The present study aimed to investigate the structure, composition and diversity of the over-wintering aquatic bird community of Poyang Lake, including Poyang Lake National Nature Reserve (PNNR), Nanji National Nature Reserve (NNNR) and Duchang Provincial Nature Reserve (DPNR), China. After the preliminary survey, birds surveyed from vantage points at each study site between the years 2016 and 2020 in the winter season. A total of 58 bird species belonging to nine orders and 13 families were observed. The study showed variation in effective species numbers (Species richness, Shannon’s diversity and Simpson’s diversity) among the three study sites and the survey years. Nanji National Nature Reserve had the highest avian diversity, whereas Duchang Provincial Nature Reserve had the lowest. Globally threatened bird species, Siberian Crane (critically endangered), Oriental Stork (endangered), found in our study sites. However, the current management practices of the nature reserve and conservation of this globally threatened bird species are inadequate, especially of Duchang Provincial Nature Reserve. Therefore, for long term conservation of birds in these areas, it needs continuing intentional improvement of the sites and awareness creation to the local community.

To design a good conservation strategy for herbivorous Anseriformes wintering in Poyang Lake, knowledge of habitat suitability is essential. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the habitat suitability of herbivorous Anseriformes of China’s Poyang Lake. Landsat images with a resolution of 30 m downloaded from the United States Geological Survey, and other ancillary data were used. The ENVI 5.3 software and ArcGIS 10.2 software were used for preprocessing, classifying the satellite image, and mapping habitat suitability. The study reveals that land cover types were divided into vegetation, mudflats, water, and sand. Similarly, the study area’s habitats were also divided into unsuitable, fair, good, and best grades. However, the distribution of the habitat suitability for each grade reveals significant spatial variations. For instance, vegetation indicated the areas with the best habitat grade, followed by mudflats, and these areas cover (47.93%, 2015 and 55.78%, 2019) the majority of the study area. The unsuitable grades cover the smallest areas (0.48%) of the lake. Similarly, this study results showed a slight change in habitat suitability areas. Therefore, this study highlighted that Poyang Lake has valuable importance for the conservation of herbivorous Anseriformes. Extending the years of study and including some ecological variables from different stopovers could improve the results.