ナショナルジオグラフィックさんのインスタグラム写真 - (ナショナルジオグラフィックInstagram)「Photos by Fritz Hoffmann @fritzphotos | Ban Xiong ("Half Hero") is the name Ma Zhenwen gave this sparrow hawk. Ma trained the hawk to chase birds from fields of ripe goji berries during harvest. With the growing demand for goji berries in western markets, a large plantation was established to grow the berries in Qinghai Province. The plantation owner tried bird netting and fish nets, but neither could protect the large-scale crop from birds. Years ago, farmers in rural northwest China trained these small birds of prey to defend their grain crops from birds that pillaged them. Then, with change in China, fewer people worked the land, and the long practice of falconry in farming ended. An elderly man recalled how sparrow hawks were used for such work; the plantation owner searched, and eventually he was directed to Ningxia Province and to Ma Zhenwen. Because there was no longer a need, Ma had given up falconry, instead becoming a butcher. At first Ma declined the offer to take up falconry again, but the plantation boss persisted. Ma trained a group of others to handle the hawks, and now Ma and his band of falconers follow the goji harvest, working the fields from Ningxia to Qinghai from August to October. I finally caught up with them in Qinghai after a challenging search of my own. The hawks are captured in the spring and released after harvest in the fall. Check out Nat Geo's link in bio for more on my January 2019 @natgeo story on Chinese Medicine. For more pictures from China please follow @fritzphotos. #falconry #sparrowhawk #gojiberries #gojiharvest #chinesemedicine」3月16日 23時42分