Exploring New Species: A Second Birding Adventure at Century Park

December 24th, 2023--My New "Bestie": Black-crowned Night Heron

During Christmas break, I went birding again at Century Park to observe even more species. This was also my first time observing birds through binoculars.

Black-crowned Night Heron--My New "Bestie"

As I entered the park, I came across a tree of night herons, with nearly fifty of them resting and sleeping on the giant natural tower. This was a great opportunity for me to take pictures of these large birds. As I zoomed in using my camera, I saw that the Night Heron wasn't simply a black and white bird as I had previously thought. Instead, its “black” feathers were actually dark blue (my favorite color!). In addition, its red iris reminded me of cool sci-fi creatures. When it closed its eyes, the Night Heron seemed to sport long eyelashes and a yellowish eye shadow.

The Night Heron became my new bestie. I loved how its aura was of an unearthly creature perhaps traveling back in time from a future world. Apart from its futuristic look, the Night Heron is long and round, making it a very cute creature.

Long Tailed Shrike--"The Little Furball"

As I wandered along the river and took photos of the Night Heron, a furball in the riverside trees caught my attention. I raised my camera and zoomed in. It was a brownish and reddish bird sleeping on a tree branch. Its beak was buried inside its belly. As you can see in the pictures, it was very very round. The colors of the bird matched so well together that it didn’t look like a living bird, but rather a toy. A few minutes later, it flew to another tree branch. I was so lucky to be able to capture it when it was flying. 

The second picture above shows the flying motion of the Long-Tailed Shrike. When it flew, it used its legs first and leaped into the air. Then, it opened its tiny little wings. Though the wings were tiny, they carried the shrike far away and high into the air.

This round furball left a deep impression in my mind and I immediately went to research more about it back at home. The shrike was small and cute indeed, but only limited to human sight. In the natural world, the Long-Tailed Shrike is a creature that glides like an eagle and searches for a variety of prey such as lizards, insects, rodents, and even other small birds. 

Eurasian Moorhen--"The Red Beak Chicken That Swims"

When people think of chickens, they often think about those large plump ones that live on farms, which are domesticated chickens. In Chinese, the Eurasian Moorhen (“hei shui ji”) has a similar name to the domesticated ones on farms (“ji”). Thus, whenever I tell my friends about this kind of bird, they always mistake it for domesticated chicken. 

When I saw the Eurasian Moorhen, it was waddling like a duck on the grass beside the river. This creature amazed me since its feet were similar to a domesticated chicken’s, yet it could swim swiftly in the river as if it were equipped with the webbed feet of a duck. I was glad to see that these wild chickens were healthy like those domesticated ones and weren’t disturbed by humans to a large extent. 

White Wagtail--"Ice Cream"

Oriental Magpie Robin--"The Little Singer"