North-west China (Xinjiang) - 5th May (Day 15)

We were up at 05:00 after sleepless night due to multiple dodgy bellies and headed from Korlor towards Luntain with multiple toilet stops. Andy B and Volkert were feeling okay and we deduced that it was only they who had not eaten food on the aeroplane, a rather dodgy dish of chicken and rice so we blamed our upset stomach’s on Urumqi Air who we had flown with yesterday. Turning south off the main road we soon encountered our first of many police check points. We were taken from the car at every stop and Tang-jun was questioned about our motives for being in the area. This being exacerbated by recent political problems. After many police checks each taking at least 30 minutes and with multiple passport checks and scans we eventually got to our hotel in Luntain at around midday. After checking in to the hotel we were informed that the Police wanted to visit the hotel to check our passports and take further details, by now we had had enough of this as each time the same details of visa and passport number was being obtained, and each time we wasted another 30 minutes or so. We eventually headed away from the town driving south on “Desert Road” and yet more police checkpoints. In total during the course of the day we had spent around six hours at Police checkpoints.

We eventually arrived at the bridge over the River Tarim (41°10'14.886" N 84°14'12.6" E) just south of Lunnanzen and birded the woodland to the south of the bridge. The woodland was infested with mosquitos and was quite an unpleasant place to bird but we quickly notched up our first Azure Tit, Sykes’s Warbler, Lesser Whitethroat (of the subspecies minula and sometimes split as Desert Lesser Whitethroat) and Citrine Wagtail. We finished here getting good views of our main target in this habitat, White-winged Woodpecker with a bird showing well as it fed atop a tree. The species is very similar to Great-spotted Woodpecker (ws it once lumnped?) with far more white in the wing but a remarkably similar call as do most of the Dendrocopus woodpeckers. We then headed further south to Km 85-95 in search of our main reason for visiting the region, Xinjiang (or Biddulph’s) Ground-jay, this range restricted species is confined to the Taklimakan Desert in NW China. We spent some time walking in the desert in this area looking for the Ground-jay. The site seems somewhat post-apocalyptic with all of the mature trees dead or dying with their roots seemingly eroded by water and now left on islands of sand and thus dying due to dehydration. It would appear that these trees have died in historic times as the wood is now bone dry and disintegrating rather than rotting, a process that probably takes many years in such a dry environment. We spent some time driving up and down this road and walking and scanning the track at KM90 with no success, the bird life in this habitat is remarkably poor and we saw little but for Black Stork, Desert Wheatear, Lesser (Desert) Whitethroat, Saxaul Sparrow, Common Swift, Eurasian Buzzard and Long-legged Buzzard. We wrapped up the birding at around 21:00 with a quick look for Tarrim Hill-warbler just south of the Tarim Bridge but after getting eaten by mosquitos once again we saw little. Heading north again we got stopped at various check-points and held for some time and by the time we got back to our hotel it was around midnight, we were exhausted having had a long day of travelling and police checkpoints and little to eat other then bread and water.

 
Azure Tit of subspecies tianschanicus - Luntain, Xinjiang

Azure Tit - Luntain, Xinjiang

 Song of Azure Tit - Luntain, Xinjiang

White-winged Woodpecker - Luntain, Xinjiang

White-winged Woodpecker - Luntain, Xinjiang

Lesser Whitethroat of the subspecies minula, sometimes split as Desert Lesser Whitethroat was common in the area and seemed to be mainly in the canopy of the taller trees. The song is very different from the rattle of Lesser Whitethroat we here in the UK (listen here) - Luntain, Xinjiang

Citrine Wagtail of subspecies werae- Luntain, Xinjiang

The distinctive personata subspecies of White Wagtail - Luntain, Xinjiang

Sykes's Warbler - Luntain, Xinjiang

Song of Sykes's Warbler - Luntain, Xinjiang

Local children with ballon gifts from Volkert - Luntain, Xinjiang

Saxaul Sparrow - Luntain, Xinjiang

Saxaul Sparrow - Luntain, Xinjiang

 Song of Saxaul Sparrow - Luntain, Xinjiang

Black Stork - Luntain, Xinjiang

Habitat in the Tarim Desert, Luntain, Xinjiang

Habitat in the Tarim Desert, Luntain, Xinjiang

Habitat in the Tarim Desert, Luntain, Xinjiang

Habitat in the Tarim Desert, Luntain, Xinjiang

Habitat in the Tarim Desert, Luntain, Xinjiang

Habitat in the Tarim Desert, Luntain, Xinjiang

Martin scanning for Xinjiang Ground-jay with no luck - Luntain, Xinjiang

Luntain, Xinjiang

We began to see the funny side of passport checks - Luntain, Xinjiang

Another passport check in Luntain

At night when returning weary to  our hotel, we were followed from one checkpoint by Police who blocked us into the next checkpoint with their vehicle. Although they had already seen our documents they requested yet another scan of our passports, needless to say, we did not feel welcome in this area - Luntain, Xinjiang

Links to Other Days of the Trip (Click to View)
Day 1 and 2 – International flight and Dongtai.
Day 3 - Dongtai.
Day 4 – Dongtai and Magic Wood.
Day 5 - Nanhui then fly to Fuzhou.
Day 6 - Shanutan Island and Fuzhou Forest Park.
Day 7 - Fuzhou Forest Park then Emeifeng Mountain.
Day 8 - Emeifeng Mountain.
Day 9 - Emeifeng Mountain.
Day 10 - Emeifeng Mountain then Wuyuan.
Day 11 - Wuyuan.
Day 12 – Drive Wuyuan to Dongzhai.
Day 13 - Dongzhai.
Day 14 – Dongzhai then fly Wuhan to Korlor.
Day 16 – Taklamakan Desert then Urumqi.
Day 17 and 18 – Nanshan in the Tien Shan Mountains then fly Beijing. International flight.