A natural talent

Amateur photographer has trained his lens on birds and plants in Hebei over 15 years, Wang Ru reports.

Liu Lizhu, 50, remembers his experience of shooting photos of oriental reed warblers in 2008. At that time, he rode a bicycle to the marshes where the birds had been recorded mating in spring. It took him some time before he found a marsh where he could hear the sound of the birds, but couldn't see them. Then he went to the spot repeatedly for careful observation, and gradually figured out their behavior.

"When such a bird tries to mate, you can see it walk from the bottom of a weed up to the flower and then you can hear the sound. Based on that pattern, I found a good vantage point, and then waited patiently for the best moments to take pictures," says Liu.

The amateur photographer has devoted himself to shooting photos of birds in his hometown Shahe, Hebei province, as well as plants growing on the Taihang Mountains over the past 15 years. He has published books on the subjects.

In 2007, not long after the graphic design major returned to Shahe city and began to work in local law enforcement after years of doing odd jobs, he started to capture nature with his camera. He found a website about birds, and became interested in taking photos of them.

"Before that, I recorded scenery and people, but later I found that too many people did similar things. When I noticed some people posting beautiful photos of birds online, which was not very popular at that time, I decided to try it as well," says Liu, who didn't expect the decision then would take up most of his free time in the next seven years.

"Instead of focusing on rare or special species of birds, I wanted to record as many as possible common birds that people see in a local area," says Liu.

That's how he started to observe birds in Shahe, checking information online when preparing for filming, before traveling to mountainous areas to look for the birds.

"It's time-consuming. Birds have different habits, which you must factor in, and then you can look for them according to what you have learned," he says.