In contrast, all other parks are always very well attended. Few people notice that among the trees and shrubs and on the flowers and blossoms there is a surprisingly diverse insect and bird life. ShenZhen’s population is not particularly attracted by nature nor developing interest in it. For the people, parks are places for meeting and recreating (also oases of calm, though almost everywhere the traffic can be heard roaring more or less), centres of social life in a pleasant contrast to the bustling business life in the city.
To the birds and butterflies it does not matter whether or not they are found, observed and admired. But for me it was a wonderful surprise to find these places.
Few people discovered that right in the middle of the megalopolis of ShenZhen, the Four Lakes Park features not only an extremely well-stocked tea house, but also that this tea house has a nondescript patio at an even more insignificant pond #5 out of the four, not worth mentioning, with absolutely ugly (and partially broken) plastic chairs at no less ugly round plastic tables.
But right there a huge bamboo bush is growing with an incredibly active bird life (especially in late afternoon), above all sheltering my favourite birds from ShenZhen, the red-whiskered bulbuls, being in my view extremely funny birds. I simply like them. Strange that hardly any Chinese in ShenZhen knows about these conspicuous and noisy birds seen in every park, in each settlement where more than ten trees are growing, in almost every road that has a continuous row of trees, and of these there are actually many in ShenZhen!
Only the patient tea drinker who for once does not edit mails and texts on his laptop in a taxi, a bus, an aeroplane or a lounge will notice the following ornithological show: during breeding season, announced by the characteristic short whistling sound, a common kingfisher in brilliant blue plumage comes a-flying, catches a small fish from this inconspicuous pond and veers off toward the surrounding skyscrapers – where may it breed, I wonder? I thought it needs cliffs along rivers, streams, where it may dig a cave? Where does it find this in ShenZhen?
And the common kingfisher is not the only member of its zoological family which you may find in ShenZhen if you do not restrict yourself to licking ice-cream, flying kites or photographing the family: especially in the Lotus Blossom Hill Park I have seen relatives of the kingfisher every time I have been there, and still I wonder: Where and how do they breed in ShenZhen?
In the Four Lakes Park it seems to be the same (or a very similar) species that we have in Germany. Sometimes it shows up only briefly, fishes out of the tiny pond some
– perhaps dirty – little fish; sometimes it misses the poor prey and then sits down on a “raised stand” which is suspended above the water, just a few metres from myself. I am deeply happy every time I can witness this.
As much as I curse myself every time for not having brought a camera just then but just this stupid work laptop! And whenever I come with a camera, the kingfisher will let me down. But the images in my head – I’m working on e-mails, on a presentation, on a patent application, having an excellent green tea in a glass, sitting at a quiet spot in the park, at a small pond, a few metres off the bulbuls are romping in the bamboo, before me a kingfisher is sitting on a branch of bamboo – I will not forget that.
Finally, I have good luck. The light is unfavourable because of a heavy cloud cover so that I have to operate my 400-telephoto lens without a tripod and thus slightly too long exposures, the resulting images are slightly blurred. But after processing I discover a surprise: The kingfisher is not hunting small fish, but freshwater shrimp!
During almost each of my visits to the Lotus Blossom Hill Park (“LianHuaShan GongYuan”), I was able to observe large kingfishers, much larger and differently
The kingfisher with the freshwater shrimp
Lotus flowers in the Park of Four Lakes.
One of the many bees that are interested in the lotus flowers.
coloured than “my” specimen, and sometimes I could take pictures.
Everywhere you can find butterflies. This is probably the most difficult to photograph, especially of these busy guys are aloft. They do not follow any track, they flutter here or there, they stay a little or they don’t: who can tell, how can you follow with the camera?
There are amazingly many species of butterflies, small and large and very large, modestly plain or colourful or strikingly stunning ones. It’s fun to try to photograph them in flight, and it is fun to exchange a few words with some of the many people who watch and enjoy my “hunting”. Again and again I am asked to show them my camera, because they have small compact digital cameras to photograph their girlfriend or their children, but I am using a large, heavy digital SLR of the kind professional photographers are applying.
In late spring and summer there are many places in ShenZhen, not just parks but wherever there are meadows and trees with a small depression, where after heavy rainfall a charming chorus of frogs begins to sing. A football match under floodlights after a tropical rain can be a game with cheers by Frog vuvuzelas! Unfortunately I never managed to see any of these frogs, even those who are every 30 seconds booming an incredibly loud, low individual “hhuuoooonnng” sound like a ship’s horn. Accordingly, I never managed till now to photograph this ship’s horn frog (or other), it is very shy. I imagine that it would be at least 20 centimetres tall, but maybe it is quite small? No less impressive are the cicadas’ orchestras which perform particularly in parks but also in smaller groups of trees and in the afternoon make a deafening noise. And would you, if
you did not know better, expect such volume from such tiny creatures?
In Germany I have seen fireflies for the last time 45 years ago. In ShenZhen, I can watch them in the summer in some places almost every night.