Yunlong County, Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, southwest China – Dec 6, 2017
1. Various of photographers taking pictures

++MUTE++
2. Various of pictures of white-tailed sea eagles

3. SOUNDBITE(Chinese) Yang Zhixiang, photographer:
"I found a bird of prey appearing in the sky, I was excited and took pictures of it. Then suddenly another bird flew into my sight. So there were two birds (of the same kind) coming into our sight for around 40 seconds. We took more than ten clear pictures of them. We thought they were just common birds of prey."

++MUTE++
4. Various of pictures of white-tailed sea eagles

5. SOUNDBITE(Chinese) Zhang Wei, expert on birds:
"We compared these pictures with the pictures of birds from the books recording local bird species of Dali. Then we confirmed they are white-tailed sea eagles, it's a new discovery in the Dali Prefecture."

++FAST MOTION/MUTE++
6. Scenery of Yunlong Tianchi national nature reserve

7. Forest in Yunlong Tianchi national nature reserve
8. SOUNDBITE(Chinese) Zhang Wei, expert on birds:
"The reserve has a deep pond, which is the habitat of various fish, which are the preys for the white-tailed sea eagles. They came for it. In addition, the overall ecosystem of the Tianchi Nature Reserve, as well as the surrounding forests, are well preserved. Therefore a lot of birds inhabit here. The eagles also prey birds for food besides fish."
9. Scenery of nature reserve
10. Various of photographers taking pictures

Two white-tailed sea eagles, a rarely seen species under the national first-class protection in China, were caught on camera in Yunlong Tianchi national nature reserve in southwest China's Yunnan Province on Tuesday.

The images of the two rare animals were captured by photographer Yang Zhixiang and his friends.

"I found a bird of prey appearing in the sky, and I was excited and took pictures of it. Then suddenly another bird flied into my sight. So there were two birds (of the same kind) coming into our sight for around 40 seconds. We took more than ten clear pictures of them. We thought they were just common birds of prey," said Yang Zhixiang.

Wondering which species the birds belong to, Yang shared the pictures with his friends on social media, drawing the attention from an expert on birds named Zhang Wei .

"We compared these pictures with the pictures of birds from the books recording local bird species of Dali. Then we confirmed they are white-tailed sea eagles, it's a new discovery in the Dali Prefecture," said Zhang Wei, the expert on birds.

Zhang attributed the unprecedented discovery to the well preserved local natural environment of Dali.

"The reserve has a deep pond, which is the habitat of various fish, which are the preys for the white-tailed sea eagles. They came for it. In addition, the overall ecosystem of the Tianchi Nature Reserve, as well as the surrounding forests, are well preserved. Therefore a lot of birds inhabit here. The eagles also prey birds for food besides fish," said Zhang.

In recent years, a number of rare species have been spotted in the Yunlong Tianchi Nature Reserve, including Yunnan golden monkey, golden leopard, forest musk deer.