Shandong Rongcheng: Yanduijiao — a romantic place for swans

Every winter, flocks of swans and wild ducks fly from the northern Siberia to Yanjiaodui one after another. Thousands of white swans land softly on the lake,making the lake a vast whiteness. They spend the winter in foraging, playing on the lake.

Yanduijiao is a small seaside village. In Ming Dynasty(1368-1644), in order resist aggression from Japanese, navies built a smoke mound (“Fengyandui” in Chinese ). When Japanese invaded, the smoke mound would be fired as the signal to inform the force, hence the name Yanduijiao. The hill in the east blocks the waves of the Yellow Sea, therefore a small shallow harbour is formed. With the tide’s ebb and flow, it brings abundant food to the swans, at the same time, it also provides the best chance to visit swans at a close distance.

The 500 households live harmoniously with these swans generation by generation, and people see them as their own domestic fowls and would feed the swans with their food. Here, swans are not afraid of human beings. Each time when seeing someone sprinkle food on the sea, these swans would fight against with each other for the food just like naughty boys. If there are swans get injured, villagers would bandaged the wound and take care of them for a while till they get recovery and go back to their home again.