As the weather gets warmer, it is time for migratory swans to return to Beijing. Swans were spotted in over 10 lakes and rivers in Beijing this spring, including Qingshui River in Miyun district, Wild Goose Lake in Yanqing district, and Nanhaizi Milu Park in Daxing's Yizhuang, according to the monitoring of the Beijing Municipal Forestry and Parks Bureau.

On March 7, when Zhong Zhenyu of the Beijing Biodiversity Conservation Research Center took students birdwatching in Nanhaizi Milu Park, they spotted 12 mute swans and three whooper swans gliding into the lake. They also saw more than 20 tundra swans busy catching fish and shrimps in the water from a distance.

Mute swans, whooper swans, and tundra swans are the three kinds of wild swans that can be seen in Beijing. Among them, the mute swan is the rarest wild swan in China, with only about 3,000 in the country total. They are also a second-class nationally-protected animal.

"Yizhuang launched a special survey on local biodiversity in May 2021. In less than a year's observation, the center has recorded more than 120 species of wild birds in Nanhaizi, more than 20 of which are on the National List of Protected Wild Animals," Zhong said.

According to Zhong, the swans have been spotted in the Nanhaizi area since 2016. The number has increased since then.

Zhang Zhiming, director of the Wildlife and Wetland Protection Department of the Beijing Municipal Forestry and Parks Bureau, said that the more than 10 "swan lakes" in Beijing were illustrative of Beijing's continuous improvement of the urban ecological environment.

In recent years, the capital's wild animal population, including migratory birds, has grown gradually. Every spring, a large number of migratory birds fly over and through the city, making it one of the most biologically diverse capitals in the world.

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