An explorer biography
Xu Keyi
Nature photographer | Globetrotter
Winner of the 1st China Wildlife Video Annual Competition; UNDP "In Defence of Nature" initiative; Before the age of 30, he completed the World Tour, likes to photograph all kinds of wild animals, especially birds, while shooting, to the public to popularize animal protection common sense, call for ecological environmental protection.
The epidemic has imprisoned human beings, but let birds "re-sing".
In 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdown period, the sound range of the white-crowned bunting became wider due to the reduction of noise in the city.
"This bird will be passed down from generation to generation, so that the world briefly pressed the pause button in 2020."
As a nature photographer, Xu Keyi originally photographed seven continents, four oceans, and the North and South Poles. After the pandemic, travel is limited, and her lens explores the world of urban wildlife.
"I'm a curious person about the world, an explorer and a recorder."
Line 01 photographs seven continents, four oceans, north and south poles
"You have to hurry, within a mile, there are four lions rushing here."
An old English lady passing by reminds Xu Keyi and her partner.
Africa's national parks are infested with wildlife, and it was not allowed to get off the car, but the car was trapped, and everyone had to get out of the car and push the car up. Hearing that there was a lion nearby, everyone forcibly calmed themselves and changed the tires as quickly as possible. Before the lion arrives, get out of danger smoothly.
Lions "rampaging" the road in Kruger National Park, South Africa
Xu Keyi has traveled to Africa twice to photograph the Great Migration of Animals, recorded precious pictures of wildebeest crossing the river and crocodiles, leopards eating reeds, etc., and also went to the North and South Poles to photograph penguins vs. skua gulls. However, she said her favorite place to photograph wildlife is Sri Lanka.
▲ Leopards eat reeded antelopes in trees
▲ Penguins drive away skuas, penguins do not have much fighting power, but in order to protect their children, they will do everything they can.
▲ Cute penguins and sleeping seals
"Locals treat the wild national park as their home, and they can find out which tree has an extra bird and a leaf falling from it."
Xu Keyi, who thinks that his observation ability is still good, usually travels with friends and is always the first to find animal tracks, but in front of the Sri Lankan locals, he still sighs.
▲ Sri Lankan crowned hornbills
▲ Crested eagle eagle in Sri Lanka
In Sri Lanka, there are images of people living in harmony with nature everywhere.
However, there was also a shocking scene:
A huge bull elephant was frantically attacking a car, and the ivory had pierced the entire iron skin of the door, and the people in the car screamed and fled.
It was later learned that it was caused by the people in the car feeding the elephants bananas. Elephants generally eat leaves and grass, and bananas are too sugary for it, which causes excitement, so there is tyranny. This is also why national parks strictly prohibit feeding wild animals.
"Some people, in order to satisfy their curiosity or "lure" the film, will use food to feed the animal or use some other improper means to stimulate the animal, such as opening the eyes of the owl during the day, deliberately making noise or kicking the tree to wake it up, which is very inappropriate. ”
02 Return to the city and wildlife "dating"
Photographing wildlife does not necessarily mean going to Africa or the highlands or wilderness. Many people tend to overlook that cities, too, are habitats for wildlife.
"On days when you can't travel far due to the epidemic, the wild animals you can see the most in the city are birds."
For 700 years, Beijing Swift has long regarded Beijing's corner towers and the eaves of the Forbidden City as their home.
They leave Beijing every summer. No one knows where they fly?
Xu Keyi participated in a Sino-British joint ring activity, in order to understand the habits of swifts, the organizers tied a miniature sensor of only a few grams to them, recording the sunrise and sunset time, and pushing back the place where the birds passed.
The following year, when Swift flew back to Beijing, the researchers took off their sensors and inserted them into a computer to read the data, and were surprised to find that the bird, which weighed less than 40 grams, had reached the south of Africa.
You know, the Beijing Swift is difficult to take off on the flat ground, so it is also known as the "bird without feet", it can only hang on the cliff wall hook, first swoop and then take off with the help of strength. On this journey through 37 countries and more than 30,000 kilometers back and forth, they can hardly stay, even when they sleep, eat, and excrete.
"I think it's a very romantic thing. They travel thousands of miles to Africa, taking a breath, just to fly back to their homes in Beijing. Every year, until death. ”
Compared with the romance of swift migration, the walking crane is more interesting.
"The walking crane can absorb solar energy and convert it into its own energy, and its supplies can be drawn 50% from food and 50% from the sun, which is equivalent to bringing a solar battery."
▲ Basking in the sun is equivalent to "eating" the walking crane
Moreover, this petite bird is actually a master of snake catching.
"Birds are direct descendants of dinosaurs, and their strength should not be underestimated."
03 "Why can you photograph so many animals?" ”
You can always believe in the excitement captured in Xu Keyi's lens.
She has filmed a short film, "Urban Tracing, Finding 30 Species of Wild Animals in the City", which won the first China Wildlife Video Annual Competition award and was nominated for Best Picture.
