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It had been a rain-filled night, but the morning weather looked promising, so my brother and I decided that we would walk to Gurje, a pass located in the norther rim of the Kathmandu valley. We started walking at 6:00 in the morning, and soon the sun was shining on us as we walked towards the hills. There were Spotted Doves, Oriental Turtle Doves, Blue-throated Barbets, Oriental Magpie Robins, and White-throated Kingfishers around us, and Red-rumped Swallows and Barn Swallows circled overhead. After an hour or so we reached our starting point, the border line of Tarkeshwor Municipality and the edge of the village of Jagat. There was a nice view of the city, and the sun shone brightly onto the green terraced fields. We could see the peaks of Phulchowki and Champadevi on the other side on the other side of the valley. As we started up the road towards Gurje, there were sounds coming from the jungle: Red-billed Blue-Magpies, Great Barbets, a Blue-throated Flycatcher, and Orange-bellied Leafbirds. There was still sunlight on us, but we could see a large cloud on the higher part of the hill. Suddenly, a small party of Black Bulbuls flew by, and one of them landed on a tree that was close to us and almost eye-level. It was rather tame and allowed me to get several photos before it flew on. Though the bird had been close to us, but the bokeh in my photos was quite bad, so my shots didn’t turn out as well as they might have. I could hear Pygmy Cupwings, Mountain Bulbuls, and Golden-throated Barbets as we came towards the pass. The sun had disappeared several minutes before, and now we suddenly found ourselves in the clouds. The air turned cooler and damper. Humidity was 99%, my phone said. A slight breeze rustled the treetops and blew large swaths of moisture in front of us, and I could hold up my hand in front of me and see moisture moving in the space between my face and my hand. There were the calls of White-throated Laughingthrushes, but other than that the forest had become silent. Since our chances for bird photos had now become practically non-existent, we started looking for other photo opportunities. We were walking through a particularly dark stretch of jungle when I turned around and saw that the clouds had parted a little and light was filtering in through an open area. It was the perfect place for a photo, so I had my brother go walk up the road, his silhouette against the lighted clearing. The photo turned out kind of moody, but it was still nice. We paused to listen to the voices of some Streak-breasted Scimitar-Babblers. There were two male birds singing their three-noted whistle song, and a presumably female bird calling in between. I stopped and took a recording with my camera, and they kept on, not bothered by our presence. In the distance I could hear the mellow whistles of two Wedge-tailed Green-Pigeons. As we continued on, the clouds started to clear, blowing rapidly up the ridges. One moment we would be walking, and then the next moment they would be swirling around us. We were at around 6,500 feet in elevation. The valley below us was filled with clouds, and they just kept blowing upwards. We finally got out of the thick of them and into a more open area. There were some Gray Bushchats, a Siberian Stonechat, and some Streaked Laughingthrushes to welcome us. The small village of Nayangaun spread out in front of us, and a few of the houses were nestled on the edges of the jungle. I started taking photos of the topmost house as another cloud rolled over the ridge. I quickly experimented with several angles, but my favorite was when I moved the village house to the very bottom of the photo. It emphasized the smalless of the house that was nestled on the edge of the hillside, and the large cloud that was bearing down on it. We watched the cloud for a few moments, and then turned around before we got swallowed up as well. eBird: https://ebird.org/checklist/S72032219 #hiking #gurje #nuwakot #clouds

Ranibari is a small community forest located near Lazimpat in the heart of Kathmandu. With the exception of a few other palace forests, Ranibari is the only remaining jungle to be found within the traditional city limits of Ring Road. A popular place for people to get away from city life, the forest is known for its huge numbers of mosquitoes nine months out of the year and numbers of leeches during monsoon. There are Rhesus Macaques and Golden Jackals to be found, too. Most of Ranibari is filled with what would be classified as dense broadleaved forest, which is supplemented by some stands of bamboo and a few pines in one corner. During the summer, one can find Blue-throated Flycatchers and Orange-headed Thrushes, and during the winter there are Scaly Thrushes, Red-billed Blue Magpies, and numerous other species that nest in the hills. The location has attracted a few rarities, too, most notably a Brown-breasted Flycatcher, a very rare bird in Nepal, that has visited Ranibari during the fall for several years in a row. But what Ranibari is most renowned for is that it regularly attracts certain types of birds – birds that prefer lowland groves to the forested hillsides found elsewhere around the Kathmandu valley. Some of these are Plain Flowerpecker, Coppersmith Barbet, Brown Boobook, and Collared Scops Owl. These species and a few others like them are generally uncommon in the Kathmandu valley, and are mostly restricted to groves and forests on the valley floor. They are more common at lower elevations in Nepal. I had been planning to visit Ranibari in March, but that was before coronavirus. I remember that I had put my visit off for a week (I’ll go next Wednesday and there’ll be more migrants then) but that Friday the nation-wide lockdown was announced, and Ranibari and most everything else was closed during March, April, May, June, and into some of July. When Ranibari opened a few weeks ago, there were the rains which stopped me from going. The first weeks of July saw lots of rain dumped on the valley, and once it rained almost nonstop for three days and three nights. Even though now monsoon is by no means over, several of the large storms have passed, the weather seems to have shifted back to its normal, more predictable schedule of cloudy or partly cloudy mornings and rain in the afternoon. After a twenty-minute bike ride, I reached the entrance of Ranibari. I was relieved to see people walking around the paths inside, because I hadn’t been sure whether it would be open yet. But it was open, and I paid the entrance fee, locked my bike to a railing, and walked inside. I could hear koels and barbets and Ashy Drongos, and there were the ever-present crows and kites. I also got four mosquito bites while I was rubbing on mosquito cream. The cream lasted for eight hours, the back of the tube said, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t true. I had to use it once more during the hour and a half span that I was there. Four different species of owls have been recorded from Ranibari: Barn Owls, Spotted Owlets, Collared Scops-Owls, and Brown Boobooks (known locally as Brown Hawk-Owls). I suspect that Asian Barred Owlets have maybe visited the area in spring, but I don’t know anyone who has seen one there. The Barn Owls are rare, and the boobooks and the scops-owls are both secretive and nocturnal, but the owlets can be seen or heard during the day and are