Sharing sightings

For the contestants, the event was a two-phase race. They spent two nights in the town of Mangshan, bird-watching along three suggested routes in and around the reserve.

On April 27, they drove from Mangshan National Forest Park to the headquarters of the Nanling reserve in Ruyuan Yao autonomous county, Guangdong.

This journey took them through Nanling National Forest Park, the core area of the Nanling reserve. They spent three nights and two full days exploring the reserve's five recommended routes. On April 26, Zhao, Huang and Zhou began their race at 6:30 am and returned around 7 in the evening.

The weather in the first two days was gloomy, with intermittent drizzle. Even when it wasn't raining, mists shrouded the peaks and valleys in Mangshan National Forest Park, making it truly challenging to search for birds in the dense forest.

"Birds are not active in bad weather," Zhao said. "Even though bird songs can be the only requirement for a decent record, you can harvest nothing when the birds stop singing."

On the first day of the race, the team recorded 50 bird species.

"It was a little less than we expected," Huang said.

Meanwhile, Le Weiqiang, a seasoned birder from Guangzhou, was invited to be one of the race's judges due to his extensive knowledge of the region's avian life.

Deciding to explore a section of farmland just outside Mangshan town, Le said: "It's right in the migration season. Bad weather might push some migratory birds to make a stopover in some less obvious places."

In a small rapeseed field, Le and Liu Zhifa spotted dozens of buntings — small seed-eating birds about the size of a sparrow.

"There are five species here, including a dozen yellow-breasted buntings, which are critically endangered according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature," Le said.

Later, they shared these sightings with a few of the contestants.

"This patch of farmland can be quite productive during the migration season," Liu said. "We hope more teams visit the site as it might yield more records. After all, a bird race is more akin to a bird survey than a competition. True birdwatchers are always eager to share their discoveries."

The next morning, Zhao, Huang and Zhou visited the site. They successfully spotted the yellow-breasted buntings. Additionally, Huang and Zhou saw a golden-headed cisticola, a tiny songbird, though Zhao missed it.

"It's a lifer for me," Zhao said, referring to the bird-watching term for a first-time sighting. "It's normal to miss a lifer if you're not in the right place at the right moment."