West Dongting Lake Birdwatching Area 西洞庭湖开放观鸟区

About West Dongting Lake Birdwatching Area

The reserve was established in 1998 and covers roughly 35,000 hectares of wetland ecosystem in Hanshou County. West Dongting Lake is the western throat of the Dongting system: it takes flood water from the Songzi and Taiping mouths of the Yangtze and receives the Yuan and the Li rivers, so the ground alternates between open lake at high water and exposed sandbars when the water falls. Within it are rivers, lakes, marshes and artificial wetlands. The reserve is one of China's wetlands of international importance and a stage on the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, providing stopover, roosting and feeding ground for more than forty thousand wintering waterbirds a year.

Recorded biodiversity runs to 424 vascular plant species, 226 bird species, 112 fish species, 65 benthic animals, 13 amphibians, 20 reptiles and 26 mammals. The reserve's declared priorities are rare and endangered species such as the black stork and the Siberian crane alongside the wetland system itself. Twenty-three black storks were counted here in November 2007 and the local population has held at around thirty since 2010; China's first black stork guardian station was established at West Dongting Lake in February 2015. Restoration work under the Xiang River and Dongting Lake ecological programme rebuilt waterbird habitat at Banbian Lake, Dongwa and Liangshuang Zhou, and video monitoring towers now watch the roosting areas at Qingshan Lake, Banbian Lake, Dongwa and Yuzhou. The Qingshan Lake migratory bird garden, the public-facing birdwatching site, opened on 7 December 2020 alongside the Changde venue of the eleventh Dongting Lake International Birdwatching Festival.

Migratory birds are present around Dongting Lake between October and March, so the reserve's interest is strongly seasonal.

What to look for

• The Qingshan Lake migratory bird garden, the reserve's public birdwatching site, opened in December 2020
• Black storks, the species that gave West Dongting Lake China's first black stork guardian station in 2015
• Siberian cranes, named with the black stork as a priority protected species here
• The alternation of open lake and exposed sandbars that follows the rise and fall of the Yuan, Li and Yangtze waters
• Rebuilt waterbird habitat at Banbian Lake, Dongwa and Liangshuang Zhou

Location & getting there

Getting to West Dongting Lake Birdwatching Area

Check the open visitor route and follow the site’s rules on distance, food and photography. Conservation areas may limit access beyond designated paths.

• Search for 西洞庭湖开放观鸟区 with 常德市 and 汉寿县.