Saturday 14th March
I booked on a Birdfinders trip to Bhutan, a small kingdom
nestled in the Himalayas between NE India and Tibet. Due to the recent
activities in the Middle East, our plans to fly via Qatar had been scuppered.
Fortunately Birdfinders were on the case and their travel agents booked us a
new route, although it did mean flying out a day earlier. We all met at
Heathrow T4 for the overnight Malaysian Airlines flight to Kuala Lumpur departing at 21.25,
but one of our party had to be rebooked on an alternative route due to visa
issues.
Sunday 15th March
We landed at KL the following evening, with just enough
daylight left to see a few birds from the terminal before boarding the 21.35 flight
to Kolkata. It landed in India at 23.10 and we were soon through immigration
and picked up our bags, apart from one which had failed to arrive. We jumped in
a taxi for the short journey to our airport hotel for a much needed, albeit
short, sleep.
Monday 16th March
We had to be up early and I had asked reception to provide
packed breakfast for us as we had to leave before breakfast started, however like all the packed breakfasts I've had in India it was barely edible. We got a
couple of taxis back to the airport and checked in for our flight to Paro in
Bhutan.
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| Leaving Kolkata |
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| Approach to Paro through the mountains |
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| Mountainside buildings |
The final approach was rather hair-raising once we dipped
below the clouds as we flew low through a valley with what seemed barely a
wing’s length space to the mountainside. Arrived in Bhutan on time at 10am and
stepped into bright sunshine and it felt much warmer than the actual
temperature of 8 degrees. The airport was beautifully ornate, even the luggage
carousels and we whisked through immigration and waited for our luggage, taking
the opportunity to buy some local currency.
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| Even the luggage carousels were ornate and housed a model Dzong |
We met our guide outside and waiting for us was our missing
colleague who had to bypass India and take a flight via Bangkok. We were soon
on our way and barely drove a mile outside the airport before stopping by the
Paro River.
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| Ibisbill winter along this stretch of river |
Feral Pigeon made into our Bhutan list as our first bird seen but a
few minutes later the quality ramped up as our target bird was found –
Ibisbill. This was a key bird for many of the group and although I’d seen them
several times before it’s always a special bird to see. Some of the birds here
are resident breeders while some breed high up in the Himalayas and winter at
lower elevations. We saw three birds here. There was also a variety of
Redstarts seen with White-capped, Plumbeous and Hodgson’s, the latter being my
only new bird today.
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| Ibisbill |
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| Plumbeous Redstart (male) |
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| Plumbeous Redstart (female) |
Joining the waterbirds were several White Wagtails of two
different races, Common Sandpiper and a Brown Dipper that shot past and then
showed distantly. A flock of about 150 Plain Mountain-Finch flew over, a Rosy
Pipit fed with the wagtails and a few Russet Sparrows perched in bushes or on
overhead wires.
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| White Wagtail |
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| White-capped Redstart |
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| Paro Dzong - more on Dzongs in the next blog |
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| Bridge to the Dzong |
We drove into town and had lunch at a nice restaurant before
carrying on and making another riverside stop.
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| The main drag in Paro with typical buildings |
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| Paro River |
Here were six Ruddy Shelducks
and a few other ducks as well as another Ibisbill. However, our main quarry was
in the rocky hill on the other side of the path. Our driver was first to spot
it – a Wallcreeper, another breeding bird of high elevations that winters down
lower. We had prolonged views of one, a female and a bit further along was
another pair.
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| Wallcreeper |
Birds appeared all around us with River Lapwings on the
shingle bed in the river, our first Oriental Turtle Dove roosting in a tree by
the path, Hodgson’s Redstarts on top of the hillside, Rufous-breasted Accentor
on the hill and the first of three Hoopoes sat on a pile of felled trees.
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| Grey-backed Shrike |
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| Hodgson's Redstart |
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| Hoopoe |
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| River Lapwing |
We drove further along by the river, pausing to get everyone
on to a Great Cormorant roosting up on the hillside when someone spotted a
Goral higher up. We all bundled out of the bus to watch it and a minute later
someone else found a Himalayan Black Bear on the same hillside! It was very
fortuitous that we had stopped for the Cormorant otherwise we would have missed
both mammals.
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| Goral |
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| Himalayan Black Bear |
Our hotel was an hour’s drive away and we had time to relax
before the log and dinner with plans made for an early start the following
morning.
