Written by/Que Pin Jia Sun Mengjie
This article is an excerpt from the magazine Knowledge is Power
Bird migration is one of the most spectacular and amazing natural phenomena in the world. The weather is getting cooler, the birds are beginning to move south to the peak, and the migratory birds that originally bred in the north, whether forest birds or water birds, use the north wind to fly to the distant and warm south for wintering.
But not all birds migrate, and some may never leave their birthplace in their entire lives. Today, Zhilijun will take you to see those "resident birds"!
What is a "resident bird"?
As many as 10,000 of the world's surviving birds have been discovered and officially named by taxonomists, and about 3/4 of them live and reproduce in a small area all year round, these birds that inhabit the same area all year round and do not make long-distance migrations are often called resident birds, such as the passermontanus, the white-headed quail (pycnonotus sinensis) and the magpie (pica pica).
In the cold winter, if you pay a little attention, you will find that many small-billed crows (corvus corones) begin to pour into the city of Beijing in the evening, landing on high poplar trees and roosting at night to survive the long cold nights; until sunrise, they fly in groups to the countryside in search of anything to feed. Although these small-billed crows commute between the city and the suburbs every day like office workers, this range of tens of kilometers is like the garden of the community where we live for birds with the ability to fly, and they can walk around a few laps after a meal, so the small-billed crows in Beijing are also resident birds.
carrion crow
After the end of breeding, some resident birds will leave the small piece of their home where they lived during breeding, and go to other places nearby to explore and find a wider sky, they have no place to live, where they can find more and better food, and they will go somewhere until the spring flowers bloom to return to the breeding area to breed chicks, such as drifting birds, such as the coal (parus ater).
"Resident birds" also become "migratory birds"?
Migratory and resident birds are nothing more than a set of relative concepts, although for different birds, the motivations for migration may be diverse, ranging from genetic to external environmental factors. But in the final analysis, it is all about being able to survive better, to reproduce their offspring better, and to better adapt to the natural environment.
Therefore, birds may also adjust their living habits according to the different natural environment, and in the right situation of habitat environment, some migratory birds may stay in a certain place for a long time, and even eventually change the habits of thousands of years of migration.
Red-crowned crane
For example, the red-crowned crane (grus japonensis), which we commonly call the crane, usually inhabits open wetlands and lakes. Entering the breeding season, they often sing and dance, generously displaying their elegant and healthy posture, which has been loved by people since ancient times. In Hokkaido, Japan, snow-watching cranes have always been a traditional outdoor activity for locals in winter. In the past, the red-crowned crane here was originally a winter migratory bird, only in the middle of winter, and went to Russia, Mongolia, Heilongjiang and other places in the north to breed in the spring. However, due to hokkaido's long-term artificial feeding, red-crowned cranes can get enough food even when the water surface is frozen, and gradually evolved from winter migratory birds to local resident birds, no longer migrating.
Similarly, in China's Heilongjiang Zhalong Nature Reserve, red-crowned cranes have also given up the habit of moving to the south for wintering. Originally, they would migrate back and forth between the Heilongjiang Zhalong Nature Reserve and The Yancheng in Jiangsu Province every year, but in the winter, the Zhalong Nature Reserve prepared sufficient food and a good winter environment for the red-crowned crane, so the red-crowned crane no longer flew south and became the resident bird of the Zhalong.
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