At around 6 p.m. on June 19, 2026, Miao Zongjie, a birdwatcher from Wuhan, spotted a bird with a black hood, white nape, rounded head, pale underparts and dark upper plumage on Lake No.5 at Dajiuhu Wetland in the Shennongjia National Park Candidate Area.After receiving the news, monitoring staff from the park’s scientific research institute rushed to the wetland at roughly 6 a.m. the following morning to take more photos. Images were later sent to avian specialists, who confirmed the bird as a Parasitic Jaeger (Stercorarius parasiticus). The sighting marks the first ever record of the species in Shennongjia and only the second verified occurrence across Hubei Province.
Recently, a new discovery was made during the comprehensive survey of wild plants conducted by Shennongjia National Park: the research team found the rare plant Berberis pubescens Pamp. in a hillside shrubland. This species had not been recorded in the wild for more than a century. The specimen (C. Silvestri 718) was first collected in northwestern Hubei Province in July 1907, and no wild records of the species had been reported since then.
The Shennongjia Golden Snub-Nosed Monkey Field Scientific Observation and Research Station has once again been rated “Excellent” in the annual performance evaluation of Hubei Province’s science and technology innovation platforms, according to a notice released by the Hubei Provincial Department of Science and Technology on June 1. Since its establishment in 2019, the field station has received the province’s highest rating in five annual assessments. The evaluations cover dozens of provincial-level field research stations operated by leading universities, research institutes, and scientific organizations across Hubei, all assessed under a unified set of standards. Despite having fewer resources and a smaller talent pool than many major academic and research institutions, the Shennongjia station has consistently ranked among the province’s top-performing platforms.
In the depths of winter, three consecutive days of snow blanketed the Dajiuhu Wetland in Shennongjia completely. Snow in the forests piled up dozens of centimeters thick, while on the lake surface, the ice layer was solid enough for waterbirds to walk upon. Eager to see how sphagnum moss survives in such icy conditions, we drove from Muyu Town straight to Dajiuhu to find out.
On the morning of September 4, 2025, a birdwatcher with the Xiaohongshu username “冰鹡鸰birder” recorded two rosefinches in the Jinhouling area of Shennongjia National Park. Experts later identified them as Blanford's Rosefinches (Carpodacus rubescens). The name sounded familiar, so I searched through my archived folder of important bird records and found a related photo. Finally, the time has come to confirm its identity.