Clean up Birds' Home

Morning, 13 February, （ Thursday ）

In the morning, the bus started to move out of village. The bumpy path extended and slowly disappeared in the vast green fields. Looking out of the bus window, the dark clouds gradually floated away and melt into white snow on the top of mountains around. Though the frigid wind mingled with smell of earth and lake water blew on the faces of pupils, they were excited to see that the sunlight began shine over the farmland, wetland and the lake.

One guide told pupils that it was the best season for bird watching in Lashihai wetlands. According to Engineer Peng, There are 50,000-60,000 tourists arrived at the wetland to watch birds every year. “It's a right time for the close of fishing on lake, too. ”He added.

There are 10 natural villages scattered around the lake with 600 households, more than half of them fishing in the lake. Corn, wheat, potato are their major crops. Some grow rape, green chilly and Chinese yam. As pupil team walked through a vast stretch of farmland, here and there stood large numbers of scarecrows made of wasted plastic bags, worn-out jackets waving in the morning breeze, seems as if they were reciting stories between them and their bird neighbors.

The No.1 Team was to watch bird at the point Meiquan A.

The guide began to explain to pupil knowledge about birds while they were watching through the telescopes. Some pupils took notes kneeing on the whither yellow water grass. A flock of birds were seeking food leisurely by the wetland and lake. They were spotted as Common Cranes, Goosanders. Meanwhile, several egrets flied from somewhere and landed to join the flock, white feather of the birds caught eyes from afar.

Occasionally, some pieces of lost bird feather on the grass and one or two colorful spiders, ants and unknown insects underneath the yellow grass were found. Besides, cigarette ends and empty beer bottles were another types of “finds” at the spot by young pupils. In the moment, one pupil yelled out for he searched out a crashed eggshell by grass. Attracted by the great discovery, some pupils said that the young baby might be given birth not longtime ago, and was now following its bird mother among the flock of birds in the front. Other pupils argued that someone might catch it. Nevertheless, the fate of the bird was unknown.. “Let's do away the rubbish!” some one said. The suggestion got immediate response. Everybody began to look for “suspects” carefully, no one even noticing that their sleeves and bottom of trousers legs had adhered with mud.

It was not until their coach asked did they stopped their action for rubbish. Looking from each other their muddy faces and hands, everyone smiled knowingly. They believed that they had done their bit for the clean up of the home of birds. They put the collected rubbish into a big plastic bag and decided to bring the “trophies” up to the pupil workshop in the afternoon. Please refer to <A Pupils' Workshop>.