★ Tourist location: Suzhou Qionglong Mountain Bird Garden

Suzhou Wanniao Garden is located in the Qionglong Mountain Scenic Area. Maybe the scenic area is doing an activity, but tickets purchased online are only half price. We have made a big mistake. Although the weather didn't help and the rain was heavy, we still made the trip without hesitation.

Covering an area of 130 acres, Wanbird Garden is the only bird-themed eco-tourist attraction in East China. It gathers tens of thousands of birds of more than 150 species from around the world, including more than 20 world-class rare birds and more than 30 national-level rare birds. It involves six categories: water birds, wading birds, flying birds, songbirds, raptors and square pigeons. It can be called a sea of birds.

Entering the park, the Science Museum is on the right side. The lights in the museum are a little dim, mainly introducing the origin, living environment and types of birds. Before officially viewing birds, you can have a relatively intuitive understanding of birds. Generally speaking, the scale of this science museum is not large, far less than some natural history museums or wetland museums.

Outside the Science Museum, there is a pond where many kinds of waterbirds or waders are raised, including black swans, white swans, mandarin ducks, wild ducks, etc., which we are very familiar with.

Walking past you will find the Crane Wading Bird Garden. The Cranidae are some beautiful and elegant large wading birds, divided into the subfamily Craninae and the Cromidae. Among them, the Cromidae has 3 genera and 13 species, which are distributed on all continents outside South America, with the largest number in East Asia; one genus and two species of the Cromidae are specialties of Africa. These cranes can inhabit trees.

There are two genera and nine species of cranes in China: red-crowned crane, gray crane, demoiselle crane, white napped crane, hooded crane, black-necked crane, red-necked crane, and sandhill crane, accounting for more than half of the world's 15 species of cranes. The country with the largest number of cranes.

The crowned crane is the oldest crane. White crane, American crane, and red-crowned crane are the three most endangered species. Gray cranes and sandhill cranes are more numerous. Cranes have a high position in Chinese culture, especially the most well-known red-crowned crane, which is a symbol of longevity, good fortune and elegance. In ancient legends, they often appear in fairyland and are also called "cranes". All nine species of cranes are national key protected wild animals.

Demoiselle cranes are very strange and are also the smallest among cranes. The appearance of the feathers is a bit like a gray crane, but there are white ear tufts behind its eyes, making it extremely eye-catching. The black feathers on the front neck extend and hang over the chest, and the tips of the wings can be seen to be black when flying.

Flamingos, also known as flamingos, have white and rose feathers. Although the flying feathers are black, the coverings are deep red and are very beautiful, so they are very popular among children. They are distributed along the Mediterranean coast and Africa, but several of them have very limited distribution and are only distributed in South America.

The number of flamingos in the Ten Thousand Birds Garden is not small. When they gather together, they are like a huge red cloud. They are extremely beautiful. No wonder they have become popular ornamental birds.

They are herds themselves, often with more than 10,000 herds. It is impossible for farmed flamingos to have such a large population. Although they have a very warm feather color, they are actually very timid. They live in shoals and feed on shrimp, clams, insects and algae. They are very characteristic when eating. Dip your head down, turn your mouth upside down, suck the food into your mouth, drain out excess water and inedible dregs, and then slowly swallow it.

The hornbill has a very strange appearance. It is famous for the bony helmet at the base of its upper beak, just like the horns of a rhinoceros, hence the name rhinoceros. The beak of this bird occupies at least one-third of its length, and some species can even occupy half of its length. The wide flat toes are ideal for climbing in trees, and the big eyes have thick and long eyelashes. They mainly live in tropical rainforests in Africa and southern Asia. Interestingly, their nests are mostly holes pecked by woodpeckers. Although their mouths are so big, they are not as good as woodpeckers in terms of pecking ability.

The scale of the bird garden is very large. By arranging an area with iron nets, these birds can mix and live in this relatively large area. Relatively speaking, they can have a certain degree of freedom.

Ostrich and emu are two large flightless birds. They come from different origins and are both endemic to their corresponding areas.

Ostriches are found in Africa. Adult birds can reach 2.5 meters tall and male birds can weigh up to 150 kilograms. Their heads are small, their mouths are short and flat, and their necks are slender. Its feet have dangerous toenails of about 7 centimeters long on each big toe, and its hind limbs are strong and suitable for running. In line with this, the keel is underdeveloped and therefore cannot fly. It is the only two-toed bird among the existing birds in the world.

Emu is a bird unique to Oceania. It is good at running and is the second largest bird, second only to the African ostriches and also known as the Australian ostriches. They are shorter than ostriches, less than two meters tall, and weigh about 30 to 45 kilograms. Their wings are more degraded than ostriches. They have no keel and cannot fly at all. They are one of the oldest birds in the world and are also the national bird of Australia.

The rain has been falling non-stop, and many birds are hiding indoors, which affects the enjoyment to a certain extent. However, waterbirds and wading birds are almost unaffected, pacing slowly in the rain and swimming leisurely in the water.