2025.04.29｜Shenzhen, China
Birding in the mountains is two sides of the same coin.
The trees are tall, and the foliage thick. You hear birds chirping all around as you ramble through the woods — but you can’t see a thing.
And yet, when you do spot one, it’s often a stunner. Arboreal birds can be pretty as a picture: small, soft, and light-footed. They usually have tiny, dainty beaks and fluffy little breasts that bounce like tennis balls along the branches. You know who I’m talking about — the Warbling White-eye.
By early morning, Bijiashan Park was already turning hot and restless. Elderly hikers moved along the trail, wrapped in the ceaseless call of the Greater Coucal. You could only catch fleeting glimpses of their shadows in the dense green, if the dice rolled in your favor.
A middle-aged man stopped by when he saw me resting with my gear on a roadside bench. He was enthusiastic, almost thrilled, to tell me about some rare brown birds he’d just seen nearby.
Thanks to his tip.
Just around the corner on a roadside lawn, a small flock of Greater Necklaced Laughingthrushes were hopping about — some foraging for insects, others basking. Yes, birds sunbathe too. They stretch out their wings, flatten themselves on the ground, and soak in the light, letting the sun clean their feathers — a moment of comfort, especially in such sticky, humid weather.
I rambled from the north gate of the park to the south, where a large pond sat under the shade of trees. A crowd of elders was exercising in the nearby pavilion. That’s where I saw the real star of the day — Chinese Pond Herons.
Their breeding plumage is dramatically different from their winter look: deep red, blue, and pure white during the season, dull grey-brown the rest of the year. In Japan, they’re rare — I’d only seen one once, back in early spring, still not fully molted.
But here, in this humble pond, there were at least ten. They stood quietly by the water, necks stretched, eyes wide, waiting to strike.
They were utterly focused on the fish below — immersed in their world, paying no mind to passing humans.
As for me? I stayed in the shade, sitting quietly on the bench, watching them. And that became my whole day.