▲The scene of the award ceremony
Although the film is only a few minutes, it takes several trips to Androm hangzhou and Beijing during filming, which lasts more than two months.
▲ Bird picture book, the side of the whole body can reveal the most information, can help confirm the bird species
Many people asked her curiously, "How did you find these animal tracks?" ”
"First of all, my luck is really better, and secondly, of course, I have to observe carefully. In addition, books, documentaries, and papers that I usually focus on are related to the habitats of animals and plants (the environmental and spatial extent of the emergence of organisms). ”
Although Xu Keyi did not specifically learn the complete system knowledge, curiosity would help her collect the relevant bits and pieces, form a net in her mind, and suddenly a certain light would be lit up, and she would find that the animal she was looking for was there.
For example, at the turn of spring and summer, there will be hedgehogs; There may be a nest of swifts between the beams of ancient buildings; There are mallard ducks in the water, and there are black water pheasants nesting on the waterfront... When you understand the habitat of an animal, you will naturally know where it haunts.
However, there is still a difficult distance between knowing and shooting.
"The bird may appear for a few seconds, and you have to adjust the camera and crouch very patiently to get a satisfactory photo."
▲ China's smallest owl collared ibis
Last year to Qinling to shoot black-throated songbirds, because this bird is generally more active at sunrise, Xu Keyi got up at four o'clock every day, carried heavy supplies on his back, and began to climb from an altitude of two thousand meters. There were also a few times in Yushu, Qinghai, three or four thousand meters above sea level, and so it was.
For bird shooting, this is the norm. Moreover, it is also the norm to toss and turn around and still get nothing.
At the beginning of this year, Xu Keyi and others went to Hainan Jianfengling to shoot chestnut owls, and chestnut owls will only be active in the middle of the night. So everyone took a flashlight every night and found three or four o'clock in the morning in the forest. I heard it cry several times, but I couldn't find it.
This also makes many people wonder about the work of nature photographers:
Why do you wade through mountains and rivers like this, work hard to photograph birds, and photograph various wild animals?
04 Better understanding will bring better protection
"Some endangered birds, the pictures you take, may be used as important research material."
Xu Keyi has photographed less than a thousand spoon-billed sandpipers in the world, and this photo finally won an international award.
▲ Spoon-billed sandpiper eating dried shrimp
For animals that are relatively everyday, recordings through photos and videos can also help people better understand a species and spread their habits. Only better understanding leads to better protection.
Xu Keyi often popularizes ecological common sense on his personal social platform to correct some of people's misconceptions about animals.
For example, treat the "neighbors" in the city and try not to disturb them - do not catch the hedgehog as a pet; Don't play with the weasel's tail; Don't take the chicks home, first, they can't feed them, and second, their parents can't find their children when they come back, and they will break up a family. Usually large birds are nearby and may be foraging.
Some of these misconceptions are due to a lack of ecological common sense, and some are due to a lack of legal common sense.
In the past, there was a habit of eating "field chickens" in Guangdong, that is, tiger striped frogs. But it is now a national second-level protected animal, and it is illegal to catch, sell and eat.
In the Ant Forest Wuyuanhe Protected Area, Xu Keyi rescued a tiger frog. When it was found, it was kept in a cage with a black-eyed toad. It is estimated that poachers put it there to trap the snake.
"The cage keeper probably couldn't tell the frog species, didn't know it was a tiger frog. But even so, catching wildlife is illegal or even criminal, as many snakes are also protected at the national level or level II. It is not excluded that some people will do illegal things for profit. ”
How to find a balance and achieve harmonious coexistence in the relationship with animals and nature has always tested human wisdom.
05 Explore the harmonious coexistence of man and nature
"When I pay attention to the ant forest online, I will think that I want to protect the environment and protect animals, these are not slogans, and it is necessary to comprehensively balance the economic, policy, legal and other factors to truly achieve the harmonious development of ecology and economy, man and nature."
Xu Keyi visited the Jiatang Protected Area under the Ant Forest Line and found that driven by the ecological economy, the local economic structure and income sources have undergone great changes.
In the past, it mainly relied on mining and digging for cordyceps, and only had economic income for a specific few months.
Now, the herders there have become rangers, drivers, and can charge a fee by guiding tourists to visit animals; Women started a handicraft industry, using wool felt and yak felt to make animal images of Jiatang Reserve, such as black-necked cranes and Tibetan foxes.
▲ Women in Jiatang Conservation Area are making felt handicrafts
"This approach both enriches the local economy and avoids ecological imbalances caused by overgrazing."
It creates a friendly connection between people and animals and the environment, and it will slowly make the locals develop a sense of consciousness: I live here with these animals, survival and interests are closely related, and I want to protect them.
Human beings take it for granted that cities are their own homes. Himself is the master of this planet.
We often forget that all living beings dwell only on the earth. We have and only have a common "home", so we need to help each other and try to adapt to each other. This is true in nature, and it is also true in cities.