In Beijing we are blessed with a small, but excellent, group of active birders. There is a growing band of locals, including friends Zhu Lei, Lei Ming, Zhang Shen, Chen Liang, Fu Jianping and more… plus some ex-pat birders from the UK, Ireland, Canada, Denmark, Hong Kong (should we count Jennifer as an ex-pat?!), South Africa, Sweden and the US.
Although we have been sharing sightings and corresponding on email for some time, many of us had never met, so on Saturday we arranged a meet-up in central Beijing over the traditional birders’ diet of beer and pizza. Guest appearances by Dalian-based Tom Beeke (complete with ice-hockey kit) and Shanghai-based Craig Brelsford added a bit of “Greater China” spice.
It was very cool to put faces to names, catch up with friends old and new, and speculate over the next addition to the Beijing list.
Thanks to Jennifer Leung for the photos below.
As well as looking like lots of fun, this could be the start of something big – and I don’t mean a big hangover! Important things can happen when birders get together over beer and pizza. Let’s hope this is the first of many more such meetings.
Thanks Ken! Hopefully there will be many more – it was great to see so many people there and there were lots of ideas floating around about how to promote birds and birding, how to continue to tackle illegal mist nets and so on…. obviously the beer and pizza stimulated minds… or something… 🙂
Wish I hadn’t been on the wrong continent! Nice group to get together – though a bit lacking in females – Jennifer is brave.
Gretchen – the photos are misleading; you will be pleased to hear that there were 4 females present. You’ll be very welcome to attend the next one to make it 5 (assuming the original 4 come back) 🙂
Congratulations for your blog, Terry, i´m a big fan!
A great “cheers” for you all, and a special “cheers” for Colm Moore, we meet very briefly in Portugal, but his ground breaking seabird observations in Cape Carvoeiro, Peniche, w Portugal, its been very inspirational for me all these years.
Thank you for the comment, Helder. Here in Beijing we all have the utmost respect for Colm and the impressive list of finds from his local patch at Shahe Reservoir. He has found several “firsts” for Beijing. I’ll pass on your “cheers”.. Thanks again, Terry