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More than 100 years ago, a man was born poor,
There are almost no formally educated Britons,
More than 3,000 bird museum paintings were hand-painted.
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White Stork (left) and White Crane (right)
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White vulture (left) and sparrowhawk (right)
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Brown-breasted Dharma monk (left) Chestnut-throated bee tiger (right)
In that era when cameras were not widespread and transportation was inconvenient,
Most of his works are drawn against specimens,
But the accuracy and vividness of his works,
Amazingly, it is known as "the perfect mirror of nature",
He's John Gould,
He is one of the "most accomplished bird illustrators ever recorded in the UK".
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Hand drawing of the eagle owl (left) and real shot (right)
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Heron hand drawing (left) and real-shot drawing (right)
Gould never came to China,
But his birds are now abundantly distributed in China.
Chinese scholars Liu Gang, Xia Xue, Zhu Lei,
It took 2 years,
Selected 519 species of birds that are distributed in China,
Compiled into a new book, "Chinese Birds Across Time and Space",
Douban open score 9.7,
It can be called a "Chinese Bird Atlas".
Author: Zhang Ruijia
Editor-in-charge: Ni Chujiao
China is one of the most diverse birds in the world, with about 1,500 species found so far.
Let's get to know some fairy birds first.
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Snow owl hand drawing (left) and real shot (right)
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Snow owl real picture
This is the snow owl, don't look at it snow white, look dumb, but it is a natural "killer". When hunting, it can not only fly smoothly close to the ground, but also swoop strongly and move quickly.
The snow owl, painted by Gould by hand more than 100 years ago, was not first discovered in Heilongjiang in China until the winter of 1957.
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Gould's Partridge
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Crested ibises shoot really
The partridge is an older waterbird on Earth. They have a habit of eating their own abdomen and rib feathers regularly, for reasons that have not yet been determined, but it is thought that it may prevent fish spines from scratching the stomach.
There are five species distributed in China, three of which: red-necked, horned and black-necked have been listed as national second-class protected animals.
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Gould's spoon-billed sandpiper
Spoon-billed sandpipers, born with a large tablespoon, can better detect food in the underwater sediment, and the wide tongue facilitates filtering food. It is one of the rarest birds in the world, with only 500 in the world, and is a first-class protected animal on the mainland.
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Hand drawing (left) and real-time drawing (right)
The crane, also known as the euphoria crane, has an elegant appearance but an extraordinary and resolute personality.
Some of the cranes that breed in the mainland have to cross the Himalayas to winter in South Asia in the autumn and winter, and then cross the Himalayas to return to the breeding grounds in the spring, crossing the mountains above 5,000 meters above sea level twice a year.
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Mandarin duck hand-drawn
Mandarin ducks, seen as symbols of love, often appear in pairs. But many people do not know that this "monogamy" is time-sensitive, and in the second year after the breeding period, there will be a new love, and in most cases, the female bird will take on the responsibility of raising children.
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Dai Sheng hand drawing (left) and real shot drawing (right)
Dai Sheng, known as the "messenger of spring", breeds around the spring of the valley every year, and when the chicks are brooded, they will apply feces and tail fat gland secretions to the eggs and young birds, which is conducive to hatching and feather protection.
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Brown horse chicken hand drawing
The brown horse chicken, which may not be seen in the wild now, runs like a galloping horse. During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, its feathers were used to reward military generals. It is a first-class protected wild animal on the mainland.
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Blue-throated sunbird hand drawing (left) and sunbird real-time drawing (right)
Named after the famous ornithologist and illustrator, Mrs. Gould, Elizabeth
These pinnacles of 19th-century naturalist paintings were by Gould. If he just can draw, then he is not a legend, in the bird-loving group, he is a titan level.
Gould was born into a poor working-class family to a gardener father. He began studying ornithology at the age of 13 and was appointed first curator of the Museum of the Zoological Society in London at the age of 24.
In his time, there was no such high-performance telescope as today, and the traffic was not developed, and he could only create by comparing specimens and referring to field observation notes. Even so, he has published more than 50 volumes of bird atlases, including Birds of the Himalayas, and even named and described about 380 new bird species.
