At the end of August, Dongtan in Chongming entered the transit peak of waders. These birds coming all the way from Siberia and are going to fly to Australia and other places for winter. Dongtan wetland is a warm transit station during their migration. The bird ringing of every autumn in Shanghai Chongming Dongtan National Nature Reserve also began.

At about 7 a.m., the reporter came to the reserve where birds inhabit, and the bird catcher Jin Weiguo had started to work. He whistles on the beach every morning. By imitating more than 30 different types of bird calls, Mr. Jin can attract birds from far away and capture them through the mechanism nets laid in advance on the beach.

After hearing the whistle, three long toed shorebirds flew forward and all of them were caught in a net. Mr. Jin hurried to the net. In the process of closing the net, an alert long toed shorebird still slipped away between his fingers.

He introduced that this method is highly efficient in catching birds and has less harm to birds. Thanks to the unique bird-catching skills with long history, the reserve has become an internationally famous bird ringing station. The number of birds in the ringing record is stable at a high level every year, which plays a key role in bird research and protection.

"Although it is scorching for a long time in this summer, it has little impact on our work, and the number of birds is almost the same as last year", Mr. Jin said, "The birds are mainly red necked shorebirds, long toed shorebirds and middle curlew. There are all kinds of birds, but Greater Sand Plover is in the minority."

After catching the bird, Mr. Jin handed over the birds to the staff of the Reserve. They immediately put on metal rings and flags with Dongtan characteristics, measured the signs, weighed the birds, and took biological samples. They were very careful at every step.

The Reserve adopts a flag with black in upper half and white in down half, which also becomes a unique identity card for birds. People all over the world can know that birds have passed through Dongtan, Chongming by observing the flag color in the field, which provides important information for the scientific research on the migratory route of migratory birds.

Since engaging in bird protection, Mr. Jin has captured nearly 40,000 waders for bird research in the Reserve, Fudan University, East China Normal University and other institutes. In 2007 alone, more than 7,000 birds were released from the Reserve for bird ringing, and the number of single-point bird ringing ranked first in the world.

Over the years, the birds with Dongtan ringing flag have been witnessed and recorded in Australia, New Zealand, Russia and other countries. "Dongtan, Chongming for Bird Paradise" is gaining increasing international popularity.