HAIKOU, November 17. /TASS/. Chinese researchers first noticed the yellow-billed nuthatch (Sitta solangiae) in the Bawanlin Nature Reserve, located in China's Hainan, and took several photographs of this rare bird, reported the Hainan Daily.
The yellow-billed nuthatch in China lives only in the Hainan province. For the first time, experts managed to discover it in the forests of Bawanlin in the western part of the island. The small bird came to the attention of the monitoring team while observing the Hainan gibbons, according to Wei Yaqing, an employee of the reserve. The team took several pictures of this bird, and later experts found that it was the yellow-billed nuthatch that they had captured in the photo.
The bird has a bluish-purple color of feathers, a yellow beak and red-brown legs. The body length of an adult amounts to about 13 cm, which makes it easy to maneuver in the rainforest. This bird perfectly climbs the trunk and branches of trees, including upside down. In general, the yellow-billed nuthatch feeds on insects.
Its distinctive feature is the so-called vertical migration: the bird alternately lives on mountain peaks, then in gorges, and rarely moves over long distances in latitude and longitude. Because of this, its habitat is relatively limited. Apart from Hainan, the yellow-billed nuthatch can also be found in the forests of Vietnam and Laos.
Bawanlin is one of the reserves in the pilot zone of Hainan's National Rainforest Park. It is located in Hainan's Changjiang Li Autonomous County in the western part of the island. The forests of this reserve are a natural habitat for such unique species as the Hainan gibbon and Hainan partridge.
The Tropical Forest National Park pilot area was established in January 2019 to protect and restore Hainan's ecosystem. During this time, biologists have discovered nine new varieties of plants, as well as five species of animals and fungi. Regional authorities plan to complete the creation of the Tropical Forest National Park on the island by the end of this year, which will attract more tourists from China and other countries to Hainan.