After Darwin finished the world in the Beagle, he asked Gould to identify the bird specimens he had brought back. The "Darwin sparrow" as we know it is actually the first to be identified by Gould.
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Grey Crane hand-drawn
Unlike other painters, he not only restores the shape of birds, but also focuses on their behavior, living habits, and living environment, such as the surrounding flowers and rivers. In the absence of a field expedition, it can be said to be accurate enough.
For example, dozens of gray cranes appear in the background of this gray crane, some are foraging, some are resting, and some look like they are looking at the wind... Being able to be depicted in such detail also reveals a message that the distribution of the grey crane is very wide and very easy to observe.
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Red-bellied pheasant hand-drawn
The red-bellied golden pheasant is a unique bird species in the mainland, and is considered to be one of the birds closest to the image of the phoenix, and it is recorded in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, "The mountain of Dan cave, there are birds, its shape is like a chicken, the five cai and the text, the name is known as the Phoenix Emperor." ”
In this picture, Gould depicts a total of 5 red-bellied pheasants, with a clear distinction between male and female, and a closer look at their environment, just like in a mountain environment.
However, there are still inaccuracies in the painting, such as the iris of the male bird with the red-bellied golden pheasant should be pale yellow instead of brownish yellow, they are sensitive by nature, and they will hardly crouch on the open ground. Today's bird taxonomy is constantly evolving, and some of them are different from Gould's speculations, but they do not affect the historical value of his paintings.
We interviewed the two editors of the book, Xia Xue of the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Zhu Lei, an ornithologist, to learn about the creation story of the book, the current situation of birds in China, and their life experiences in ecological research.
The following is Xia Xue's self-description:
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Summer snow and parasitic flowers
The book "Chinese Birds Across Time and Space" is mainly divided into two parts, one part is a review of Gould's life, and the other part is a hand-drawn drawing of 519 species of Chinese birds and their introduction. Among them, the classification, threat, and protection level of 519 species of birds were written and revised by Liu Gang and Zhu Lei, and the short articles on Gould's life and 25 species of birds were written by me.
In early 2020, I was contacted by the publisher's editors, saying that they had collected a batch of Gould's hand-drawn drawings and asking if I would be interested in working on a related topic together. When I heard that it was Gould's picture, I was very excited.
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Black-tailed gull photographed by Summer Snow
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Summer snow looks like a bird in the wild
In early 2015, when I went to Sri Lanka for a friend's wedding, I saw a bird of paradise painted by Gould in a professor's office and was immediately fascinated. It was the first time I had heard the name Gould.
That night I dreamed of a bird of paradise. The next morning, we were drinking tea in the courtyard, the clouds were foggy, talking about my dreams, everyone talked and laughed, and the picture was particularly beautiful.
So when a friend called me to say that it was Gould's painting, my eyes lit up, and I didn't know when I would come back to you when I surprised you.
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Praying mantis photographed by Xia Xue
I am now working at the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, mainly doing science education and conservation education.
I have been very interested in biology since I was a child, and I think that if a person wants to understand the world, he must first understand himself, so after studying biotechnology in college, relatively microscopic, and having a certain understanding of the small-scale world, I want to see large-scale things, so graduate students I turned to relatively macroscopic professional ecology.
Among birds, I prefer birds of prey, and the snow owl is a type of bird of prey. In addition to feeling that their appearance is high, they also admire their ability to adapt to the environment. In fact, their living environment is quite harsh, the temperature, food, ah, is not as rich as our tropical regions.
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Gould's yellow-waisted sunbird (left) and real shot (right)
The sunbird is known as the "hummingbird of the East"
We have a lot of yellow-rumped sunbirds at our botanical garden and are one of our star bird species. They are sometimes parked in the carport, on the branches, maybe five meters away from people, and eat nectar there, which is very kind. Gould also painted the yellow-waisted sunbird, which we included in the book.
There are currently 305 species of birds, 44 species of reptiles, 27 species of amphibians, 468 species of butterflies, more than 800 species of spiders in our botanical garden, and even more so many like insects.
It's a lot of fun to be with them, and I sometimes wonder, how much do I know about the world? How much do you know about yourself? So I want to know the world as much as possible.
