Fair play

Later, Wei Ming, head of the Rosefinch Center's Kunming office — also a friend of He and one of the judges for the race — explained Cranes Above the Clouds had missed a crucial detail: a small plot of wetland in the field. There, the winning team had spotted several waterbird species, including the painted snipe, a new record for Napo.

"We were actually quite close to the wetland," Guo said. "I should have checked the satellite map to identify its potential. It was my mistake."

However, Dai and He were skeptical of Guo's explanation. "Even if we had located the wetland and added several waterbird species, we would still have been 20 species behind," Dai said. "We're used to losing in bird races, but not by such a wide margin."

What was comforting for them was that, after the defense session, their record was confirmed by the judges without any species being deleted. "Most teams had several suspicious species removed from their records," Wei said. The winning team initially presented a record of 204 species, of which nine were deleted by the judges.

"At least we presented the most solid record," He said, noting that the team had rigorously followed the rules. Of the birds they had spotted before the race, they failed to find nine species, including the pheasant.

"I saw a bluethroat, a new record for Napo, in the field," He said. "I was trembling with excitement. But the other three team members didn't see the bird, so we left it off our list. We tried hard to find the Himalayan owl, a bird that most teams managed to spot. It turned out that it regularly visited the hotel compound. We didn't ask the other teams for its location, so we missed that species. Although seriously competitive, we prioritize fair play."

In the end, Cranes Above the Clouds was one of several teams awarded a breakthrough prize for their sighting of a snow-browed flycatcher.