🪺7.4 CBBS: Breaking News—Survey Unveils Two New Bird Species Records for Chengdu
Last summer, Chengdu conducted a pilot survey of breeding birds, systematically covering areas that account for 59% of the city's total area. A total of 165 bird species were recorded, providing a basic understanding of the bird diversity pattern within Chengdu’s urban areas.
This summer, we continued our efforts to improve the survey plan and conducted supplementary surveys in areas that were not covered last year. The goal is to obtain a complete breeding bird atlas of Chengdu through two years of dedicated work.
During the past month, a total of 219 wild bird species were recorded, belonging to 16 orders, 57 families, and 105 genera. This represents 38% of Chengdu's bird species and is 190% of the number of species recorded during the same period last year, with an increase of 104 species.
More excitingly, two new bird species were recorded for the first time in Chengdu during this survey: the Wood Snipe and the Pale-backed Thrush.
In addition, three nationally protected Class I bird species were recorded during the survey: the Temminck’s Tragopan, the Chinese Monal, and the Bearded Vulture. Twenty-three Class II protected bird species were also recorded, including the Blood Pheasant, Golden Pheasant, Silver Pheasant, Lesser Coucal, Pheasant-tailed Jacana, Wood Snipe, Tawny Owl, Crested Honey Buzzard, Collared Falconet, Black Baza, Crested Goshawk, Besra, Eurasian Sparrowhawk, Common Kestrel, Eurasian Hobby, Golden-breasted Fulvetta, Hwamei, Brown-cheeked Laughingthrush, Red-winged Laughingthrush, Streaked Laughingthrush, Red-billed Leiothrix, Rufous-bellied Niltava, and the Blue Bunting.
Moving forward, we will continue our efforts to complete surveys in the remaining areas to gain a more comprehensive understanding of Chengdu’s bird populations and to contribute to the city’s ecological and biodiversity conservation.
