Chinese Flyway Activities

Student Essays

Naoli River Nature Reserve, Heilongjiang Province
The following three essays describe a student field trip to Naoli River Nature Reserve in late spring 2007.

Early in the morning, we came to Dazhan by bus. The watch tower is very high. Teacher Cui said: "This tower is too high, girls shouldn’t climb up." Although I didn’t go up, I see a nest under the tower. The nest, with a cover, was round and good looking. There are people fishing along the riverside, a small boat on the water. I watched the flowing of water, it is like a beautiful large mirror. Dazhan is so beautiful! Wulaerde’s road is hard to walk. Holes are one by one. Some classmates were walking on the streets, some by bus. On the traveling way, we saw horses, cattle, sheep, and so many animals. After a while, we arrived at Wulabende. We climb the tower. I didn’t climb up the first two times. On the third time, I made it finally. I looked down from the tower, there was a green land, very beautiful. Watching in the tower, I feel like in dream.

by Wu Qiuyu
June 10, 2007

 

On the passed road, widest grassland, lined cattle and sheep, overall orchid and yellow flowers, deeply attracted me. Arrived at big station, teachers only allow the boys go up. I climb up the middle tower, strained and feared. But when I climbed the tower, could not help making legs calm down because tower was shaking. For a while, we get down. We continue to move forward by bus. On the way to Wulabende, we run in a distance. While running, we found egret, immediately ask Zhao Xue take some pictures of it. She shot two flights, two fishing, so we are very pleased.

by Liu Fei
June 10, 2007

We saw the most beautiful grassland along the road that I had ever seen. There are various grasses, as well as various flowers. They are very beautiful, blue, yellow flowers… so pretty. The green grassland looked like wearing beautiful clothing. The flowers are patterns on the new clothing of the ground. We also saw cattle with yellow, black-white, and yellow-white, and some sheep with snow white hair. Then, can you guess what we have seen? We saw a group of brown horses! They are so beautiful! It is the first time for us to see horses. We were surprised. I love this beautiful large wetland.

by Yin Xiao Shuang
June 10, 2007


Xianghai Nature Reserve, Jilin Province

The happy summer holiday is full with interest. My long awaited day was finally coming. We would go to the Bird living place to join the student wetland photo activities. It is exciting.

When we arrived at the Birds Paradise, Chairmen Gao explained to us the use of the camera. Activities beginning, Teacher Shan lead us to visit. We saw so many beautiful birds on the road. There are elegant swans, beautiful peacocks, man-speaking parrots and red-crowned cranes with red crown overhead, white smooth beautiful feathers, a pair of light hearted upper and lower fanning wings, only black on their wing tips and tail; a long and pointed beak like sharp scissors; two straight legs. On the sun shining and the breeze flowing, some red-crowned cranes were overlooking, some were straightening their graceful chests high for showing their beautiful body, and some sang or danced.

Some cranes run rapidly, and fly up. Immediately, they fly from the reed pond to the green lawn. Some others tired, stopping on the riverside, standing with one leg, head buried in the wings, lovely. When thirsty, they drank the clear lake water, scissors-like mouth opening and closing, shake their white feathers sometimes. They look like a blooming white lotus flower, don't they? We photographed all the beautiful postures.

After we looked around, there were some issues that cannot be resolved leaving behind us. When losing our head, Uncle Lin Bao Qing, who works for the protection research group, came. Ok, we can ask Uncle Lin our question. He could help us solve it. "Uncle Lin, how many cranes in the world?" I asked. Lin said: "There are 15 kinds of crane totally, and six kinds in Xianghai." Hum! It made us surprised and proud. "Uncle Lin, what should we do to protect red-crowned cranes and other birds?" "You can start from some minor issues, such as, protecting birds with friends, building nest for poult, do not destroy the forest wetlands, you could also use the pen to write down hometown, make others protect the birds."

Uncles & aunts and brother & sisters, let us love birds, love nature, love our beautiful homeland! This is a sincere appeal of the Chinese students. In order to protect red-crowned cranes; protect wetlands, protect the survival of our homeland! Let’s do it!

by Zhang Yue

Student Photos
Click on the reserve names below to view student photos from each region posted on the Chinese Tracking Cranes website (click on the thumbnail images to view larger versions of the images).

Naoli River Nature Reserve

Momoge Nature Reserve

Xianghai Nature Reserve

Keerqin nature Reserve

Poyang Lake Nature Reserve