We returned home by a different route and drove through more settled areas including large towns such as Habahe and Shawan County. A visit to the famous city of Turpan resulted in no birds. The fact that the shade temperature was 40OC might have contributed to this. However 32 of these were lifers for me and this group included several that are on the Australian list as introductions. My research before leaving home produced a list of over 300 species recorded in the province so I had expected to see more.
China has a reputation as a country where birds are scarce.
The reasons for this are usually given as habitat clearance, hunting and general people pressure. Xinjiang is probably the province which suffers least from these pressures yet birds are still extremely scarce. Dedicated, single minded, well prepared and resourceful birders could expect to do much better than this report would suggest but they would still expect to have to work hard for success. This had excellent text but mediocre illustrations. There is a new China field guide now available, published in Taiwan.