Editor's note: In the vast arid areas of northwest in my country, temperate deserts and grasslands are lying in the beaded land to the west to the east. In this place where most people live, there are many animals and plants with unique survival abilities. They use thousands of abilities and show all their styles, and survive tenaciously and freely in the desert, and reproduce silently. Voice of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences jointly opened the "Drought Domain Life" column. Here, we pay attention to these animals and plants that carry the biodiversity of and ecological service functions of . Let us share the hardships and efforts, achievements and expectations of scholars in the research field of arid areas!
When it comes to the vast Bayinbrook grassland , you will think of the beautiful swan and Swan Lake . It was a fairyland on earth. Snow-white swans were scattered between green grasslands and swamps. The snow peaks in the distance were reflected in the sparkling lake water. The birds played beautiful songs from time to time, lingering in the blue sky and white clouds. The beauty of nature was as poetic as a painting.
Baruk Grassland Ecology and Geography Institute of Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences was founded in the 1970s. With the efforts of scientific researchers, the Bayinbrook Swan Nature Reserve was established in 1980.
Bainbrook Wetland ——Beautiful Kaidu River (photo by Ma Ming)
Wish to return to your hometown for the yellow swan
Human beings have the commonality of pursuing beauty. Swan is one of the first big birds to be admired and praised by humans. It is the embodiment of beauty, purity, broadness and courage.
In ancient my country, swans were called "swan", or hong, crane, hongswan , yellow swan, yellow crane, hongshen, etc. "Book of Han: Biography of Sima Xiangru" commented: "Swan is water bird . Its sing sound is swan and swan." It can be seen that its name "天" comes from a low voice. There are many praises and stories about Hu in ancient books. As early as , the third century BC , the young man Chen Sheng chatted with his companions, talking about his lofty ambitions, which attracted ridicule from others. At that time, Chen Sheng disdainedly threw out a famous saying from generation to generation: "Alas, how can the sparrow know the ambition of a swan!" (See "Records of the Grand Historian: Chen She Family").
Han Princess Xijun When she married Wusun Kingdom When she looked at the swans away from afar, Princess Xijun shook her face in tears. The "My family marries me in the sky,...I wish to return to my hometown for the yellow swan" has become a masterpiece of eternity. Han Gaozu Liu Bang said in "Swan Song ": "The swan flies high, and takes a thousand miles in one go. The feathers have already arrived, and they cross the world..." Qu Yuan’s "Chu Ci" by says: "A yellow swan lifts up and knows the torsion of mountains and rivers. When you lift up again, you knows the roundness and squareness of heaven and earth." There are countless similar words of praise, and are mostly found in " Book of Songs ", " Lushi Chunqiu ", " Han Shu ", etc.
The swan flies high and wins a thousand miles in one fell swoop (photo taken by Ma Ming)
In foreign countries, there are many records involving swans. Aristotle not only notices swan groupings, migration, and child protection, but also studies its morphological structure, anatomy, digestion and excretion, and reproductive organs (see Aristotle ' Animal Chronicle '). In Japan, the swan is called "white bird" and is treated as a sacred bird.
On the night of early autumn, a big bird flying with wings in the starry sky in the north is " Cygnus ". It lives beside , Galaxy , and how many endless stories are circulating in it? In the art gallery, the swan is like an angel without borders, spreading the common yearning, pursuit, love, hate, and love. For example, "Swan Lake" (Tchaikovsky), "Death of the Swan" ( Saint Sanktham ), "Swan Song" (Schubert), etc. are all popular all over the world and enduring.
Swan, there will always be endless stories to tell.
Lonely swan family
Domestic research and reports on swans are mainly concentrated in mute swan , big swan and short-mouthed swan (also known as little swan).In fact, in addition to the above three types, plus the black swan and black-necked swan in the southern hemisphere, there are only these five types of swans left in the world (there are also 7 types of swans), and many species of swans can only be found in museum specimens or fossils.
In the wild, swans like to be lively. They often gather together to move, with loud sounds and spread far away. It is difficult for individuals who have lost their partners to survive. From the perspective of distribution, five species of swans are scattered in different corners of the world, and the breeding grounds do not overlap. Mute swans, large swans, and short-mouthed swans are distributed in different latitude zones in the northern hemisphere, collectively known as "Northern swans". Because they all have white feathers, they are also commonly known as "white swan". The difference is not only in the size of the body, but mainly in the mouth. The mute swan's mouth is red (also known as red-mouthed swan ), with obvious verrucous nasal processes. It is the largest swan, weighs 12~15 kg and has a length of 1.5~1.8 meters. The mouths of the large swan and the short-mouthed swan are yellow, and the two are marked by the black shape at the end of the beak and the size of the macula. The mouth of the swan (subspecies) in North America almost turned black. The medium and short-mouthed white swan has the smallest body shape, weighing 3.4~7.8 kg and a length of 1.1~1.4 meters. Most of these three swans come to my country for wintering and belong to winter migratory bird . Only part of it is left to reproduce. The swans breed in Bayinbrook , which is the southernmost breeding population. There were records of mute swans and short-mouthed swans in the past, but now they are hard to find.
black swans are distributed in Australia and New Zealand . Black-necked swans are found in South America's Paraguay , Uruguay , Argentina , Chile , Brazil and other countries. As the name suggests, both are all black or partially black feathers, which are easiest to identify. They are all distributed in the southern hemisphere and are collectively called "Southern Swan". These two types of swans do not have the habit of long-distance migration, so they are far away from the "Northern Swan" and will never interact with each other when they are old and die.
