11/07/2026
Every spring in Beijing, the hills are alive with the sound of music!
This year I set up a sound recorder on a forested hillside in Mentougou District at an elevation of c1,700m asl. The idea was to capture the sounds of spring, including nocturnal spring migrants and summer breeders. It was also a chance to gain insights into the arrival dates of some of the breeding species and to explore how the species richness evolves through the spring.
The Wildlife Acoustics Song Meter Mini digital recorder was active from 28 March to 13 June and recorded from sunset to one hour after sunrise (automatically adjusted).
Key Information:
- From 903 recordings over 78 nights, 84 bird species and 4 mammal species were recorded, with a few additional vocalisations not assigned to species level.
- The night of 6 May was the peak in terms of species richness, with 28 taxa recorded that night/early morning.
- Perhaps unexpectedly, several shorebird species were recorded, including Black-winged Stilt (Himantopus himantopus 黑翅长脚鹬 Hēi chì cháng jiǎo yù), Pied Avocet (Recurvirostra avosetta 反嘴鹬 Fǎn zuǐ yù), Greater Sand Plover (Anarhynchus leschenaultii 铁嘴沙鸻 Tiě zuǐ shā héng) – see below – and Whimbrel (Numenius phaeopus 中杓鹬 Zhōng biāo yù)
- Lesser Cuckoo (Cuculus poliocephalus 小杜鹃 Xiǎo dù juān) recorded on 8 and 12 June
- Japanese Scops Owl (Otus semitorques 北领角鸮 Běi lǐng jiǎo xiāo) recorded on five nights between 7 April and 18 May – see below
- Grey-backed Thrush (Turdus hortulorum 灰背鸫 Huī bèi dōng) recorded singing between 7 and 12 May – listen out for it in the dawn chorus recording below
- Brown Eared-Pheasant (Crossoptilon mantchuricum, 褐马鸡 Hè mǎ jī) recorded on 31 March and 22 April
At the link, you can explore the results via an interactive graphic!
See URL:
Every spring in Beijing, the hills are alive with the sound of music! This year I set up a sound recorder on a forested hillside in Mentougou District at an elevation of c1,700m asl. The idea…
