These days, there are many tourists in Beijing's Summer Palace Ice Rink and Shichahai Ice Rink, and around the ice surface for people to skate, I saw the ice holes left for ducks and ducks-
However, last year there were ...... of being frozen on the ice
In winter, it is necessary to protect these ducks to survive well, not only because of duck Taoist care, but also because these ducks may have a national first-class protected animal - the "national duck" Chinese merganser.
Summer Palace Tuancheng Lake duck flock, after reading this, you will also look for the national duck
01
Look for the special one
In winter, the Tuancheng Lake of the Summer Palace gathers hundreds of ordinary mergansers. Compared with the duck image we are familiar with, the appearance of the common merganser duck (the official name in Chinese is this) is somewhat special: they have a slender body, the male body feathers are mainly white, and the back and head and neck are dark green; the female bird is covered in gray feathers and has a brown-red head. Their beaks are pointed and long, and if you look closely with a telescope, you can see jagged bumps on them. Unlike most ducks, which are predominantly vegetarians, the mergansers make a living from fishing, a beak that helps them bite into slippery fish.
A pair of duck ducks
Source: sierwatervogels.nl
However, the birdwatchers who also gather here do not want to see them the most. Among the many common mergansers, everyone searched for a duck with a slightly different appearance, a rare bird of "national one" that happened to visit here - the Chinese merganser.
The plumage color of the Chinese merganser duck is similar to that of the common merganser, but it is slightly smaller, and both male and female have long crown feathers on the top of their heads, like combing a "moxican head". In addition, their flank (the part of the body close to the surface of the water) is covered with scale-like lines, which is why they are nicknamed "scale mergansers".
It is also a male with a green head and a female with a brown head
Source: news.cjn.cn
02
"Merganser duck" in China
There are only 4 species of mergansers in the genus Mergansers, where the Chinese mergansers are located, in the world. In addition to the Brazilian merganser in South America, three other species are found on the mainland. The aforementioned common merganser is one of the largest and most common, but there is also the red-breasted merganser duck, which likes to live by the sea and can be seen on the northern coast of the mainland in winter.
The red-breasted merganser male has a dark red, spotted chest and no scales on the flanks
Source: birdwords.co.uk
There are also two similar ducks that are not of this genus, which are also called "merganser ducks" in Chinese. Among them, the brown-wedged merganser is distributed in North America, and the bar-headed merganser (also known as white merganser) can be seen in China has a unique appearance: the male bird has a "white and black" plumage, and a black eye, so it is nicknamed "panda duck".
Bar-headed merganser with a short neck and short beak, the male is white with black in the middle, and the female has a dark brown head
Source: naturamediterraneo.com
03
I don't love the big lake and I love the river
Birders at the Summer Palace are so obsessed with the Chinese merganser duck because it is not only endemic to East Asia, but also one of the most endangered domestic ducks.
According to a population assessment in 2016, there were only 2400~4500 adults in the wild. Therefore, when the media reports, they are often referred to as "giant pandas among birds". In Beijing, the observation of the Chinese merganser is very rare, usually once or twice a year.
Anji, Zhejiang, which is very popular with Chinese mergansers
Source: CCTV News
The Chinese merganser generally breeds in the northeastern part of the mainland and the Russian Far East, and migrates south in winter. They are scarce in number, and when they migrate and winter, they often "break into pieces", only form small groups, or even act alone. It was not until the end of the 20th century that it was determined that the main wintering grounds of the Chinese merganser duck were Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei and other areas in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and some of them went to Henan, Zhejiang, Sichuan and Chongqing to spend the winter. Even so, in waterfowl wintering resorts such as Poyang Lake and Dongting Lake, it is often not a single Chinese merganser duck to be seen.
In the rivers of the Changbai Mountains that have not yet thawed, a pair of Chinese mergansers are resting
In fact, if you leave the lake area and come to the river between the mountains and hills, you may have an unexpected discovery: in the small river, you can sometimes see a few slender waterfowl with "long hair" on the top of the head undulating with the waves, diving into the water from time to time, and floating up with a small fish in their mouths - it turns out that the wintering Chinese merganser duck is hiding here.
The wintering section of the river chosen by the Chinese mergansers is usually relatively remote, with sandbanks or shoals, preferably clear rivers with gravel bottoms – an environment with high underwater visibility that is suitable for diving and fishing. At present, there are stable wintering populations of Chinese mergansers in Xiushui, Wuyuan and Yihuang in Jiangxi Province and Shimen and Taoyuan in Hunan Province.
Chinese mergansers wintering in Wuyuan, Jiangxi
04
Tree hole baby "pick a house"
Every March, the Chinese mergansers set off for the north to breed in the Changbai Mountains and the Xiaoxing'an Mountains in northeastern China and the Russian Far East. Interestingly, they are good at diving, but like mandarin ducks, they build nests and brood in tree cavities.
The Chinese merganser duck is very picky about its "house selection": it should be in the inaccessible mountain forest, there should be a clear river like a wintering ground, the nesting trees should not be too far away from the river, the trunk should be high enough and thick enough, the height of the tree hole above the ground should be more than 10 meters (up to 20 meters), and the view of the hole should be wide...... Tall trees such as elm, aspen, and ash are their main choices. In order to help them reproduce, the staff of the breeding ground reserve will also place artificial nest boxes on large trees near the water.
Duck babies at the Changbai Mountain Nature Conservation and Management Center stick their heads out of their artificial nests and jump into the water to enter a new stage of their "duck life". Source: China Jilin Net
After courtship and mating, the male duck goes to the roam alone, nesting, incubating eggs, and brooding all the female ducks (I think I've seen this episode). Each female usually lays 10~11 eggs, and the incubation period is about 35 days. At the beginning of the hatching period, the female ducks go out to forage every day and stay in the nest for the last few days. At the beginning of June, the little merganser duck broke out of its shell. At the age of two days, they performed their first feat of duck life - following their mother's call, they jumped from the mouth of a tree hole one or twenty meters high and went to the water's edge to start a new life. Before flying south in October, the little ones should seize the time to desperately get food and grow up as soon as possible.
A young bird entering the water under the guidance of its mother
The Chinese mergansers' pickiness about their homeland is a survival strategy that they have evolved over a long period of time. But human activities since the 20th century have put their habitat in jeopardy. In the northern breeding grounds, large nesting trees are cut down, and fishing nets in rivers are used to kill young and even adults. Water pollution, illegal sand mining, fishing and property development in southern China's wintering grounds also threaten the survival of the Chinese merganser. In order for this kind of duck with the name of "China" to continue to breed in the motherland, it is also necessary to protect the whole society.
Let them hunt like this forever and go