For those looking to start birding in Beijing, he suggests the Olympic Forest Park or Summer Palace. "You learn something every time you go out," he says. He recently persuaded local authorities in his neighborhood to protect a rare dragonfly habitat after a previous site was demolished by landscaping. "They didn't know it was there. Now, they've put up educational signs. It's a small win, but that's how it starts.

"People think we know everything about nature. We don't. There are millions of species we haven't even discovered. Every day ... there's something to discover," he says.