Researchers have been conducting migratory bird banding at a staging post in Suichuan County, east China's Jiangxi Province as large numbers of birds arrive during migration season.

In a monitoring station of the Nanfengmian national nature reserve, a major pass of the staging post, bird banders carefully mark a migratory bird with a metal ring engraved with a unique number and other information, such as country, organization and address.

"This ring is distributed by the national bird breeding center. It's unique," said Zhu Gaodong, a technician of the nature reserve.

The banders then free the bird after collecting information, including species, beak length, wingspan and weight.

"We will free it after making sure its conditions are good," Zhu said.

The 60-day banding program is conducted between mid-September and late November every year in an effort to better understand the migratory categories, and obtain information about species population trends and habitats.

Zhu and his fellow team members have been patrolling the nature reserve for two months every year since 2002.

"Thanks to more and more awareness of the protection of birds and environment, the environment here is getting better and more migratory birds are coming to stop over here," he said.

The staging post in Suichuan, covering an area of 50 million hectares, is one of the important passages for bird migration in China and also an important area for migratory birds to rest in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. A total of 1 million birds of over 200 species fly over or stopover in the staging post every year.

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