easy enough to find. I checked the tree where I had seen the scops-owls before, but they were nowhere to be found. I didn’t have the want-to or the energy to search extensively for them, so I decided to try for the boobooks, which would be a lifer for me. All I knew was the corner of the jungle the boobooks were in, and that they roosted in bamboo (from the photos of them) but that only narrowed down things a little bit. I could spend hours searching through all the bamboo groves in Ranibari and never find them. In fact, I had already looked for them on two separate occasions. The same birder that had showed me the scops-owls last year had told me then that the boobooks had moved from the roost that they always used for somewhere more secluded, and he still had yet to find them again. And now here I was, pretty sure that I was on the right side of Ranibari for them but knowing nothing else to help me find them. I decided to call a birder that I knew was familiar with the area and see if he had any ideas. The Brown Boobooks? He had come a few days ago and had photographed them, he said. Yes, I was in the right area. After about six or seven minutes of going back and forth, he helped me narrow down to a single clearing. I texted him a picture of the trees in front of me, and he texted me back almost immediately my picture with a hand-drawn red arrow pointing in the left-hand corner. It hadn’t occurred to me as a notable fact that I had been under bamboo the whole time, but now I looked up and there was a large grove of it stretching out above me. I stared at it a moment, and then suddenly I saw two crow-sized bumps peering down at me. They were the boobooks, and I had been standing under them for almost two minutes! They were completely concealed and were invisible unless seen from directly below. I texted my friend back and let him know I had seen them. Lifer? he asked, and I responded yes. It was life bird number 1150, nothing too special, but it was a nice even number. Now I wanted to get a nice photo. It was pretty dark inside the grove, and there was a lot of cloud cover already. I lowered my shutter speed as low as I could and cranked my ISO up to match the dark conditions. I snapped a photo right away, just as a record shot in case something happened like they flew away or it started to rain or something completely unforeseen happened and I was left without a photo of them and I never saw the species again. Completely speculative, yes – it wasn’t raining, yet, and they didn’t appear to be stressed at all (one of them had already closed it eyes) and I couldn’t imagine what could happen that was unforeseen, but I didn’t even want to. The hardest thing about getting a nice photo of them was positioning myself so that I didn’t get any branches between me and the owls. Some spider webs, dew drops, and a few minutes of maneuvering later I found that I could get a fairly decent angle of them. The owls stared down at me sleepily as I snapped way too many photos of them. After the cloud cover grew darker and it started to drizzle, I finally accepted that it was way too dark and my shots were pretty noisy and that I would have to come back on a sunny day if I wanted brighter lighting. Despite that my photos were mediocre at best, I was happy enough to have finally located the pair of owls, to have gotten a lifer, and to have spent a morning out birding. Not a bad several hours if you think about it, really. eBird: https://ebird.org/checklist/S71738826 #owls #ranibari #lifers #kathmandu

Even though by all accounts spring is gone, and monsoon has arrived, I still find time to look for birds in between the rainy days and thundershowers. So early Wednesday morning I set out with my camera, binoculars, and the complementary umbrella. The morning was cloudy and cool, and the hills were covered in mist. There were orioles, pipits, doves, koels, and bulbuls as I walked across fields and towards the foot of the hills. A Eurasian Hobby, a type of falcon, flew overhead and caused a big commotion – pigeons, parakeets, and a pond-heron flew into the air. Some Red-wattled Lapwings flew around too, calling their loud, agitated calls: “Did he do it, Did-did he do it?” As one of them landed in a rice field in front of me, I snapped a photo of its outspread wings. After more walking, I reached the foot of the hill and began up the road that led into Phulbari. The road was steep, and I gained elevation quickly. The trees and brush along the road held Great Barbets, Blue-throated Flycatchers, and a Fulvous-breasted Woodpecker. The five Chestnut-headed Bee-eaters were present no longer, however – they had left three weeks ago as soon as the rains had started. But it wasn’t until I had left Phulbari behind that more interesting birds became prevalent. There were minivets, a Spotted Forktail, and three Gray Bushchats. The high trills of Gray-throated Babblers came from bamboo thickets and nearby ravines, and two White-rumped Munias landed on a branch nearby. There were several bird waves moving through the trees, the first one with Gray-hooded Warblers and Indian White-eyes, the second one with Gray-hooded Warblers and Black-throated Tits, and the third one with Gray-hooded Warblers and a single Gray-headed Canary-Flycatcher. Yes, Gray-hooded Warblers are very common here. They can be found in a variety of wooded habitats during all months of the year. Yet despite their abundance, I still haven’t gotten a good photo of one, so a Blue-throated Barbet had to suffice instead. There was a loud “swee, swee” call coming from the trees. I wanted to write it off as a minivet (there were lots of them around) but it was a bit too loud and forceful. So I focused my camera on the branches where the sound was coming from, and it wasn’t a minivet at all – it was a green bird with a black and yellow head and blue tail, a Long-tailed Broadbill! I hadn’t recognized its call because it wasn’t their typical loud, ringing, hawk-like “peeeyu-peeeyu-peeeyu.” Long-tailed Broadbills are fairly common in the broadleaved hill forest that surrounds the Kathmandu valley. They travel in groups and stay mostly in the tops of trees. These birds were no different: there were five of them, and they stayed out of view in the treetops, and I was only able to snap a few bad photos. Not nearly as good photos as an earlier encounter. The trees opened up into scrub habitat near the end of the road. I could hear Striated Laughingthrushes singing from the forest, and there was a bird wave with lots of Nepal Fulvettas, Gray-throated Babblers, and Black-chinned Babblers. Two Maroon Orioles flew into a tree in front of me and sang their fluty song before flying away and disappearing across the ridge. I heard of song of a Streaked Laughingthrush and stopped and looked around carefully until I found him. He was singing from the top of a young Himalayan Alder. When I tried to work closer, the bird flew down into a bamboo patch in front of me and I was able to get several photos. As I continued up the road, I encountered more birds: there were Striated Prinias, a Siberian Stonechat, a Green-billed Malkoha, Mountain Bulbuls, Himalayan Bulbuls, Ashy Drongos, Streak-breasted Scimitar-Babblers, and more minivets. I could hear the songs of Golden-throated Barbets and the calls of Gray-headed Woodpeckers. And I could hear something else, too. It sounded like a long moan and a low whistle, rising and falling and then ceasing and then starting again. It was the song of a Wedge-tailed Green-Pigeon. Then I spotted them: there were a pair of the green-pigeons in an alder tree across the ravine. I took a few photos of them before they flew into the forest. It was a special moment -- they were the 600th species I had photographed up to that time. I was against the boundary of Shivapuri now, so I turned and started downhill again, and managed to intercept a pair of White-throated Fantails. One perched on an open branch not far from me, and I didn’t hesitate to get his photo. Then I continued downhill, letting the cloudy forest and the songs of barbets and laughingthrushes and the haunting whistles of green-pigeons fade behind me for another day. eBird: https://ebird.org/checklist/S71007104

