Beijing's 'green lung' showcases its natural wonders

Excellent habitat

In addition to birds, Olympic Forest Park is an excellent habitat for a variety of small mammals. The park has a green coverage rate of 96 percent, with rich forest and water resources, including a total of some 580,000 arbors and shrubs.

Wang Jun, former director of the garden engineering department at Beijing Shi Ao Forest Park Development and Management Co, said the entire park has sufficient natural shrubs and piles of benjeshecken for small animals to hide and avoid danger. Benjeshecken, also known as a "dead hedge", is constructed from materials left over from pruning, clearing or forestry activities.

"In the park, benjeshecken also plays an important role in science popularization. In daily observations, visitors can see small hedgehogs, weasels and other creatures living here," Wang said.

He and his colleagues have made numerous efforts to attract more small animals to the park, including the introduction of lawn areas.

Some parks use cool-season grasses, which thrive in locations with cold winters and hot summers, and look exceptionally tidy and attractive, but as this type of grass can fall victim to the elements, it requires the regular application of pesticides.

If the lawns are sprayed with pesticides, they will not be good for small animals. So the aim of Olympic Forest Park is not solely to create beautiful lawns, but also to establish a diverse biological environment.

After many hours of observation and research, Wang found a good way to make the lawns beautiful, while also being beneficial to small animals' habitats.

"We place other varieties of flowers and grass in the lawns, while preserving a proportion of native grass seeds. By trimming, we achieve a neat and aesthetically pleasing appearance. When the proportion of other types of grass in the lawn reaches 20-25 percent, the lawn is less prone to 'illness', thanks to the mix of varieties. This enables us to almost eliminate the need for pesticides throughout the year, reducing side effects on the environment," Wang said.

Lou Fangzhou, a senior high school student who has visited Olympic Forest Park since 2014 to observe wildlife, said, "The park management has taken measures to create a wildlife-friendly environment, such as leaving a proportion of the wetland with reeds during the winter for wildlife habitats. It has also acted to prevent uncivilized behavior such as feeding wildlife species and preventing crowds from gathering to photograph them.

"In early spring every year, many Asiatic toads lay eggs at the park. At that time of year, the reeds have not yet emerged, so it is easy to observe such scenes up close in wetlands at the park."

Lou said that one year, he saw many newly hatched tadpoles in large groups in the water. The scene was particularly beautiful, so he put his phone into the water to take photographs. However, after a while, he found the screen had become damaged, and it was only then that he realized the phone wasn't waterproof.

"Entering Olympic Forest Park is like opening a gateway that separates wildlife from humans. The park's advantageous location near the city center, its convenient transportation links, free admission, and well-maintained pathways encourage more people to step into nature and get up close to it," he added.