China has 1,329 species out of a world total of 9,000-odd. It has a rich mix of habitats, from upland steppe and desert, to mountain fir and spruce forests, lowland tropical rainforest, and wetlands.

China is the world centre for pheasants, boasting 62 out of 200 species worldwide. The tail feathers of the Reeve’s pheasant, are prized for headgear in Peking opera.

The country has 9 of 14 species of crane, and a quarter of the world’s total of ducks, swans and geese.

Many bird species are endemic and China’s south-west is particularly rich in flora and fauna.

In 1937 a Chinese ornithologist, T.H. Shaw, had killed 21 Chinese crested terns at their breeding colony on an island off the Shandong coast. The specimens were stuffed into a museum drawer in Beijing. The Chinese Crested Tern was not seen again and was presumed extinct.

In 2000 a group of Taiwanese twitchers were admiring a colony of greater crested terns when, to their amazement, they counted four pairs of an unusual crested tern among them which sported a diagnostic black tip to their orange bills, the Chinese Crested Tern.

A young mainland ornithologist, Chen Shuihua, then started searching for the Chinese Crested Tern. According to Mr Chen’s calculation, the total population of what is possibly the world’s rarest bird is 32.

Conservation Status - Critically Endangered.