Gurje Bhanjyang is a forested pass on the edge of the Kathmandu-Nuwakot district boundary. Looking south from the pass, one can see most of the urban sprawl of the Kathmandu Valley. There are lots of and the distant forms of Champadevi, Chandragiri, and Phulchowki, the three main hills that border its southern edges. Looking north from the pass there are layers and layers of hills, most of them still forested. Beyond the hills rise the Himalayas, and on clear days there are excellent views of the Ganesh Himal and Mount Langtang. When we reached the pass around seven thirty in the morning, there was no view of hills or mountains or much else other than clouds. Clouds were everywhere. They spread below us in a great sea and around us in a sort of mist, giving a feeling of isolation. The air was moist, and the songs of birds came from the forest around us. There were Striated Laughingthrushes and Mountain Bulbuls and Gray-headed Canary Flycatchers, and the monotonous songs of Golden-throated Barbets carried across the ridge. Gurje Pass is a bit unique for at least one reason: it’s a good place to find high-altitude birds that favor moist, mossy forest. These types of birds can normally only be found on the top ridges of the surrounding hills, because that is where the cloud cover is. The moistness from the cloud cover enables moss and ferns grow from trees, and thus gives opportunity for unique flora and fauna to exist. Gurje Pass is by very definition a pass – it’s a low spot where vehicles and people can go over the ridge. But it’s also a spot where clouds go over, too, and that’s why the forest is so moist in that section. And that’s also why at that moment I was watching some Green-backed Tits, small colorful songbirds that favor moist broadleaved forest. The bird wave mostly comprised of Gray-hooded Warblers, Green-backed Tits, Gray-headed Canary Flycatchers, a single Red-billed Leiothrix and a brilliantly plumaged Scarlet Minivet. Around us were Green-tailed Sunbirds, Pygmy Cupwings, a Rufous-bellied Woodpecker, and a White-bellied Erpornis. And of course there were the cicadas. They would be silent for minutes at a time, and then suddenly their loud hum would fill the air. My brother and I continued through the forest, and the jungle around us became less moist and a bit more open. There were more Mountain Bulbuls and Golden-throated Barbets, and there was a Himalayan Cuckoo too, and three Long-tailed Broadbills. There was a Black-winged Cuckooshrike too, and that was a bit unusual, because they normally shy away from dense forest. But there was no mistaking the familiar song, a set of three descending whistles. Birds were everywhere. From the trees and mist came the song of a Mountain Scops-Owl, and two Maroon Orioles perched on a nearby tree. Suddenly I heard the song of a flowerpecker, a sharp jumble of notes that seemed surprisingly close. It was a male Fire-breasted Flowerpecker, and he was singing loudly from the top of a bush. He was tame and inquisitive and let me snap a few photos. After twenty minutes of walking through the forest, the trees opened up to scrub and low bushes and fields. I heard a Black Francolin calling, and there were stonechats and Red-vented and Himalayan Bulbuls and some Large-billed Crows. A pair of Black Eagles soared overhead, and a male Gray Bushchat posed against a fresh green background for me, his arching white eyebrow contrasting against his gray and black head feathers. The view wasn’t stunning or breathtaking, but it was certainly very interesting. There was a swirling, billowy whiteness that stretched as far as the eye could see, and the peaks of blue-tinted hills poked through the waves of clouds. A strong breeze rustled the bushes and blew the mist towards us. The air was cool and the sky was gray and time seemed suspended. eBird: https://ebird.org/checklist/S70589766 #hiking #nuwakot #gurje

Naturally the closest one can get to Shivapuri without entering is to go to the very edge of Shivapuri. And since that’s where the birds are this time of year, I decided to set aside my morning and bird the Phulbari Buffer Zone, a stretch of trees and scrub that runs directly under the treeline of Shivapuri-Nagarjun National Park. I started my birding at five thirty in the morning. While that may seem pretty early, the sun was already hitting the tops of the hills and many birds were singing. But even though the sun was out, the cloudy skies to the northwest didn’t look unlike rain, so I packed an umbrella. I had been hoping for nice lighting (or at least bright lighting) for photographs, but upon closer examination I saw that the hill I was planning to visit was in the clouds. Oh well. Clouds had a way of dispersing as the sun comes up, and maybe they would do that now. I didn’t stop for birds much on the way there, but there was a pair of fledgling Long-tailed Shrikes, and I got a few photos. They sat quietly and stoically as my camera rattled up shots. The waterhen nearby, however, was less entertaining of my presence. My first stop in the Phulbari area was for a pair of Great Barbets. There was a pair at the top of a nearby tree, the male singing long “piayoo” notes, and the female piping in between the lines with short ones. The Great Barbet’s duet song is one of my favorite sounds, forever engrained in my mind with the images of steamy hill forest and of clouds rising from the trees. Here is a male Great Barbet singing from a birding trip a few weeks ago: I watched them for a few minutes and then suggested they come down to eye level. So I could get some photos of their stunning plumages, I told them. But they would have none of the flattery, though the male did take a dive at my head. I decided it was time to move on. By now I was in a woody area and there were many other birds singing: Asian Koels, Blue-throated Barbets, Long-tailed Minivets, Rusty-cheeked Scimitar-Babblers, Gray-throated Babblers, Blue-throated Flycatchers, Oriental Magpie-Robins, and Verditer Flycatchers. I heard another familiar song and followed the sound. It was a male Blue-capped Rock-Thrush, singing from the corner of a house. I looked on enviously – not everyone gets to have such a colorful bird choose their home for its singing perch. I walked on and from a tree I heard a sharp repetitive “cheep-cheep-cheep,” the call of a Velvet-fronted Nuthatch. There were four of them, so probably a family group that was out foraging. Of course, the one that I photographed just had to be the drab-colored female bird. The nuthatches were bouncy and energetic and soon moved further up the tree and then flew off. But by then I was