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Message: <blockquote data-quote="china guy" data-source="post: 1578484" data-attributes="member: 6819">Birds still seem to be surviving - but cultivation 'advances' within Chinese agriculture means that any birds breeding in the rice will have shorter periods to nest and nurture their young to the stage of flight and independence - a fact that was made evident with the first bird I saw that morning - a White-breasted Waterhen Chick. There is also greater mechanisation - which means that fields become bigger and there are less ditches for birds like Rails and Bitterns to hide and feed once the cover of rice plants has gone (Cinnamon Bittern now seldom seen in these paddies must have once been common in this area – like wise Ruddy-breasted Crake and Watercock are hard to find). Birds like the Common and Swintail Snipe are on passage while the Painted Snipe seem to breed locally but use the paddies as post-breeding feeding areas - where they form small flocks.It would be wonderful if some Chinese Ornithologists could study the effect that the changes caused by modern Chinese agricultural development is having on the ecology of the typical Sichuan countryside – maybe giving a foundation for local nature reserves around Chengdu.After all this is the landscape and nature that has inspired so much Chinese culture - but all resources go to the Panda - when in times of old that animal was only noted for the medicinal properties of its urine and hair (but please don’t think me ungrateful - conservation of the Sichuan Panda Zone gives us so much great birding habitat)!!!!!!Yeah it'd be great if something also went into protecting the commoner flora and fauna of normal rural China – before some of that also becomes threatened with extinction.Here's a pic from when rice had just been planted - another passage species to these paddies - Grey-headed Lapwing - it'll be going up your way Gretchen</blockquote>

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