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Xia Xue worked on the ship as an Antarctic explorer
In 2018, I was particularly fortunate to be recruited to become the Chinese Explorer of Antarctic Science Adventure Cruises, departing in December, returning in February, and traveling to and from surrounding cities to and from the Antarctic Peninsula for three months.
On board, we do translation and science popularization work, such as science lectures, safety explanations, and citizen science projects on land, such as surveying water quality, bird breeding, climate data and other projects with local universities. I went again in 2019.
The experience of Antarctic exploration opened a new window for me to observe the world. The colleagues in the team are still working as explorers in their 80s. There was a grandmother in her 70s, a historian, who went to study history in her 50s and then went to college. Another colleague turned to geology in his 40s because of his hobbies, and eventually found a teaching position in a university.
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Summer snow photographs plants in the wild
These people not only let me see the spirit of learning to grow old and live to the old, but also admired them for using their own strength to popularize science and protect nature, and I think I can also become such a science popularization worker.
I often tell my friends that I don't have such a big feeling as protecting the world, but I hope to do something for the world. This in-depth exploration of Gould reinforced the idea.
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Zhu Lei looks like a bird in the wild
Q: One
A: Zhu Lei (Zhu Lei, vice chairman of Chengdu Bird Watching Association, currently working for Guangxi Academy of Sciences, reviewing "Chinese Birds Across Time and Space")
Q: How did you get into relationship with birds?
A: When I was in graduate school, I took a bird class, the teacher in the class was an old gentleman, more than 70 years old and still took us, carrying dry food, walking back and forth 10 kilometers to do field internships, along the way to meet the birds, he can analyze the head is the tao, I admire, but also from that time began to contact birds, bird watching. I have been engaged in bird ecology research for many years now.
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Birds photographed by Zhu Lei
Q: Why do so many people like bird watching? What has the history of bird watching been like?
A: The fact that birds can fly is very jealous of human beings, and people have a lot of good imaginations about the fact that they can fly in the sky. Birds are both active during the day and can fly, with beautiful plumage, more diverse behaviors, and some gentle songs when courtship. Taken together, these reasons make it impossible for humans to ignore birds, which are also one of the creatures that humans know the most.
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Zhu Lei was watching birds at Wolong, Sichuan, at the mouth of Balang Mountain
Since 1996, bird watching groups have emerged in mainland China, and now they have grown to millions of people. Human interest in hunting is lurking in the genes, and bird watching requires keen observation and quiet action as hunting. The basic content of bird watching is: identifying species, observing the behavior of birds and the environment in which they live, in a sense, it is a reenactment of the ancestral hunting activities of the past, but at that time it was to maintain livelihood, and now it is rich in spirit.
Gould's chronological conditions were rudimentary, and in order to study birds, birds had to be beaten down to study specimens, and there is a proverb in English: What's hit is history, what's missed is mystery. It means that what is hit becomes history, and what is not hit becomes a mystery. The basic element of our current research must be that the subject must be alive in order to know its interaction with its surroundings.
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Camp Lipstick Beach Bird Watching Group
Photography: Master Zhao
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Zhu Lei photographed a red-crowned crane in Yingkou
Q: One of your most impressive bird sightings?
A: That was the first time I saw a red-crowned crane. We went with a bird watching group to the Red-crowned Crane Sanctuary in Yingkou, Liaoning Province.
Late August is the prettiest season on Red Beach, but it's not actually a good season for bird watching, the red-crowned crane breeding season has passed, and the reeds have grown tall enough to completely cover the big red-crowned cranes that stand up one meter and five or six meters, so my expectations are not very high.
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The red-crowned crane that Zhu Lei saw at Yingkou
Photography: Master Zhao
Most people were obsessed with a nearby midi sandpiper, and I suddenly saw a large red-crowned crane standing abruptly in the open area, very tall and elegant, and the people taking pictures next to it did not pay attention. Up to now, I am impressed by the scene, the blue sky and white clouds are also good, next to the green reeds, the background is the sea, next to the red red beach, the composition is very beautiful.
The camera's frame is small, and many photography enthusiasts focus on a bird and ignore the more surprising things in their surroundings. Not only did I see the birds that time, but after the end, I had a new understanding and experience of how to see the birds and even how to see the world.
