Bird lovers devote time to poached egg parenting

He may have left his post as a forest police officer over a decade ago, but Jiang Xinhe's enthusiasm for wildlife remains alive. And thanks to him, his wife Che Yong has also become a staunch wildlife conservationist.

Making full use of their spare time, Jiang, 52, and Che, 51, have devoted themselves to protecting birds in the Yalu River Wetland National Nature Reserve, which is located along a major global migration route.

They are widely known as "the parents of the birds" in their home city of Donggang, Liaoning province, as they once tried to artificially incubate 264 eggs they rescued from poachers. About 60 hatched, and around 40 birds eventually survived and were returned to the wild.

Jiang now works with Donggang's Department of Human Resources and Social Security, and Che is a teacher at a local middle school.

The period from early April to the middle of May is usually the busiest time for them, as the park in their hometown briefly becomes home to millions of birds from the Southern Hemisphere. As regular visitors to the park, the pair have photographed the birds and also researched their migration.

On a visit to the park in May 2017, Jiang and Che stumbled on a group of poachers. They fled, leaving the bird eggs they'd been stealing behind.

After learning from the local wildlife conservation authority that even though they could be returned to their nests, it would be impossible to see them hatch, the couple had the idea of incubating the eggs themselves.

After getting approval, they took the eggs home and built a makeshift incubator from materials including Styrofoam, an electric blanket, a comforter and a thermometer.

Sea bird eggs usually hatch in 21 to 25 days. With no idea when the eggs had been laid, they could do no more than make sure the eggs were well cared for.

To ensure the eggs were evenly heated, they would turn them over regularly, even at night.

They had their first pleasant surprise nine days after bringing the eggs home. Hearing the sound of bird when she got up to go to the toilet that night, Che eagerly woke her husband, and they ran to the incubator to discover that a black-winged stilt, a species of long-legged wader, had hatched.

They hugged each other and Che burst into tears.

Over the next 20 days, about 60 birds were born, including more stilts and a pied avocet. The couple were suddenly very busy, and Che would rush home every day after work.

"Some of my colleagues joked that as the birds' mother, I should apply for maternity leave," she said.

The time they spent caring for the birds was one of excitement, but also of sadness. Not all of the eggs hatched, and some of the birds died afterward.

Jiang fed them fish, shrimp, egg yolks and vitamins. Some had good appetites, but some didn't eat at all. They would try to place food in their beaks with the help of a toothpick, and also imitated mother birds by feeding them from their mouths.

Despite their care, one black-winged stilt was dying almost every day at one point. They tried to adjust the food they were giving them, but that didn't help. A confused Jiang took to visiting a wetland park to observe the black-winged stilts there carefully.

He decided to release 21 black-winged stilts into the wild after discovering that baby black-winged stilts searched for food by themselves under their mother's guidance.

Before releasing the other birds, the couple took them to the reeds in the marsh where the eggs had been found to get them used to being in the wild. They took the birds to the marsh every day at 5 am and would take them home around 8 am before going to work. They also took the birds to the marsh in the evening after work.

Che would sometimes get so tired that she would fall asleep in the tent they set up in the marsh.

On Oct 11, 2017, the couple released the last baby bird into the wild. Although they are both shutterbugs, the couple hadn't taken many photos during the 151 days they were caring for the birds. They occasionally shot pictures on their phones to record their time with the eggs and the birds.

"Whenever they are in conflict, art should give way to life. I wanted to help the birds successfully return to the wild, even if that meant I had to temporarily give up taking photos," Jiang said.