N Haidu reporter Shi Leilei Kong Yu Correspondent Chen Lin Intern Chen Xin Text/Photo
In early summer, in a small village on the outskirts of Nanping, eight photographers hid in a small bamboo hut covered with black sunshades, holding long guns and short cannons. They braved the humid and hot weather of more than 30 ° C, just to capture the moment when a small bird flew in the Minjiang River Valley.
In this issue of "Talking about Heaven and Earth", we want to talk about this blue-throated bee tiger, which is known as "the most beautiful bird in China".
Birds on the branches spread their wings and fly
A row of blue-throated bee tigers "singing" in the rain
At first glance, this name is a bit strange, there are "bees" and "tigers", but it is a bird. Bee tigers like to catch all kinds of insects in the air, which is a bit of a bee buster, hence the name.
The blue-throated bee tiger has gorgeous feathers that are not lost to any kind of bird. Its head and upper back are bright chocolate color, the blue feathers on the throat are particularly eye-catching, and the waist and tail also have bright feathers.
Every year at the beginning of summer, the blue-throated bee tiger enters the breeding period. In this small sandy field around Nanping, the blue-throated bee tiger enjoys the clear stream and the sandy area at the water's edge. In the next two months, it will complete courtship, nesting, and giving birth here.
Chen Lin, a famous ecological photographer and vice chairman of Fuzhou Photographers Association, has more than 10 years of experience in bee tiger shooting. He said that Fujian has a lot of rain in the summer, and sometimes a torrential rain causes the level of the stream to rise, directly flooding the nest of the hummingbird, and the chicks are killed in the cruel environment.
In Nanping and Sanming, there are now many villages with swarms of bee tigers, and there are more than 20 in this sand field. The owner of the battlefield regarded the bee tiger as a treasure, and he demarcated the forbidden area and did not allow outsiders to approach. Even familiar photographers can only take pictures in the bamboo shed.
In the waterfront areas of Minqing, Yongtai and Fuqing in Fuzhou, blue-throated bee tigers also appear sporadically.
Humming tiger, belonging to the order ornithischia, Dharma monks, medium-sized birds, body length of more than 20 cm. There are 20 species of bee tigers in the world, among which there are many species of bee tigers in China, such as green-throated, chestnut-throated, blue-throated, yellow-throated and so on. The most common bee tigers in Fujian are the chestnut-throated bee tiger and the blue-throated bee tiger. The two are similar in shape, the main difference is the coat color, the throat feathers are one chestnut red, one is lake blue.
There is a chestnut-throated bee tiger nature reserve in Wuyuan Bay, Xiamen, and the horseback riding mountain is the core area of the reserve, and more than 100 chestnut-throated bee tigers have come here this year to breed and roost.
June 12
Cloudy to moderate rain 21°C~27°C
June 13
Heavy rain 20°C~23°C
June 14
Light rain turns cloudy 21 °C ~ 27 °C
Editor; Li Shuai