This bird's nest is roughly the same as the one found in Jinjiahe. There are three white-brown birds waiting for food in the nest. Their beaks are very long, and the front end of the beak is slightly curved downward. ah! Isn’t this a baby crested ibis? This joy is no small matter. To say they are three birds, it is better to say that for more than three years, the entire expedition team, who traveled across thousands of rivers and mountains and traveled more than 50,000 kilometers, finally found the long-lost golden needle from the vast sea of ??nature. No! The metaphor of a golden needle is too inappropriate. Let’s use the metaphor of “oriental gem” instead! It seems that it is not strong enough, so what should I use to call or compare him - the beautiful crested ibis fairy!
Please remember this date. On May 23, 1981, we discovered a crested ibis family in Yaojiagou!
As a professional bird worker, finding the crested ibis provides a glimmer of hope for humans to save it, which is of course a happy event worthy of joy. However, we observed through the telescope that the three young crested ibises were very thin and looked listless. This young life clearly tells us that their parents are unable to fill their stomachs, and the old crested ibis cannot satisfy their increasing appetite. This can't help but make us feel sad about whether these three young birds will survive.
It turns out that the crested ibis, which likes to live near villages, has also been threatened by people and has hid in the mountains. For a species, it is necessary for them to change their inherited habits in a short period of time, even if it is just a small change. Changes in nature are not simple. It is no small matter for the crested ibis, which is good at soaring, to retreat from a food-rich area in the low mountains and hilly areas to an area with poor food resources in the mid-mountain areas above 800 meters above sea level. Although it is easy to reach a height of three or four hundred meters and a casual visit will have no impact, it is impossible to survive and reproduce for a long time while maintaining the prosperity of the family. Although the crested ibis is a higher animal with a backbone, it does not have the ability to produce its own food. It depends entirely on the sky for food, not to mention that it relies on meat for a living. Although the southern slope of the Qinling Mountains is a subtropical warm and humid area, there are obvious differences in temperature with changes in terrain height. The temperature in Yaojiagou is about five degrees lower than that in Pingchuan Hills, and the sunshine hours are about three hours shorter. The low water temperature limits the number of aquatic animals. Crested ibises live here due to lack of food, so the survival rate of the young birds will naturally decrease.