watching a tiny, colorful Himalayan Black-lored Tit. The bird was tame and gave me several chances for nice photographs before moving up the branch toward me. Now from my experience this species is rather tame, but this was a bit unusual. But when I saw the bird duck into a tiny hole in the branch, it all fit together. I had unwittingly stumbled across its nest. I snapped a few more photos and moved off so as not to disturb it more than I already had. Now it seemed the birds were coming thick and fast: I had gone from Velvet-fronted Nuthatches to Himalayan Black-lored Tits, and now I was going from the Himalayan Black-lored Tits to a White-throated Fantail. The fantail hopped around on some branches, doing its thing. I’ve heard that the fantails fan their tails to bring out insects that are in the canopy, and if that’s true, this guy was working full time. His large tail flopped up and down and in and out as he hopped through the trees. If I were an insect, I would definitely be getting out of there. As I continued to climb up the hill, I encountered more birds. There were more minivets, more barbets, and many more Red-vented Bulbuls. There were also some more interesting species: Black-chinned Babbler, Streak-breasted Scimitar-Babbler, Gray-headed Woodpecker, Fire-breasted Flowerpecker, Streaked Laughingthrush, and Slaty-backed Forktail. There was also a pair of Large Woodshrikes, a good find for the area. Suddenly I spotted a bird that I had been looking for ever since spring had begun: a male Orange-headed Thrush. He was in plain sight for a moment, but when I lifted my camera he flew down into a dark ravine. That was rather disappointing. There was no way I was going to find him down there, I thought. Then I saw more movement out of the corner of my eye, and immediately pointed my camera so I wouldn’t lose this shot, too. But it was just another Blue-whistling Thrush. Or so I thought. Behind the whistling thrush was a smaller bird, a black and white speckled bird, with a bright yellow bill. It was a male Pied Thrush! After letting me snap two photos he flew off too, but I followed his form through the trees and saw him land by a small brownish bird, his mate. And she was holding food in her bill, which meant there must be a nest nearby. This was exciting. As I continued uphill, the area around me changed from forested to more open with scrub and low bushes. The trees here had all been cut, but the change in habitat meant there were a few different species to be found. These were Black Francolin, Striated Prinia, and Gray Bushchat, all birds who favored scrubby hillsides to wooded ones. I was almost at the end of the trail now. I heard Striated Laughingthrushes, a leafbird, and a Black-throated Sunbird, a sure sign that I was close to the park boundary. There were a few Red-billed Blue Magpies, a Himalayan Cuckoo, and more Cinerous Tits. Other than that, it wasn’t too noisy with birds. Until. Suddenly the silence of the forest was shattered by loud, raucous, laughter, and loud squawks and chuckles. I knew the sounds well; they were White-crested Laughingthrushes, and they weren’t called laughingthrushes for nothing. The large, almost crow-sized birds moved through the forest in groups, calling loudly at whim. Despite their white crests, they can go largely undetected. But hear them? One can hear them from a mile away. I’ve been trying to get a nice photo of this species for ages, but creeping up on them is always impossible, because there is always a sentry in the group, and he will readily sound the alarm. Then they all move into deeper brush, laughing loudly. At such times it’s easy to think that their laughter has a decidedly leering quality. I started walking back to my house at eight o’clock. The clouds had lifted from the hills and they were superb views of the Kathmandu valley. Yes, I thought as walked downhill, this is definitely a place I’ll be visiting again. eBird: https://ebird.org/checklist/S70229563

Of the four types of bee-eaters recorded from the Kathmandu valley, Chestnut-headed Bee-eater is the most commonly seen species of them all. They can be found in rural areas on the outskirts of villages, and though many bird guides write that the bird’s preferred habitat is forest near water, there are not very many water bodies in the Kathmandu valley at all, so from my experiences, they can be found where there are groves of trees bordering open areas and fields, especially on hillsides. Maybe it is that combination of groves and fields that makes them so common in the northern portion of the Kathmandu valley near Sangla and Jhor. They are almost everywhere, it seems, at least by bee-eater standards. You can’t go far without running into some. The most I’ve seen during one birding trip in the Sangla area was fifteen, and that was an estimate. They are hard not to admire, too: they dip through the sky like swallows, and for the most part are confiding and tame. They hunt from exposed perches and have a habit when sallying out for insects to come back to the same perch over and over. Chestnut-headed Bee-eaters are very social, family-oriented birds, and often you just don’t find one bird hunting alone, but five or six at a time. Bee-eaters as a family are very social – sometimes they’ll even pile on ten to a branch or fill a tree with their brightly colored bodies. The exception, perhaps, are the rather stoic Blue-bearded Bee-eaters. In Nepal at least, they confine themselves to dense hill forest and forest clearings and aren’t as nearly gregarious and sociable as their Merops cousins. By the time I had reached a little crest in the hill I was climbing, I had noticed there were at least four of the bee-eaters around me. They were perched, or sailing around, or calling their “pheer-pheer-pheer” and fluty “cheek” calls. With such good opportunities for photographs, I didn’t feel like I could justify going any further. So I stopped there and got out my camera. The afternoon sunlight was warm on the landscape, and the golden light contrasted with dark rain clouds on the other side of the valley. It was definitely raining in Lalitpur, I thought. Hopefully the clouds didn’t float over here and bring more rain down. As sunny as it was right now, this time of year one could never know. My gaze wandered from the southeast to the southwest. There stood Nagarjun, a huge bulk of a hill, its many ridges and ravines outlined in the afternoon light. The shortest of the five main hills around the valley, Nagarjun peak reaches just over 8,000 feet above sea level. If it wasn’t for the lockdown, I thought, I’d much rather be exploring its dense hill forests for Barred Cuckoo-Doves, Red-tailed Minlas, Mountain Hawk-Eagles, shortwings, and shrike-babblers. But a bee-eater’s call brought me back to reality. There were two adult birds behind me, and a younger bird in front of me. They called and perched and sailed on the afternoon winds. When they were above me, I could see their orange wings against the sun. And when they were below me their sky-blue rumps contrasted with their chestnut heads and green overwings. I spent the rest of the time on the hill photographing bee-eaters. eBird: https://ebird.org/checklist/S69787817 #beeeater #sangla #may #photography

