In a bid to boost local tourism in winter, Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture will host the 4th Shangri-La International Bird Watching Festival from the coming December to March, 2020.

Since 2016, the bird-watching festival has been held annually for 3 consecutive years, drawing in 47 sightseeing delegations with 50 bird societies home and abroad.

In the past years, bird lovers have identified a total of 206 bird species in the Shangri-La region, including Aythya baeri and Chinese merganser.

With a tiny number of around 500 worldwide, the Aythya baeri is a blue diving duck that has been listed as critically endangered by the World Conservation Union. The Chinese merganser belongs to a rare bird in China, and it has survived evolution for millions of years.

Besides the traditional Napahai Lake, the bird-watching areas this year will also include the Songzanlin Temple in Shangri-La, as well as the Tacheng Town and Pantiange Township in Weixi. Photographers, students, travelers are expected to join the event.

To better locate and record bird activities, the Internet-based technologies such as GIS system will be employed, and the collected data will also help the judges make fair assessments over the bird watchers’ performance.

Reporting Yang Yong and Song Xuebao; trans-editing by Wang Shixue