Workers at a snow-covered nature reserve in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province have dispensed corn to feed rare bird flocks during a particularly harsh winter.

Staff at the Honghe National Reserve had put 1,000 kg of corn seeds in places where wild animals roamed, Zhu Baoguang, a research director with the reserve, said Tuesday.

Most trees were bare of fruit and snow was up to half a meter deep on the ground, Zhu said.

The reserve, a wetland ecosystem covering 21,836 hectares, is a habitat for a range of rare birds, including oriental storks, red-crowned cranes, white-naped cranes and whooper swans.

The reserve staff had been protecting their habitats by restoring wetlands and had built more than 100 artificial nests, which attracted more than 200 oriental stork pairs who produced about 700 chicks, he said.