The sky was cloudy and the air moist when I began my morning birding. A soft rain had just fallen, and there was a dampness in the air. Koels and cuckoos and doves alike were singing, and the “pheer-pheer-pheer” of one of the local bee-eaters carried across the fields. As I walked through fields, I accidently flushed several pond-herons and a waterhen. The waterhens are slim and nondescript, and the pond-herons are almost perfectly camouflaged against the grass until they take flight and show their all-white wings. In the distance I heard a pair of coucals singing their resonant duet, and several Blue-throated Barbets singing their monotonous song. I was heading to a place that I hadn’t been to since winter – a secluded grove of trees about a twelve minutes’ walk away. The area was a steep ravine that was filled with bamboo and Himalayan Alders. A small creek trickled through the center of it, thick undergrowth grew on the sides, and Lantana skirted the edges. Though it’s an invasive species in Nepal, Lantana provides food for many birds, including bulbuls, warblers, white-eyes, tits, and babblers, and the thick cover that they offer attracts rubythroats, flycatchers, warblers, and other passerines. During a trip in late December to the ravine I had found a Pygmy Cupwing, and though I entertained little hope of finding one now, I did expect that there would be a Blue-throated Flycatcher or two, and maybe even a thrush. I was right – there was a pair of Blue-throated Flycatchers, but there were no thrushes, or anything else that was outside the realm normality. Tailorbirds, koels, drongos, white-eyes, and barbets were all present, and there were four Chestnut-headed Bee-eaters that flitted around after insects. Chestnut-headed Bee-eaters are slim, medium-sized birds, and they like to hunt from open, exposed perches. During the morning they can be found perched lower to the ground, but in the afternoon hours they prefer the tops of trees. Morning then, is the obviously better time to photograph them, when one can get not just better angles, but better backgrounds, too: a bird with a green or brown background often looks better than against a light-colored sky. Apparently someone else had apparently decided to visit this grove, too: I heard the loud, nasal cries of a Shikra and soon spotted it flying quickly through the trees. Four Ashy Drongos immediately took up the chase, following it closely and lending nasty-sounding remarks. I admired the audacity of the drongos; for if the thought ever entered the Shikra’s head, it could have probably turned around and made one of them dinner. But no, the drongos are ever ready to chase any threat from their territories. Despite whatever our feelings of the Shikras and other such hawks are, it’s impossible not to admire their fortitude. They have to hunt for their own meals using stealth and speed, when all of the avian world hates and fears them. And they have to be able to pounce quickly on an unsuspecting bird, despite an advanced alarm call system that can travel in front of them up to eighty miles per hour. Since a male Shikra has been staying around my area for several weeks now, I’ve had the chance to observe him and his various hunting techniques. He often chooses to do to one of two things: either wait quietly in cover till he gets a chance at a bird, or soar high in the sky and then dive down using a surprise attack element. Since most birds aren’t comfortable and won’t resume their lives until they know he’s left their area, the first option seems harder. But I had a chance to observe the latter option during some afternoon birding about a week ago. There had been a Shikra high in the sky, soaring in circles above me. It would have been hard to find him, except for the fact that a group of Barn and Red-rumped Swallows was circling around him, giving their sharp, two-syllable alarm calls. I didn’t think much of it, but then, a few minutes later a watchful myna gave three successive “weet” alarm calls, loud and pronounced. A group of birds that had been feeding in some bushes all ducked into cover at once, because all songbirds, no matter what kind, know the language of danger. Suddenly, the air was alive with intensifying alarm calls, the loud hoarse ones of bulbuls, and the sharp high ones of swallows. A blur of blue-gray shot into the bush where all the birds had been, and it took me a moment to realize that it was the male Shikra that I had just seen in the sky minutes ago. He had only narrowly missed catching a bulbul. I moved on from the ravine through some fields and added Red-wattled Lapwing and Paddyfield Pipit to my list. Some kites circled over, and more swallows flew overhead. A Rufous Woodpecker called from the grove behind me (after I had left, of course) and a Gray-headed Woodpecker’s call notes drifted in from the distance. After fifteen minutes or so of walking, I reached my second stopping point, the same place where I had searched in vain for Indian Paradise-Flycatchers. There was the pair of Plumbeous Redstarts on the river where they always were, and I could hear the male’s loud seeeeee calls long before I saw them. There were two other female redstarts, too, or at least I thought they were females at first. Upon closer examination, they looked like they were fledglings instead, and the closer one had a little rufous on his tail, which suggested he was a young male bird. Instead of crossing the river and climbing the ravine to my left as I usually did, I continued up the side of the river to see if I could find any forktails. Four days before I had found and photographed Spotted and Black-backed Forktails, both within a few hundred meters of each other. It was a nice find, because Spotted Forktails are fairly common and shy, and Black-backed Forktails are very uncommon and a record in May was very unusual. I heard more Verditer and Blue-throated Flycatchers, but found no forktails, so I circled up to above the river and waited and listened. A few colorful minivets flew overhead calling their “sweet-so-sweet” calls, but since they made no indication of landing, I did my best to ignore them. Suddenly, the loud hollow oop-oop-oop call of a Greater Coucal irrupted near me. I looked up to see the bird fly onto an exposed branch in front of me, and I took several photographs of it and then slowly moved forward. But just as I was snapping my fifth photo of the coucal, something caught my eye to my left: a large, gray-green bird with a long, white-tipped tail flew into some trees in front of me. It was a Green-billed Malkoha, and there was a pair of them. Green-billed Malkohas are uncommon in the Kathmandu valley, and they are most likely often overlooked, too. Because of their secretive habits, their uncommon abundance, and their long, gray tails, they are a nice bird to find here. During the winter I had seen them three or four times, but during the breeding season they become more secretive than ever, and retreat to thickly wooded areas. They almost always stay in cover but they don’t mind flying across large open spaces, so more often or not they are flying when I see them first. These particular malkohas felt inclined to stay within the habits set by their kind, so I was only able to get three or four shabby photos of them before they flew into more cover. But since I hadn’t come out looking to photograph malkohas, and hadn’t even expected to find any, I was happy enough to leave it at that. eBird: https://ebird.org/checklist/S69399092 #lockdown #sangla #malkoha #jhor

