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Eastern Flyway

Eastern Flyway>Wintering>China

The Eastern population winters in a limited number of wetlands along the middle Yangtze River in south-central China. Approximately 95% of the population winters in one area – the Poyang Lake Basin in northern Jiangxi Province. The Poyang Lake National Nature Reserve protects some of the most important wintering sites in this area, but the birds also use many sites outside the reserve, some of which are recently protected and others which are outside protected areas. The remainder of the known population, perhaps a hundred or more birds, winters at Dongting Lake in Hunan Province. The population may use other as yet unknown wintering sites in China.

The existence of this population had been noted in historical records, but there were no modern reports until ornithologists in China discovered the wintering birds at Poyang Lake in 1980. The population was thought to number only a few hundred until a larger flock of over 800 birds was reported in 1984. Subsequent surveys, using improved techniques, have allowed estimates of the total number to be revised upwards, but the size of this population is not precisely known. Midwinter counts at Poyang Lake in recent years suggest that the population may have increased above the current population estimate, with counts of 3404, 4004, and 3954 birds counted in 2001/02, 2002/03, and 2003/04 winters respectively. However, the accuracy of these counts requires validation in view of constraints of equipment, observer experience and coverage.

China

2002/03

Cooperating with Jiangxi Wildlife Conservation Bureau, National Bird Banding Center of China has been conducting Whole Poyang Lake Wintering Waterbirds Survey for three years. In 2003 the field work was conducted in early January. The numbers of Siberian Crane we counted are as follows:

Estimated numbers of Siberian Cranes in wintering area at Poyang Lake in 1999-2003

The number for January 2003 is likely to be an overestimate. Flocks of Siberian Cranes move frequently in the winter at Poyang Lake and it is possible that some birds were counted more than once by observers at the different counting sites.

For more information:

Qian Fawen

National Bird Banding Center of China

2001/02

It has been 20 years since the establishment of Poyang Lake National Nature Reserve, China, now the protection work at the reserve is moving onto a more scientific track. The reserve strengthened its protection and monitoring once more - 9 monitoring and protection stations were set up at 9 lakes of the reserve, and 2 or 5 staff were assigned to each station to increase the efficiency of protection and monitoring work. It is the first time for each station at the reserve to record daily the wintering waterfowl at each lake. This method needs further improvement as the area of each lake differs remarkably, as do the workloads of the staff in each station. This might affect the accuracy of the data, so the real number of wintering waterfowl should be more than those we have reported.

We collected the records of the 9 stations, from 10 October 2001 to 28 March 2002 for a total of 170 days. We selected and summed up 159 available days and obtained the following statistic results:

The highest amount of Siberian Crane at Poyang Lake NR of each month from October 2001 to March 2002

The first arrival date of the Siberian Crane was 11 October 2001, the last departure date was 3 March 2002.

By Liu Bin-Sheng, Ji Wei-Tao, Ding Xian-Sheng, Wu Jian-Dong

Adopted from China Crane News, Vol.6, No1.

Poyang Lake National Nature Reserve