Bird experts survey Metog to better understand county's biodiversity

The remote Metog county on the southeastern edge of the Xizang autonomous region is known for being the very last county in China to be connected by road. The rugged area is also known for its rich and somewhat untapped biodiversity, and this is why ornithologists like Chen De and Que Pinjia visit to conduct wildlife surveys.

Inclement weather hampered their most recent fortnight-long survey last month, but despite the rain and the fog, the team of eight cracked on with their task in the hope of discovering unique species never before observed by humankind.

For Chen, an associate professor from Beijing Normal University, the rain and colder weather meant that fewer birds would be in the area this time, and that they'd have to react faster in the cold when catching each bird. Despite this, he set up his wafer-thin "mist nets" around various sites in the hope of snagging a first.

The nets are practically invisible to the human eye and are designed to minimize harm to the birds.

"The cold weather might have led to more casualties in the nets," said a concerned Chen. "So we had to visit the net sites more frequently to extract birds from them."

For Que, a researcher from the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding and the Sichuan Key Laboratory of Conservation Biology for Endangered Wildlife, the bad weather was also going to impede this year's survey.

"Birds hide in bad weather and become silent," Que said."In such conditions, you can often wonder where all the birds have gone."