Wildlife and Birdwatching

Part of A Better Guide to Běijīng’s Practical A–Z

The situation with wildlife is less unpromising than you might imagine, particularly as regards birds. While sparrows and magpies are the most common the variety of other species has been increasing in number over the last decade, and A Field Guide to the Birds of China, by John MacKinnon and Karen Phillipps (New York, 2000) runs to nearly 600 pages. Běijīng has many enthusiastic bird watchers and the unexpected sighting of a (European) robin in Temple of Heaven Park in 2014 brought out around 150 photographers whose zoom lenses laid end-to-end would probably have reached once round the Second Ring Road, a frenzy repeated with the sighting of another robin at Běijīng Zoo in January 2019.

The Běijīng Bird Watching Society, t 1343 638 0443, maintains an English-language page at www.chinabirdnet.org/beijing.html. See also Bird Watch China at www.cbw.org.cn/main.jsp (use Google Translate or similar to translate the page) or ask a Mandarin speaker to email cbw_2004@163.com.

Seeing mammals is more difficult, and will involve a trip out into the countryside, where tree-planting mostly intended to mitigate sand storms is said to have led to an increase, although that’s from nonexistent to vanishingly rare. But there’s a chance of seeing weasels, badgers, foxes, and certain monkeys.

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