From Baiwang Mountain to the San Gabriel Mountains

(This article has been published inWrentit-Feb 2025)

(The WRENTIT is the newsletter for the Pasadena Audubon Society.)

By Miles

In the fall of 2021, I learned about birdwatching in my natural science class in Beijing, China. A few months later, on the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, my father and I took our cameras and joined a birding event at the Liuli River in Fangshan, an hour’s drive from home. We were all eager to see the endangered Reed Parrotbill flock feeding on the seeds of the reeds.

Liuli River is a protected zone for Reed Parrotbills. They can nest and feed on the big areas of healthy reeds that they love so much. It was the first time I saw this stunning bird. My passion for birdwatching was rekindled and it has only grown since then.

So far, I have traveled to ten provinces in China and observed nearly 600 species of birds. Yunnan province is my favorite. I went there three times in one year. Black-winged Kite is my favorite bird. With black wings and a fat body of pure white, it’s so cute.

The desire to explore and follow birds knows no boundaries. After a thousand days of birdwatching, I embarked on a significant migration of my own in 2024: from East Asia’s Baiwang Mountain in Beijing to the San Gabriel Mountains in Los Angeles.

I have since settled in a city near Pasadena and discovered the Young Birders Club, where I met lots of new friends and went birding every weekend. Here, my birding journey has begun anew.

The birds in the USA seem a lot less afraid of people than the birds in China, although it also seems there are a lot fewer species here according to my experience in the past four months. For example, last August at Ballona Creek in Los Angeles, we saw 11 species of shorebirds, but in April at Nanpu Lagoon in Hebei, China, we saw 37 species of shorebirds, although not as close as we saw in L.A.

I’m looking forward to birding in this new year. On my wishlist, beyond California, I can’t wait to see the special birds in Texas, Florida, and Alaska.

Special thanks to Wrentit editor Fernanda Ezabella for her thoughtful edits, which made this article more polished and fluent!

Here is my eBird link: https://ebird.org/profile/NDUzMzQ2Mw

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