No matter what season it is in Sangla, there are always two families of birds to be found: flycatchers and thrushes. In the months September through April there are Taiga and Rufous-gorgeted Flycatchers and Black-throated and Scaly Thrushes. And in April through September there are Blue-throated and Indian Paradise-Flycatchers and Orange-headed and Pied Thrushes. Now that it is early May, I have my sights set on one of these species in particular: the Indian Paradise-Flycatcher, a summer visitor. The females of this species are rufous and white and black, and the adult males are all white with black heads and long, streaming tails. They are probably the most wanted bird in this area, as far as the more common birds go. They breed in groves and forest edge, and often near ravines and streams or some type of water. I set out to try what I thought would be a likely place for the species. There were groves of trees and bamboo, a ravine, and the Bhishnumati River running by. It was a twenty-minute walk away, and en route I was able to spot plenty of birds. There were Cattle Egrets, Indian Pond Herons, a Little Egret, and a pair of White-breasted Waterhens foraging in the wet fields. Rufous Treepies, koels, doves, orioles, cuckoos, barbets, magpie-robins, kingfishers, a bushchat and Verditer Flycatchers all joined in the dawn chorus, and Rose-ringed and Alexandrine parakeets flew overhead calling. Migration was mostly over, but I spotted a Himalayan Buzzard and Greenish Warbler, both stopping over on their way to higher latitudes and higher elevations. There were no other buzzards or wintering eagles, and the Hume’s Warblers, so abundant in winter, were nowhere to be seen. But there were plenty of Gray-hooded Warblers, and I could hear their songs and calls as they sung and foraged. It didn’t take me too long to reach the spot where I might find the flycatchers. There were minivets calling from the trees, and Blue-throated Flycatchers singing from the lower story. A pair of Plumbeous Redstarts called from the rocks in the river, but I didn’t take time to get any good photos: I already had good photos of this species, and I was concentrating on finding the paradise-flycatchers. I made my way uphill to a bit of an open area that overlooked a smaller portion of the river. There were fields behind me, and a steep, tree-covered hillside below me. There was bamboo to my left and a river below. It seemed like the perfect habitat for the paradise-flycatchers. So I waited, my eyes peeled for a fleck of white and a long streamer. And I waited. And I waited. There were no paradise-flycatchers. Then, I saw a movement above me. A bird with the colors of orange, black and white flew onto an obscured branch. Maybe it was a female paradise flycatcher, I thought. Certainly not a male like I wanted, but then maybe that meant a male was nearby. I need better views to confirm the sighting, so I waited until the bird moved into the open. It was kind enough to humor me, and soon I could see it well. It had a white belly. It had black on its head. It had an orangish-brown back. It was a Long-tailed Shrike. I didn’t even bother with a photo. I mournfully directed my attention to the other birds around me. There were more warblers and minivets, and another Blue-throated Flycatcher. I didn’t bother with the Blue-throated Flycatcher, because there was a cooperative male in the bamboo next to my house, and he was familiar with me and I with him. I knew his favorite perches, and he was comfortable with me as long as I was careful not to get too close. So I let this male alone, and turned to my left when I saw a Blue-throated Barbet land in front of me. I snapped several shots and then moved closer and whispered, “Don’t,” as he bent over to fly. As if that was going to help anything, I thought in retrospect. I had to crop instead. I secretly hoped the ravine nearby held an Orange-headed Thrush, but there were none. At least, coming out here, I was able to add several new species to my May month list: Scarlet Minivet, Common Iora, Himalayan Bulbul, Small Niltava, Plain Flowerpecker, and Velvet-fronted Nuthatch, all which are species that prefer more wooded areas during the breeding season. Back at my house, I waited for the male Blue-throated Flycatcher. I prefer to get the brightly colored birds on shaded perches; the shade makes the oriole’s yellow, the barbet’s green, and the flycatcher’s blue all to glow. I didn’t have long to wait – in two or so minutes the male flycatcher flew to one of his favorite perches and began to sing. The pros of this situation, I thought as I lifted my camera, is that the bird is in the sun, so I don’t have to raise my ISO very high. The cons, I thought, is that he wasn’t in a shaded area, so his blue back won’t pop with color. And another con: he flew away while I was thinking. At least the morning wasn’t an utter failure. I was able to get exercise, see beautiful birds, and record 73 species in one morning. And to top it all off, right after the Blue-throated flycatcher flew away, a tiny White-rumped Munia landed behind me in the bamboo and was kind enough to pause for some photos. eBird: https://ebird.org/checklist/S68778097 #sangla #spring #paradiseflycatcher

I woke up to a gray, nondescript dawn. The sky was overcast and hazy, the hills were shrouded in mist, and the easterly portion of the horizon emitted a faint glow. Despite the gloomy lighting for photos, I still decided to go outside and look for birds. Plus, it could only get better, I thought to myself. But my area has never disappointed me, and today was no exception. The cloudy skies had not discouraged birds from singing their morning chorus. Asian Koels, Common Tailorbirds, Common Cuckoos, Oriental Magpie-Robins, White-throated Kingfishers, Spotted Doves, Great Barbets, Blue-throated Barbets, and Oriental Turtle Doves all sang loudly. I heard the fluty “pheer-pheer-pheer” from one of the local bee-eaters, and the curt “churt” of a Chestnut-tailed Starling. The mournful “lee-lee-lee-lee-leee” call of a Gray-headed Woodpecker did not escape me either. Like the Red-billed Blue-Magpies I had seen the week before, Gray-headed Woodpeckers (and the Himalayan Black-lored Tit I saw half an hour later) are frequent enough to my area during the winter, but retreat to the hills and other wooded areas in summer to nest. Spring migration seemed to be in full swing. I found a Taiga Flycatcher, a Thick-billed Warbler, and five Blythe’s Reed Warblers, all on their journey north. The Blythe’s Reed Warblers were particularly noisy, and a pair chased each other around calling, “Chuck, chuck, chuck!” loudly, a different sort of chuck call than Dusky Warbler. The Thick-billed Warbler was silent and shy. “Keek-keek” shrieked a female koel as she was chased over a field by a House Crow. The crow was soon worse off than the koel, however: in his haste he had accidently flown too close to the Ashy Drongo’s favorite perch. As the crow alighted triumphantly on top of a tree, he looked up in a mixture of annoyance and dismay to see the Ashy Drongo barreling toward him. Drongos are the feistiest birds around, and I watched in satisfaction as it made several runs back and forth, harassing the crow. Every time the drongo passed the crow’s head, it would emit a an ugly-sounding hiss. No wonder even the Steppe Eagles take care not to offend the drongos. I heard a resonant “Oop-oop-oop” call coming from a grove of trees nearby. It was the pair of