Who knew barn swallows preferred the seedier human establishments? In the city of Zhengzhou we found our biggest enclave of barn swallows yet, with several dozen pairs nesting in narrow streets amid a busy night market, piles of garbage, and some very adult “massage parlors.” It was an interesting few days…
We arrived in Zhengzhou via comfy high- speed train from Changsha, which reduced what used to be an 8-hour ride to 3.5 hours. From the periphery, we thought we were entering yet another ultra-modern Chinese city. Then we hit the traffic. Oh, the traffic. Traveling via public transit is awkward enough for us as it is: we have two big backpacks, a suitcase, a giant big duffel bag of equipment, plus 5 poles that we use to string up our nets. Everything is really heavy, and we look like an awkward band of gypsies struggling through train and bus stations.
In Zhengzhou, it turned out the government was upgrading the roads. All of them. At the same time. This has resulted in horribly snarled traffic jams, particularly at rush hour, which is of course when we arrived. We loaded all our gear into a taxi at the train station and asked to go to our hotel 6 miles away. After 30 minutes or so, the taxi left us at a bus stop and told us to take a bus. We did. We got off the bus and were still two miles from our hotel. After 30 min of searching, we finally found a cab, which took us “close” to our hotel and refused to drive the last half-mile. We lugged all our gear over, only to find the hotel we had reserved wouldn’t rent rooms to foreigners. We finally found a place that would rent us a room- it took 3.5 hours to get from Changsha to Zhengzhou, and 4 hours to make it the last 6 miles. We ate a big Sichuan meal to make ourselves feel better.
The next morning, we commenced with our very scientific method for finding barn swallows: we walked around and looked for them. This works surprisingly well- barn swallows are pretty conspicuous, especially early in the breeding season when they’re building nests and the males are singing. If you know the kinds of places they like to nest, it’s pretty easy to find them if they’re there. By early afternoon we’d found eight nests near our hotel, but the going was slow and they were pretty dispersed. Then we had a breakthrough: we met some students who suggested we try checking a village about 10km north of the city center.
When we arrived (after an hour in the horrible traffic), “Liu Village” turned out to be a market area on the outskirts of the main city. It was fascinating and gross: packed with vendors hawking fruits, vegetables, fresh meat, clothes, trinkets, and a million kinds of prepared food, and the attendant garbage associated with all that food. It was also packed with barn swallows- apparently the combination of muddy puddles, old buildings with nest sites, and lots of bugs around the rotting vegetables was a big draw. The main market drag was insanely busy, but the narrow side streets and alleys were relatively quiet. We stopped counting after finding 15 nests, and just wandered around looking for good sites to set up nets.
We found one particularly east net set-up in front of a neon-lit shop, but Liu Yu looked mildly embarrassed when we stopped to look closer. “I don’t think we can come here at night- it will not be closed,” he told us. “Why not?” I asked. “I think it is a porn shop,” he said. “What?” “It says ‘massage parlor,’ but I think it is really a porn shop.” Caroline and I started laughing- “really?” “Yes,” he said. “They are everywhere here. So many of them.”
Liu Village was clearly the most promising site we’d found, so after catching the birds around our downtown hotel that evening, we moved ourselves up to somewhat more grungy, $12/night establishment near the street market the following morning. This commenced two bleary days: Liu Village, it turns out, is never quiet. The first night we wandered the market for dinner, then attempted to start banding in the side streets at around 9:30pm. Within 5 minutes we had attracted a crowd of at least 50 onlookers. It was too much to handle, and we retreated back to our rooms overlooking the bustling night market. At 11pm, we tried again, this time attracting only 10 or 15 people (although they were much drunker). The crowds lessened as the night went on, until we ourselves alone in the streets at 2:30am.
Liu Village was clearly the most promising site we’d found, so after catching the birds around our downtown hotel that evening, we moved ourselves up to somewhat more grungy, $12/night establishment near the street market the following morning. This commenced two bleary days: Liu Village, it turns out, is never quiet. The first night we wandered the market for dinner, then attempted to start banding in the side streets at around 9:30pm. Within 5 minutes we had attracted a crowd of at least 50 onlookers. It was too much to handle, and we retreated back to our rooms overlooking the bustling night market. At 11pm, we tried again, this time attracting only 10 or 15 people (although they were much drunker). The crowds lessened as the night went on, until we ourselves alone in the streets at 2:30am.
We caught 10 birds and fell into our beds exhausted, only to be awakened at 7, when the market started bustling again. We spent the morning trying to nap through the noise, until Caroline and I finally gave up and, in stereotypically American fashion, bought a bunch of Coke Zeros and Dove bars from a convenience store to stay awake. We snacked our way through the market throughout the afternoon, sampling assorted fried dough balls, steamed buns, stir fried high-gluten noodles, unidentifiable sweets, cups of fresh watermelon, a sort of ice-gelatin-fruit sauce concoction, and some very unfortunate tofu with a brown sauce that tasted like rotting toilet water (so I imagine).
Finally, 11pm rolled around and we headed out to the alleys. This evening was a bit less crowded, with our only excitement setting up a net in front of what we thought was a window of someone’s house, and then realized (although Liu Yu probably noticed immediately) that is was one of the “massage parlors,” and some ladies of a questionable profession were watching us with confusion. We worked quickly, and by 2:45am we had caught 11 birds. As we packed up in the eerie glow of dirty streetlights, an unfortunate wind whipped up small vortex of dust and garbage that swirled around our ankles and covered us in grit. It was definitely time to move on.
-Liz
Check out our Photos tab for more pics of Changsha and Zhengzhou!
-Liz
Check out our Photos tab for more pics of Changsha and Zhengzhou!