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Zhu Lei photographed the owl
Q: Do new birds often find today?
A: Because our ornithological research throughout Asia is relatively weak and has a high biodiversity, it is possible to discover some new species that have not been named before if we go to inaccessible places today, or if we know enough about a taxon.
For example, from 2002 to 2020, There are nearly 20 new records of birds in Guangdong Province that were not there before, such as the ochre red-tailed plover that was just discovered some time ago, and this year, 6 new records of birds have been found in Zhuhai, including flower-faced ducks, ribbed ducks, cannabis flounders, red-breasted autumn sand ducks, white spoonbills and black gray plovers.
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Birds photographed by Zhu Lei
Q: The research foundation is weak, which is reflected in the specific situation.
A: To put it simply, there are about 1,500 species of birds in China, but we certainly don't have 1,500 people who study birds, which means that on average, there is less than one bird per species. There are about 2,000 research positions in the United States, but there are less than 900 species of birds in the United States, of which about one or two hundred are occasionally found in the United States, and there are only about four or five hundred birds breeding in the United States. So we still have room for improvement in this regard.
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Birds hit some of the birds that died
Source: Yangtze River Delta 2022 Spring Bird Collision Survey Volunteers
Q: What have you been following recently? What are the crises facing birds?
A: Recently worked on a project called the Bird Collision Action Network. In addition to illegal hunting and the threat of habitat loss, after entering the city, accidentally hitting the glass of buildings is their biggest danger and the second largest cause of human-caused bird death.
Most birds will die directly after the impact, the cause is intracranial hemorrhage, but in the country "bird collision" has not attracted attention, so we Chengdu Bird Watching Association and Kunshan Duke University, Shanshui Nature Conservation Center and other institutions together to launch a national systematic bird collision survey, hoping to arouse everyone's awareness of this, so far has been done for two seasons.
There are two reasons for bird strikes. First, during the day, the glass will reflect the surrounding vegetation and sky environment, and birds are not able to identify. The second is that the birds can see the plants behind them through the transparent glass, and think that they can reach the opposite side through the glass. Artificial light at night can also cause birds to lose their sense of direction.
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North American bird collision glass modification case
Image source: American Bird Conservancy
At present, there are two ideas for transformation within our ability, one is to make the glass as opaque as possible, such as sticking stickers, pulling blinds, etc.; Second, you can increase obstacles, such as adding some pattern tape, painting, etc. Of course, it is best to take into account the potential risks of glass to birds when planning and designing the building.
In addition, the abuse of some pesticides is also a threat to birds, such as a classic case in history, when DDT pesticides were first manufactured, people thought it was a very good pesticide, and even awarded the Nobel Prize, a large number of applications in the natural environment for a period of time, a large number of birds died, while leading to very serious human health problems.
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Parrot real shots
Q: What do you think of domestic birds?
A: Behind the cute parrots raised at home, many people do not have a macro concept, in fact, there are more than 300 species of parrots in the world, and more than one-third of them are threatened. The pet trade is clearly identified as one of the main reasons for their endangerment.
Some people say that the tiger parrot is already a relatively formed pet on the market, can be artificially bred, will not affect the australian wild tiger skin parrot living conditions, this is called survivor bias, can not use such a weak example, for raising other species of parrots. For example, the African grey parrot to defend, the source of some rare birds circulating on the market is difficult to identify. Some parrots have long breeding cycles, which increases the cost of breeding, which encourages the sale of wild parrots.
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A "heron bird manor" that has been photographed is a typical example of the harmonious coexistence of people and birds
Q: As an ecologist, can you make a few appeals to the public?
A: What we need for our lives now basically comes from nature, such as electricity, fossil energy, and even the root of new energy is solar energy. So we live on a planet with more than 7 billion people, and we really should think more about the future and think about it for our own family and future generations. Maybe a human insignificant act, stacked up, ends up being a disaster for wildlife.
I hope that works like "Chinese Birds Across Time and Space" will make more people realize the beauty of nature around them, not necessarily birds, but birds are a good entry point, I think people can not exist without nature.
Part of the source: Zhihu book "Chinese Birds Across Time and Space"