The swans in summer who change their feathers will lose their ability to fly (photo by Ma Ming)
The beautiful Bayinbrook - the hometown of swans
Bayinbrook surrounded by snow-capped mountains. The winter is long and cold, and the summer is short and cool. It is not surprising that it will snow heavily in May and June. Li Bai has a poem saying: "In May, the snow in the mountains, there is no flower, only cold" (see " The Song of the Lower Song "). In late June, summer is late, and when the yellow grasslands are green, the beautiful Swan Lake is revealed.
Bayinbrook, Mongolian means "rich spring water". "Swan Lake" is a swamp formed by the Kaidu River winding around the central part of the Tianshan Mountains. The Kaidu River, which is high, can be seen from the "Nine Curves and Eighteen Bays", gathers the snow water of the Tianshan Mountains, and finally injects into the largest inland freshwater lake in China - Bosten Lake . The area of the protected area is about 1,370 square kilometers and an altitude of about 2,400 meters. Surrounded by mountains, wetlands are mainly replenished with snow and water. The annual precipitation is 217~362 mm, and the annual average temperature is - 4.7°C. Whenever swans in Europe travel thousands of miles to breed in the Arctic tundra region, swan populations in China can find a cool place here. At present, this is the only preserved breeding habitat in China. Thousands of swans and more than 100 other birds breed here or spend the summer every year.
Swan belongs to migratory birds. From March to April every year, Bayinbrook will be moved to Bayinbrook one after another, and in late April, it will occupy the area, build nests, mate and lay eggs. The nest is located by the water, usually a long-term nest that has been used for many years, with a diameter of 1.0~2.5 meters. The nest is about half a meter above the water surface, and looks like a small mound of soil from a distance, very conspicuous. Eggs are laid once a year, with 3 to 8 eggs, and an average of 5 eggs. Lay an egg every 1 to 2 days. In the spring of 1992, the author of this article measured 27 nests and 117 eggs in Swan Lake. The average egg weight is 337.50+32.60 grams, with an outer diameter of 113 × 73 mm. On May 6, 3 of the five eggs weighed more than 400 grams, and the heaviest one reached 427 grams, with an outer diameter of 122.3×78.2 mm, far exceeding the average.
The nests of swans are very obvious, but they are mostly built in the middle of the water (provided by Xia Jianguo)
is similar to other goose duck types. The hatching of swans is carried out by the female bird alone, and the male bird is only guarded by nearby. The incubation period is 30 to 35 days. The young bird that has just emerged from the shell is covered with grayish-white fluff, and can be put into the water soon, making it an early bird.But in the first month, the little swan was afraid of the cold and kept leaving her parents. Sometimes she would hide on her mother's back or under her armpits, wandering around, revealing her little head and looking around, feeling uncomfortable. By one and a half months, the little guy's weight grew rapidly, reaching 3.1~3.7 kilograms and a body length of 81~84 cm. Three months later, the little swan was full of feathers and began to practice flying. In the fairy tale of Andersen , the little swan born in the first year was mistaken for an "ugly duckling". The reason is that its feathers are not as white as their parents, which is incredible. "Is this a swan?"
The young swan became a beautiful white swan when it was replaced with a new feather in the spring of the second year. Although young swans move freely soon after they emerge from the shell (premature growth), it takes 4 to 6 years to mature. It has a lifespan of 20 to 30 years and is among the long-lived birds.
Authors measure swan nests and eggs in Bayinbrook wetland (photo taken by Caidai)
1987 Novak et al. first reported an experiment to track swan migration using satellite . Shortly thereafter, Japan, Netherlands , Britain, Russia, Spain and other countries successfully tracked the short-mouthed swans many times. The principle is to take advantage of the opportunity when the swan's feathering period loses its flying ability and is easy to capture, and tie a matchbox-sized miniature launcher to the back or neck of the captured swan. This device can work continuously for several years (solar charging), and can accurately and promptly send back flight speed, route, time, places (stations) and other useful information during the migration period. This is a step further than the usual tracking methods such as ring-zhi , radar or aircraft. The results show that from breeding ground to wintering ground, swans pass through many countries. For safety, they often visit the world with moonlight or starlight, with a flight distance of 2,000 to 4,000 kilometers. There are two such migrations in spring and autumn every year, which can be called the Long March. Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that the ancients said: "A swan flies high, and a thousand miles of one stroke."
In terms of microscopic research, DNA fingerprinting technology has been used in the study of swan genetics and kinship . Since it is difficult to distinguish between male and female swans, through the genetic gene fragment, species classification, lineage analysis, individual recognition, etc. are studied, artificial trait control and prevention of incomparable mating. Among them, interesting results confirm that not all swans are "old together until old age", and there are also "biangamy" and "extramarital affair".
Swans fly high, white and blue (photo by Ma Ming)
lost direction: a group of migrating swans (photo by Wang Yongji)
swans are loyal to love and are more attached to their hometown. Every autumn, they have to go to the far south to spend the winter. In the spring of the following year, we will form a long line, with the shape of "man" or "one", and take our family and the door to travel along the original road for a long distance, traveling around the stars and the moon, and returning to our hometown without hesitation. "The aura of Ji'ao and the ambition of a swan" ("Lüshi Chunqiu") is really admirable. The regression rate among paired individuals is the highest, reaching 87.5%. The regression rate of second-aged sub-adults or bachelors is low, but 60 to 70% return to their homes. The rest may die during the migration or die during wintering, and some find soulmates in other groups and go far away. However, this is beneficial for genetic gene exchange, reducing inbreeding, and maintaining biological genetic diversity of .
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Source: Institute of Xinjiang Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences
