Majestic mountains reveal hidden glory
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Videos on the internet depicting the beauty and perils of the Ailao Mountains, the once-hidden range in Yunnan province, have piqued a wave of curiosity in recent months.
The topic “A bird numbering only 1,000 worldwide observed in the Ailao Mountains” on the microblogging platform Sina Weibo drew many readers.
“The white-eared night heron is hard to spot because of its small population and secretive habits,” said Zhao Xuebing, a lecturer at Yunnan University’s School of Ecology and Environmental Science.
The bird, classified as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species, has been given top-level protection by the Chinese government.
The Ailao Mountains, in central Yunnan, extend about 310 miles from northwest to southeast. The range is home to China’s largest, least disturbed, and most intact subtropical montane wet evergreen broad-leaved forest ecosystem.
This pristine environment is a home for many lesser-known creatures. Many are rare and endangered animals, including the western black-crested gibbon, the clouded leopard and the green peafowl.
There are estimated to be just 1,000 white-eared night herons in the wild. In early October one was found at the Jinshan Yakou Xinping bird banding and monitoring station in the Ailao Mountain National Nature Reserve.
One of the most elusive members of the heron family, it breeds in southern and central China and in autumn migrates to the China-Myanmar border and Southeast Asia.
“The first discovery of the bird in the Ailao Mountains was in 2006,” said Zhao, who is also the secretary-general of the Kunming Birdwatching Association.
“After many years of silence, since 2021 it has been found here four years in a row, indicating that its numbers have reached a certain size.”
Over the past 20 years Zhao, whose main research interest is nocturnal bird migration, has visited the Ailao Mountains many times from September to November. On each visit he spends more than a month working with station staff and his colleagues on bird banding and research.
The Ailao Mountains are an important corridor for migratory birds, he said. The birds gather in lower passes in the mountain range to fly through.
The Jinshan Yakou Xinping banding station and Jinshan Yakou Zhenyuan banding station, where Zhao works, are on either side of a ridge at the border of Xinping county in Yuxi and Zhenyuan county in Pu’er, with an average altitude of 7,900 feet. According to the station’s records, more than 200 species of migratory birds appear in that area each year.
To protect the Ailao Mountains, many national, provincial, prefecture-level and county-level nature reserves have been established within its expanse.
Ailao Mountain National Nature Reserve, in the central and northern parts of the range, protects rare and endangered plants and animal resources and their habitats.
It spans five counties and county-level cities.
It is home to 86 species of mammals, 65 species of amphibians and reptiles and 430 species of birds. Among them, 35 species are listed as national first- and second-class protected wild animals. They include the western black-crested gibbon, the gray langur, the stump-tailed macaque, the clouded leopard, the black bear, the green peafowl and the black-necked long-tailed pheasant.
Wu Fei, an associate researcher in ornithology at the Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said he is most concerned about the endangered green peafowl.
The green peafowl, measuring 70 to 90 inches in length, is the only native peafowl species in China and the largest of the country’s wild pheasants.
The males, having bright blue-green plumage with a crest of feathers on their heads, look robust and extraordinarily ornate.
Deep within the Ailao Mountains, in Shuangbai county of Chuxiong, a prefecture-level nature reserve named Konglong River was established in 2003 to protect the green peafowl.
“As a flagship species, protecting the green peafowl also safeguards the river valley habitat and many other rare and endangered species within the original habitat,” said Wu. “It plays a crucial role in maintaining the stability of the river valley ecosystem.”