As an important bird migration stopover site in the world, Qingdao has recently encountered the rush hour of bird migration. Millions of migrant birds are staying here and the coastal wetland alongside Jiaozhou Bay has become the “Bird Paradise”. To monitor and study migrant birds more effectively, Qingdao has recently observed birds from the air for the first time. Multi-rotor unmanned planes were utilized to enter wet bogs, where it is usually inaccessible, to shoot in short distance the sheltering place of migrant birds. Many precious observation data have been recorded.
Thousands of black-headed gulls were shot from the air
The first aerial shooting place is the downstream of Baisha River. The riverway is filled with dense weeds and widespread shoals forming the wetland, the most suitable living environment for birds. Wang Ximing, who stood on the north river bank, said with excitement: “There are too many birds such as spot-billed duck, green-winged teal, heron, egret. There are over 1,000 black-headed gulls in the east,” as he observed with a high-magnification telescope.
After everything was ready, we manipulated the multi-rotor unmanned plane to fly close to the reed marshes and dive deep into the wetland. Just the moment when we found white flocks of black-headed gulls in the retrospective picture, the bird flock seemed to perceive the approaching of the flying machine and flew up out of burst. As a result, the river way, which was open and spacious before, was suddenly filled up with bird flocks. The black-head gulls gradually found the flying plane without any threat and lowered their speed. Then we shot their flying attitude. In comparison, green-winged teals and spot-billed ducks in the same river way acted very “indifferent”. As the flying machine shot at the height of 5 meters above them, these wild ducks only watched shortly and then continued to search for food with leisure.
The rarely seen Eurasian curlew is shot at the estuary
The second place is the estuary of Baisha River and Moshui River. At the first sight, the water looked still as usual. But through the telescope, we found many clusters of water birds in the far shoals. Among these birds, two kinds of birds with long beaks arose our curiosity. Although they looked very similar, the bird with black and white leather has an upward pointed beak while another bird with khaki has a curved pointed beak downward. “The bird with upward bill is called Pied Avocet while the bird with downward bill is Eurasian curlew. They are close relatives,” according to Wang Ximing, this bird is very rarely seen in Qingdao.
Considering these two kinds of birds are very vigilant, we elevated the flying machine to 100 meters and descended it slowly when it arrived right above the bird flock. When the machine dropped to 40 meters, the Eurasian curlew found the flying plane and fluttered. The flying flocks also drove away dozens of spot-billed duck and tufted duck lurking in spartina cordgrass on the beach. We quickly adjusted the attitude of the flying machine and ran behind the wild ducks and managed to shoot the wild ducks flying quickly close to water surface. The pictures are like Hollywood movies.
Curious herons “escort” the flying plane
The shrimp farm and salt field at south Luo Jiaying Village, Jiaozhou Bay is a famous site for watching birds and the third shooting place. In one salt field, we saw hundreds of herring gulls. On the south side of herring gulls, hundreds of herons stood still as sculptures in the salt field. To our surprise, facing the flying machine, the large herons were not scared but felt very excited. They turned back after they flew for a short distance and flew back and forth around the flying plane. They ascended and descended with the flying plane as if they “escorted” the machine.
By taking this golden opportunity, the camera on the flying plane clearly recorded the graceful flying attitude of the herons in the air. After seeing this scene, Wang Ximing said with smile: “This behavior is very common for many large birds. They are usually not very afraid of people. They come closer to see what it is after they found the flying machine didn’t have any threat.”
Common cordgrass with an area of 5,000 mu serves as a paradise for migratory birds
In Jiaozhou, there is a fairyland for observing birds commonly known by bird lovers. That is the estuary of Yanghe River. Although it is early winter now, the common cordgrass with an area of 5,000 mu on the mud flat is still jade green as if it is a vast prairie in the sea. We manipulated the flying machine into the wetland when it arrived at the central position of the estuary, a group of white dots suddenly appeared in the picture and there is a cloud of black dots in the short distance. Wang Ximing said loudly: “That is bird flock. Out of our expectation, they move to this place.” He quickly stood at a high position and observed with telescope and told us: “There are herring gulls, Pied Avocets, Eurasian curlews as well as cormorants and oyster catchers. The total number of these birds can be tens of thousands. And it is truly rare to see so many oyster catchers together!” We controlled the flying machine and got close to them quickly and shot scenes of numerous oyster catchers assembling together and flying away. Tweets can be heard continuously from the distance. According to Wang Ximing, it is difficult to hear such a pleasing birdcall when people drive them away on the ground. Next, we can resort to flying machines to collect the sound data of bird flocks.
