Grateful migratory birds flock to security guard’s kindness

KUNMING — Zhang Qiang is a security guard at the Dianchi National Tourist Resort in Kunming, capital of Southwest China’s Yunnan province. His job usually includes inspecting ticketing offices, managing parking lots, patrolling the resort and keeping tourists in order.

But recently, he was assigned a new task: feeding black-headed gulls.

“It was a little weird,” says Zhang, 25. “I usually deal with people, not birds.”

The COVID-19 outbreak forced the closure of many tourist areas in Yunnan, including the Dam of Grass Sea, a major gathering area for the gulls in the resort. This meant that huge numbers of black-headed gulls, migratory birds that fly all the way from Siberia to spend the winter in Kunming, were left without food near the dam.

The gulls first visited Kunming in large numbers during the winter of 1985. Since then, flocks of the gulls come to the city to get through the winter every year.

“The tourists usually provide bird food for the gulls near the dam,” Zhang says. “But as no tourist had been there since Jan 27, the birds were confused and probably in shock when they saw the eerily empty dam usually packed with crowds of visitors eager to give food to them.”

When Zhang went to the dam to feed the birds for the first time, he was a little nervous.

So were the birds.

“Only a few little ones dared to fly over to me, and after trying a few times they found there was no danger,” Zhang says. “Then they just flocked to me.”

Zhang says he felt overwhelmed by the tens of thousands of the black-headed gulls fluttering around him at the same time, dashing about as they competed for food.

“I have worked in the resort for more than two years, and I never saw anything quite like that,” he says. “It was magnificent.”

At 9 am every morning and 4 pm every afternoon, Zhang and his colleagues carried bags of gull food, each weighing about 150 kg, to the birds. He would scatter the food on the dam for the birds to pick up. Within a few days, the birds got used to the way that Zhang fed them.

“Every morning before we arrived at the dam, they were already waiting for us,” he says. “These guys were pretty smart: they would chase our minivans because they knew there was food in them.”

When Zhang fed the gulls, some would fly over his head and wait for Zhang to feed them from his hand.

The job appeared to be so much fun that some of Zhang’s security guard colleagues also jumped on the bandwagon, volunteering to help feed the birds.

Zhang says that during the closure, many local citizens brought gull food to the resort, which “quite touched the heart”.

“Many Kunming citizens were concerned about the birds and they did not want them to starve,” Zhang says. “Some would drive to the resort with hundreds of kilograms of gull food, and some would even place orders on food delivery apps to bring food to the resort.”

On March 3, the dam reopened to the public with a limit on the number of visitors, as the pandemic gradually came under control. The tourists began to feed the birds again, and Zhang went back to his work as a security guard.

As temperature rises, the black-headed gulls are ready to fly north to reproduce.

“I will miss them when they aren’t here,” Zhang says. “I look forward to next winter when they come back to Kunming.”