in a zigzag structure, and the Yellow River is like a "person" to bind these three independent areas which are far apart.

"The characteristics of these three areas are very obvious," said Dr. Hu Huijian, an expert from South China Institute of Endangered Animals who has been doing scientific research here all the year round. One water and three areas, Haifeng Bird Provincial Nature Reserve, because of its special geographical location, also has the characteristics of coastal wetland and Kutang wetland. These two types of wetlands occupy an important position in the network of nature reserves in China, which also makes the birds in nature reserves diverse.

People and birds live in peace.

In this protected area without red lines, migratory birds come in and out, and villagers cultivate and multiply.

The reserve is located in the coastal zone of Haifeng County, Shanwei City. Different from traditional nature reserves, Haifeng Bird Provincial Nature Reserve is a protected area without a red line. In the reserve, there are many villages where more than 800 villagers farm and breed.

In Dongguan Company, Master Liu and several villagers are cleaning oysters. They plan to clean them and transport them away. They want to put these oysters from Guangxi in their own fish ponds. Not far from the ship, several waterfowl swam back and forth without their interference.

April-165438+1October is the traditional local culture period, and harvest can be achieved in June-165438+1October. This time is just the period when a large number of migratory birds move in, and the migratory birds move out in March-April of the following year, which is just staggered in time. During the period of migratory birds, there are both harvested ponds and un-harvested ponds, which provide a good foraging environment for migratory birds. Locals also have the custom of treating waterbirds (especially herons) as lucky birds. Therefore, in daily farming, waterbirds are never excluded from foraging, and when harvesting in farming, there are often spectacular scenes of flocks of waterbirds gathering for food.

In nature reserves, typical zonal vegetation includes not only mangroves, but also evergreen broad-leaved forests. But in history, these vegetation have been seriously damaged. Especially in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the broad-leaved forest almost disappeared due to reclamation.

Fortunately, the damage caused by reclamation is gradually being repaired. Haifeng coastal aquaculture has always followed the traditional extensive farming method, that is, when the tide is high, the dike is opened to let seawater and fish, shrimp and crabs enter the aquaculture pond, and when the tide is low, the opening is blocked again, leaving seawater and its fish, shrimp and crabs. Since then, fish, shrimps and crabs have grown freely in the culture pond, and fishermen have not put in feed, so the water pollution is not great, and coastal wetlands can be maintained for a long time.

The happiness of fish and birds

The water level in traditional culture ponds is low, and waterfowl get rich food, which is also regarded as a symbol of good luck by fishermen.

Fair reservoir is one of the three independent areas in Haifeng Bird Provincial Nature Reserve. It belongs to a large reservoir and is located in the upper reaches of the Yellow River in Haifeng's four major water systems. It is a rare pond wetland of offshore reservoirs. There are many kinds of waterfowl living here, such as geese and ducks, snipes, seagulls and herons. More than 20,000 birds come here every year.

Fei 'er Reservoir is a shallow water reservoir with many bare shallow grass beaches and many streams around it, which is very suitable for migratory birds to gather for food. "Especially some small islands in the center of the lake have become birds of paradise because they are not disturbed all the year round." Jiang, a photographer from the South China Institute of Endangered Animals, said.

The low water level of traditional extensive aquaculture ponds provides abundant food for waterfowl, and some native wetlands diversify the species of waterfowl in nature reserves.

Haifeng is full of birds. "As soon as you enter Haifeng, you can see the egrets flying across the road. The egrets follow the buffaloes in the fields, and there are birds and flowers everywhere." Professor Gao, vice chairman of the Chinese ornithological society and South China Institute of Endangered Animals, described this before his death.

"Birds are good for our aquaculture industry. They are eat small fish and pests. " Master Liu, who raises oysters, said that local people don't shoot birds, and even foreigners will stop shooting birds. In their view, birds have become a symbol of good luck and good harvest in the local area. Because people and birds live in harmony, in June, 2005, 1 1, the local area was named "China Waterbird Town" by china wildlife conservation association.

However, the protection of natural areas is still threatened. At the end of 2006, xiamen-shenzhen railway broke ground, and this railway will pass through two important areas, Li 'anwei and Hu Da, "which will cause irreversible damage to the original wetland." Xie Rongru, director of Guangdong Haifeng Bird Provincial Nature Reserve and director of Haifeng Forestry, is worried about this. In addition, due to the increasing population around the reserve, the pressure on the reserve is also increasing year by year.

backstage

Repairing the expressway "crashed" out of the protected area

Haifeng County is located in the southern edge of the Tropic of Cancer, belonging to the tropical climate zone of South Asia, with obvious maritime climate, which is suitable for the reproduction and growth of various aquatic organisms. Artificial reservoirs, coastal beaches, estuaries, harbors and other diverse wetland types in Haifeng Bird Nature Reserve are complementary to waterfowl resources, forming a complex and diverse composite wetland ecosystem in the same basin. It is an important node in the network of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao nature reserves, and is also in the dense intersection of different routes for migratory birds to migrate north and south. It is also an important stop, transit station and wintering ground on many rare and endangered bird migration routes.

However, this protected area was "destroyed" when the Shenzhen-Shantou Expressway was built.

During the period of 1993, Gao, an ornithologist of South China Institute of Endangered Animals, discovered the abundant waterbird resources in Haifeng Wetland when he was conducting the environmental assessment of Shenzhen-Shantou Expressway. He was very excited by the existence of a large number of waterfowl, and he put forward the suggestion of establishing a protected area.

During the period of 1997, 9 purple waterfowl were found in the Great Lakes. This bird has disappeared in Guangdong Province for nearly a hundred years. Later, a species of global concern, the crested bream, was found in the fair water accumulation area of the Yellow River, which further confirmed the importance and urgency of establishing nature reserves.

1998, Haifeng Great Lakes Provincial Nature Reserve was officially approved and listed as a proposed national nature reserve.

In 2004, the world's important endangered species-curly-feathered pelicans (24) and black-faced spoonbills (56) were discovered in Dongguan, which established the international significance of Haifeng wetland.

Since 2004, new species have been recorded in nature reserves, and the bird list has developed from the initial 72 species to the current 163 species.

In 2005, Haifeng County was named "China Waterbird Town" by china wildlife conservation association.

Protected area information

Established: 1998

Geographical location: in Haifeng County, Shanwei City, it is 290km from Guangzhou in the west, 0/97km from Shenzhen 180km from Shantou/KLOC-0 in the east and 8 1 nautical mile from Hong Kong by waterway.

Main protected objects: birds and their habitats.

Tel: 0660-689 1955.

Overview: The wetland of Guangdong Haifeng Bird Provincial Nature Reserve is composed of three parts: Fair Area, Great Lakes Area and Dongguan-An Wei Area. Among them, the fair division belongs to rivers and constructed wetlands, and there are key protected bird species such as black stork, kite, magpie and grey-backed falcon; The Great Lakes region belongs to coastal and coastal wetlands, with cormorants, egrets, seagulls and other key protected birds. Lian An Wei Street in Dongguan belongs to coastal beach wetland, and there are endangered birds such as black-faced spoonbill, white spoonbill and curly-feathered pelican. (Editor: Wu Shan)