Greater Coucals that had come to my area several days ago. They always seemed happy enough to sing away until I got within photographing distance, and then they would sit in silence until I would hear their calls over on the other side of the fields. How they get across between the groves of trees and bamboo is beyond me. They are large, bulky birds with all black bodies, long, thick tails, and chestnut-colored wings. An alternate name for the species for the crow pheasant if that explains anything. I followed the pair around on and off for most of the morning, but with no luck. Finally, I was able to get reasonably close to them when the pair flew out of a thick clump of bamboo, and the smaller of the two, probably the female, landed on an open perch and let me get three photos before she ducked back into cover. Another species I’ve been chasing around is Indian Golden Orioles that lives in the area. The males are a stunning combination of black and yellow, and the females are a duller yellow with gray. The male was obviously the one that I wanted to get the photo of, but after a half hour of chasing the pair, I wasn’t too picky. When I looked up, the male was sitting in front of me, perched in perfect lighting, on an open branch. I raised my camera slowly, so as not to scare him, and looked through my viewfinder. He wasn’t there, and I looked up just in time to see his bright yellow form flying away across fields. I had to satisfy myself with a mediocre photo of a Blue-throated Barbet instead. The highlight of the morning was the Chestnut-headed Bee-eaters. I’m very glad that the pair seems to have made this area their breeding sight. I enjoy their “pheer-pheer” calls and like to see them sailing on the winds, almost like swallows. During the afternoon they mostly hunt from treetops, which makes it hard to get good photos, but during the morning they favor lower perches. I was happy to see one land right in front of me while I was waiting for the coucals, and the bird always returned to the same perch after flying out for insects. I was able to get several photos and some video, too. After a while I was able to work closer for a better angle, but I only got a few shots before an Ashy Drongo scared it away. The drongos consider the bee-eaters a sort of rival, as they both hunt the same food with similar techniques. I hope I’ll get a better shot of the bee-eater soon that shows its blue rump and tail, but for right now I’m happy with these. eBird: https://ebird.org/checklist/S67820333 #birding #covid19 #backyard #sangla

By mid-April, most of Nepal’s winter visitors have left, and any wintering species that are still left are most likely passage migrants, stopping for a few days on their journey north. That’s how it was when I went out birding Sunday morning – compared to the numerous Olive-backed Pipits and Black-throated Thrushes I had seen two weeks ago, there was only one thrush, two Olive-backed Pipits, and a Rosy Pipit. Both Olive-backed Pipits were flyovers, easy to identify because of their ‘tszew’ flight call. Besides the pipits and thrushes, there was a Taiga Flycatcher calling its dry rattling chrrrr call, and a Thick-billed Warbler inside of patch of bamboo calling its punctuated chuck… chuck… chuck… call. Rose-ringed and Alexandrian Parakeets flew overhead, and a pair of Rusty-cheeked Scimitar Babblers sang their duet (Hickup? Keep!) from a distant grove of trees. But you could hear one species above the songs of Indian Golden Orioles, Black-winged Cuckooshrikes, Oriental Magpie-Robins and Blue-Whistling Thrushes, and they were the Asian Koels. Koels aren’t just a sound of spring in Nepal, they are spring. They start singing at 4:00 AM through the late morning, and then they start up again in the evening and don’t stop till after dusk. Koels and cuckoos are brood parasites, meaning that they don’t build nests themselves, but instead lay their eggs in other birds’ nests. One of the koel’s main targets are House Crow nests. For this reason, House Crows are especially suspicious of koels, and don’t pass up an opportunity to chase them around. The koels will often call their loud, shrill ‘keek – keek - keek’ call when they’re being chased, which encourages all the other koels in the area to call and sing all the louder. The bottlebrush tree in my yard is in full flower, and its brush-like blooms attract Crimson Sunbirds, Red-vented Bulbuls, and Chestnut-tailed Starlings. I have been able to get good photos of a female Crimson Sunbird and a female Chestnut-headed Starling, but for some reason the males of both species are more skittish than their mates, and today there was no exception. My attention was quickly drawn, however, from the bottlebrush tree to an Ashy Drongo that landed in front of me, calmly consuming a honeybee from our neighbor’s hive. I didn’t waste any time documenting the carnage, before and after. First I heard it: a harsk keek-keek-keek-KEEK, followed by loud guffawing sounds. There was no mistaking those sounds – they were coming from a Red-billed Blue Magpie. Soon I spotted a pair of the colorful magpies flying toward me, and they landed in a tree some distance away. It was a new yard bird for April, and I was now at 97 species, and the 37th place for monthly world yard totals in eBird. Red-billed Blue Magpies are frequent enough to my house during winter, where parties ranging from 5 to 15 show up about twice a week. During spring and summer though, the birds retreat to the surrounding hills and other forested areas to breed, so a sighting in mid-April was unusual. I’m lucky that the local magpies here are so colorful. Actually, there are many colorful birds in my area: Indian Golden Orioles, Crimson Sunbirds, Great Barbets, Indian White-eyes, and Himalayan Black-lored Tits, to name a few. And when lockdown ends, I’ll be taking to the foot of the hills to find two more species: Orange-headed Thrush and Indian Paradise Flycatcher. eBird: https://ebird.org/checklist/S67440968 #backyardbirds #yardbirding #sangla #jhor

This is a historical entry of a trek that my brother, my Dad, and I took in Sagarmatha National Park during November of 2019. As the sun rose in Pangboche, Solukhumbu, Snow Pigeons took to the air and the hoarse cries of Large-billed Crows echoed across the valley. It was cold, bitterly cold, but we would feel much colder before our trek was over. As we started out of the village, several choughs wheeled in the air above us. In contrast to the day before, this day held a much shorter route for us – there were only three hours of trail before our next stop, Dingboche. When trekking in the Himalayas, though, it is important to let your body acclimate to the elevation, even if it means limiting your progress to only a few hours per day. The next day we headed from Dingboche to Chhukhung. There were rosefinches, accentors, and a single female Grandala. We saw two lifer Ibisbills calling from a shingle bed stream, apparently a late pair that had not moved to lower elevations yet. We saw two lifer Snow Partridges, too, but unfortunately they weren’t tame, and we couldn’t get close for photos before they flew away with whirring wingbeats. A few Himalayan Griffons soared overhead, and White-winged Redstarts were plentiful. And for the first time, choughs outnumbered the Large-billed Crows. We spent two nights in Chhukhung, a little village nestled in the Himalayas at 16,800 feet in