A pair of cresteds frolick in the water. Photo by Zhang Zumin
Yangtze River Daily, August 12, 14 On the day of "Tanabata", the "Love Bird Quietly Arrived" theme bird ecological photography exhibition held by the Municipal Bird Watching Association will be launched online. This special bird exhibition does not take the exquisite picture as the ultimate pursuit, but pays more attention to reflecting the love and life of the birds. This Tanabata, come and see the birds show their love.
A pair of spot-billed ducks. Photo by Zhang Zumin
Filming a bird love "series"
This screenwriter is an "old boy"
The Mandarin duck that Xiu En loves, the black water chicken that fights for a spouse, the little who has children... Zhang Zumin, 64, is a member of the Bird Watching Association. In the years of bird watching and bird shooting, he has taken many photos of birds in love, childbearing and other themes.
The reporter saw that many of the photos he took were related, and when they were connected, they looked like a bird love story "series".
Male white-crowned long-tailed pheasants with flappy bright feathers attract females. Photo by Zhang Zumin
Zhang Zumin explained that some of these "serials" are continuous stories, such as a fierce red hemp duck water battle, and some are the same group of birds recorded at different times, such as the process of laying eggs and hatching of small mounds observed this year. "Bird watching is a continuous process, and sometimes in order to observe the survival of a bird family, we will go to the observation point at least 6 times a year."
In the process of sorting out the photos, some unrelated photos have also become interesting stories in the eyes of the "old naughty boy" screenwriter, and he will also accompany these small "serials" with interesting words.
For example, in many photos of birds in pairs, there is a lone "single egret." So he wrote: "There is the sweetness of a happy marriage, and there is also the loneliness of a single shadow." When will this egret wait for the arrival of the bird of its heart? ”
Love is not all beautiful, in order to get the female's heart, males often stage fierce fights. When recording the fight, he wrote: "When the black water chicken fights for his wife, its intensity is far more than that of the anti-billed sandpiper and the egret, which shows that in the mind of the black water chicken, the status of the wife is absolutely the first." ”
From bird watching and patting birds to "falling in love with birds"
He reads the "joy and sorrow" of birds.
Because I love birds, I can shoot and make up these warm stories.
Zhang Zumin has been a photography enthusiast for many years, and he has been photographing birds for 6 or 7 years before joining the Bird Watching Association.
A pair of Mandarin ducks stood on a branch. Photo by Zhang Zumin
"But before I loved birds, I loved these beautiful elves with bright feathers and graceful postures." Zhang Zumin said that what bird shooters pursue is to shoot high-definition, exquisite blockbusters.
In 2019, he met a member of the Bird Watching Association while watching birds in Fuhe, and after a conversation, he was very interested in bird watching and joined the association. This decision not only changed his photo style, but also changed his bird-shooting philosophy.
This year, he observed and recorded the whole process of a pair of small couples falling in love and laying eggs. At first, it was sweet, and after laying eggs, the couple quickly raised and reinforced the floating nest in the water, and sweetly waited for the birds to come out of the shell. But later, when he returned to the pond, he did not see the bird eggs, only the female little man staring warily at the water. When he returned home, he looked at the photos and found that there was a very large snake in the water, which may be the perpetrator. When I went again, I saw that the female was building a new nest in the grass, but the male was always "frowning".
"In fact, this group of photos, the background is more messy, not high-definition, from the perspective of photography is not brilliant, but let me more shocked and moved." Zhang Zumin said that bird watching pays more attention to observing the habits and behaviors of birds and understanding their sorrows and joys.
Red ducks snuggled together. Photo by Zhang Zumin
"Nature has its own laws, and there is nothing we can do about what happens to the little ones, but there is much we can do to try to protect their habitats and minimize the impact of human production and life on them."
There are many bird lovers like this in Wuhan, and there are many of their wonderful works. The upcoming "Love Birds Quietly Arrived" theme bird ecological photography exhibition, "crowdfunded" by Wuhan bird friends, will exhibit 40 carefully selected bird love photography works. The exhibition will be released on the day of "Qixi" on the WeChat public accounts "Wuhan Bird Watching", "Hanshang Group", "Hanshang Group Wedding Photo Material City" and the Yangtze River Cloud Platform, and interested citizens can pay attention to it.
"Tanabata" bird watching tips:
Recently, the bead-necked dove, black water chicken, and small water pheasant are still breeding, and the pheasant and gray-winged floating gull are also partially breeding, and the public may observe them "falling in love" in various waters, parks, and even communities.
The Municipal Bird Watching Association reminds the public that birds are less vigilant when "falling in love", please do not go too close, so as not to interfere with their reproduction, especially when birds are breeding and hatching eggs, do not interfere.
(Yang Xiaoyu, yang xiaoyu, intern Wang Yiduo, reporter of Yangtze River Daily)
【Editor: Yao Hao】