The range of the crested ibis shrunk from the vast expanse of East Asia in the late 19th century to only the mountains in Yangxian in the late 1970s. The last wild crested ibis in Japan died in 2003, and the only bird in the genus Nipponia was thought to be extinct even in China. However, thanks to the government's support for captive breeding, the number of crested ibis in the wild has increased from just seven nearly 40 years ago to more than 1,500 in Shaanxi, Henan and Zhejiang provinces today - with another 500 in the breeding centers in Shaanxi.

When Yan paints the birds in the open where they fly, glide, rest and nestle not far from her, she can feel them communicating with her on the emotional and spiritual level.

An employee of a State-owned electricity company, Yan spends almost all her weekends painting. Her home is like a studio, full of her works, both finished and unfinished.

She calls the crested ibis a "bird of paradise" because that's how people in Russia call it. The daughter of a Russian father and Chinese mother, Yan learned oil painting from her father's uncle, a student of socialist realist painter Konstantin Maksimov, in St Petersburg from the age of 5 to 14. Her Russian name is Natasha Seryozha.