elevation. There were incredible views of Lhoste, Lhoste Shar, Nuptse, and Ama Dablam. Here, I noted with satisfaction, not one Large-billed Crow could be found. There were Yellow-billed Choughs, Red-billed Choughs, Alpine Accentors, Robin Accentors, rosefinches, mountain-finches, and a pair of Common Ravens. There was even a tiny Eurasian Wren. One of the Alpine Accentors was especially tame and would let my brother and I work very close before it would hop a few away again. There was a very tame White-winged Redstart too, and we got great photos of him as well. And the second evening, as we photographed the sunset, a Robin Accentor posed for me at dusk, his form outlined by a mountain range in the background. We left Chhukhung to trek over Kongma La, a pass situated at over 18,000 feet. We saw most of our birds at the beginning and end of the day; the landscape between was so barren, and there was only a few Alpine Accentors and Yellow-billed Choughs, and a Bearded Vulture. Climbing the pass was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but there was not much of a rewarding feeling when I got to the top – looking over the edge we could see that we were in for a steep, icy decent. If there is one thing that is worse than climbing up slippery, precipitous scree slope, it is climbing down a slippery, precipitous scree slope. Lobuche was even colder than Chhukhung had been. But there were birds present all the same – a Bearded Vulture, Himalayan Griffon, accentors, rosefinches, mountain-finches, larks, and choughs. We had said goodbye to Snow Pigeons long ago, but now there were Hill Pigeons, birds that looked suspiciously like Rock Pigeons except for a white band on their tails. We reached Gorakshep at noon, a village that was in a sandy expanse that turned out to be a lakebed. At 17,000 feet, Gorakshep would no doubt hold the record for the world’s highest settlement except for the fact that it isn’t inhabited all year round. We couldn’t see Lhotse anymore, but now we could see Pumori and Everest. Yes, Everest. The mass of rock rose majestically over Nupste, not sensational but regal and modest, fitting for the highest point on earth. And the cold. Simply put, it was cold. The sugar in the sugar bowl froze. The water in the toilet bowl froze. It was excruciating to get out of one’s sleeping bag. And my camera battery which I had worked so hard to keep alive was sapped down to almost nothing in a single night. But the intense cold and the clear air together made for the most impressive views of the milky way that I’ve ever seen. There was a green rug outside our lodge at Gorakshep where the lodge owners sprinkled birdseed. Hill Pigeons, Black-headed Mountain Finches, Great Rosefinches, and Robin Accentors all let us get quite close for photographs. And the choughs, that is what I will remember best about Gorakshep. The choughs were always sailing by, riding the winds. eBird: https://ebird.org/checklist/S61694206 https://ebird.org/checklist/S61694562 https://ebird.org/checklist/S61694599 https://ebird.org/checklist/S61694671 https://ebird.org/checklist/S61694823 #sagarmathanp #everestregion #mountains #namche

This is a historical entry of a trek that my brother, my Dad, and I took in Sagarmatha National Park during November of 2019. Our trek started at 7:00 AM after we landed at our starting point in Lukla, just south of the border of Sagarmatha National Park. For the first two hours of walking or so, the habitat was mostly broadleaved forest and rhododendron. At only 8,000 feet in elevation, bird life was abundant. Rufous-vented Tits, Streaked Laughingthrushes, White-browed Fulvettas, Yellow-browed Tits, Green-backed Tits, Blue-whistling Thrushes, Large-billed Crows and Chestnut-tailed Minlas were all present, and at one point we heard a Mountain Scops-owl calling from the jungle. There were two treats as well: a Red-tailed Minla and a Fire-tailed Myzornis, two birds that occur in the region but are uncommon. As we passed a more open area with some fields, we saw an Oriental Turtle Dove, Eurasian Tree Sparrows, and a pair of Scarlet Minivets. The trail followed a river that yielded two more interesting birds: Little Forktail, and a Lifer Brown Dipper. Then we started to ascend, slowly but surely. The forest around us changed from broadleaves to conifers. We would not see broadleaved forest for the rest of our trek. The conifers, though, yielded other types of birdlife: we saw Red Crossbills, Eurasian Nutcrackers, and Yellow-billed Blue Magpies. The next day we spend in Namche Bazaar acclimating to our altitude – now 13,000 feet. As the sun roses over the mountains, Snow Pigeons took to the air. After breakfast we took an hour hike to a lookout where we could see Mount Ama Dablam, Lhotse, Nupste, and Everest. We managed to collect several lifers – Rufous-breasted Accentors, Red and Yellow-billed Choughs, and a Variegated Laughingthrush and a Gray-crested Tit, besides getting close views of a Himalayan Griffon. Namche itself was full of Large-billed Crows, but there were a few Eurasian Tree Sparrows and three lifer Plain Mountain-Finches. The forest around Namche held a Red-headed Bullfinch, grosbeaks, and one Tibetan Serin. We didn’t find what we were looking for though – Himalayan Monals, the colorful pheasants that are Nepal’s national bird. The next day we spend trekking to Pangboche, via Tengboche. The habitat slowly gave way from conifers to rhododendron and then junipers. We saw more lifers: a White-throated Tit, Black-browed Tits, Goldcrests, and a Bearded Vulture. Black-faced and Variegated Laughingthrushes were also present, and more grosbeaks. I was able to get a photo of a Black-crested Coal Tit (formally Spot-winged Tit). We also saw a lifer Blood Pheasant, but it happened to be a female, and skittish at that. I didn’t get any photos. One our return we stopped at Tengboche overnight, a beautiful little village surrounded by rhododendron forest and boasting views of Everest, Lhotse, and Ama Dablam. The following morning, I was able to spend an hour birding in the vicinity, and despite the cold, birds were numerous. I was lucky enough to run into a bird wave of minlas, fulvettas, treecreepers, tits, and laughingthrushes, all fairly tame. The challenge wasn’t getting close but keeping close, and besides having to keep up with the rapidly moving party, I had to fight myself not to run inside and warm up! At 14,000 feet, it wasn’t exactly balmy. After about 10 minutes out, I could barely move my shutter finger. I didn’t want to use gloves though; their thickness would have insured that I could have never pressed the shutter button. Later that day we were able to find and photograph a long-hoped-for lifer – the Himalayan Monal. In keeping with our former pheasant luck, all four of the birds were drab-colored females. Despite this, they were tame enough and let us photograph them in the wooded hillside where they were foraging. It was a good end to a great day. Pangboche was the edge of the treeline. There were stunted junipers, open stony ground, and only a few species: Gray-crested Tits, Large-billed Crows, and a few accentors and rosefinches. We woke up next morning and bade farewell to the lower-altitude birds: we were entering the realm of the snow mountains, and one would be lucky to see more than ten species on a given day. eBird: https://ebird.org/checklist/S61691446, https://ebird.org/checklist/S61692626