🪺8.5 CBBS: Frustration& Fascination (Some Personal Thoughts for this experience)

The dam where i spotted the thirteen egrets!

The breeding season is over, and the BBS surveys are wrapping up. This year, I covered eight sample areas, averaging one or two per week. I’ve learned a lot, so I decided to write some thoughts down, to remember them.

At first, I joined bird surveys just for fun—to go out, enjoy the scenery, and explore the habitats around Chengdu. I had never left home at 5:30 AM before. June 28 was my first time. At that hour, Chengdu is blue—the deep, melancholic blue of the blue hour, a visible darkness shifting toward light. The sun doesn’t just appear; it creeps up, first painting the clouds pink, purple, or orange. Every survey, the clouds look different—strawberry milkshake, deep ocean, or tangerine waves. Only after lighting up the sky does the sun itself emerge, like an egg yolk—or maybe an LED bulb. By 7:30, the heat is relentless. But in those moments, watching the wild grasses stand tall, the water shimmer, and even the polluted streams flow, the exhaustion fades. I often find myself staring, wondering—if I were a tree, a blade of grass, or a rock, what would my days be like?

The first week was exciting. Every survey left me looking forward to the next. But by the second week, that excitement started to wear off. There was the data entry—the dirty work. Rare characters, illegible handwriting—I nearly lost my mind. The work felt repetitive. The landscapes that had amazed me now seemed ordinary. I started complaining, but I had committed to the surveys, so I kept going.

One day, I got caught in a heavy downpour. It was wild. Thrilling. But as my shoes merged with the mud, I thought, Why am I out here? Wouldn’t it be better to stay in bed? I almost fell into a rain-filled ditch. My shoes were a mess. Annoying.

The third week, my final one, changed everything. My research partners taught me how to identify birds—visually and by sound. When I realized that the "wild ducks" I kept misidentifying were actually little grebes, when I saw a dozen egrets molting by the river like something out of an ancient painting, when I heard the silver-bell-like song of the brown-flanked bush warbler—it was indescribable. Stunning. Breathtaking. Nature is so full of wonders, waiting to be explored.

I was sure then—I love field observation. There are dull, frustrating moments, but pushing through them brings unbelievable surprises. Without all those hours as a recorder, I wouldn’t have learned to recognize birds so quickly. I wouldn’t have had those aha moments—“So that’s a brown-flanked bush warbler!”—or committed their appearances to memory. The struggle was worth it.