Daily Yaffle: Bhutan Part 5

Monday 23^rd

We left the hotel at 5.45 with bags packed and headed up the road, making a few stops along the way. Barred Cuckoo-dove was the first new bird of the day and was later followed by Bar-throated Siva and an Asian Barred Owlet that flew over the road and perched up nicely for us.

Cloud in the valleys

Chestnut-tailed Minla

Scarlet Finch

Asian Barred Owlet

We had to get past the bridge construction before work began at 8am and closed the road for three hours. After breakfast on the other side of the works, we slowly climbed up, making a few more stops. The weather was much better than on our descent three days earlier as there was no cloud.

Photographing the breakfast site became a daily routine

Inside shrines like this there are rotating cylinders powered by water

A montane village

At the first stop we heard a Pygmy Cupwing, a small skulking bird that likes to remain in the shadows, but eventually we all managed good views of it. Further stops were made for an Eurasian Wren and a Red-throated Thrush. However, we had a bigger target to look for so we moved on to the panda spot where we had tried before unsuccessfully.

Rufous-winged Fulvetta

Snow Pigeon

Mountain Hawk-Eagle

This time we hit bullseye – a Red Panda curled up asleep on a branch. This was the mammal we all desperately wanted to see even though we knew it could be very difficult. We spent over half-an-hour with this beautiful creature, it occasionally stirred and glanced at us to see what all the fuss was about before dozing off again. Remarkably, another tour bus was in the area and they joined us as we watched the panda. Eventually, it decided to get up and climbed down the tree and disappeared.

Red Panda

The panda twitch

We had a celebratory lunch shortly afterwards at 3,650 metres with snow lying on the ground.

The afternoon was mainly a long drive as we had a fair way to go to Trongsa although we did stop for a group of Blood Pheasants.

Blood Pheasants

We dropped down over 1,000 metres before we reached our hotel in the evening.

A rural house

Tuesday 24^th

We packed up and left the hotel at 6am. It was raining and it continued throughout the morning which did hamper our birding. Fortunately it wasn’t a critical time as we’d seen most things at this elevation.

Our hotel

Hotel entrance

We drove down a little way and stopped for coffee and biscuits, then a little further and had an early breakfast. The rain had eased to a light drizzle so we did have a stroll down the road but the low cloud made for poor visibility.

A Sikkim Treecreeper showed well working its way up a close tree trunk and around this spot we saw Black-eared Shrike-Babbler, Whiskered Yuhina and Crimson-naped Woodpecker. Further down were Golden-breasted Fulvetta, Brown Bullfinch and a flock of Tibetan Serin. There were a few feeding flocks, one of which held Fire-capped and Yellow-browed Tits.

Sikkim Treecreeper

Crimson-naped Woodpecker

Grey-hooded Warbler

Yellow-browed Tit

Grey Bushchat

As we drove down further a Spotted Forktail was seen on the edge of the road by a waterfall. We stopped for lunch, making use of a shelter where a local cat managed to persuade a few people in donating part of their meal.

It had stopped raining after lunch although the cloud kept coming and going. It meant we could do a bit more walking and see a bit more. New birds included Chestnut-tailed Starling, Grey-throated Babbler, a flypast Black Stork, Himalayan Bulbul, Striated Yuhina (thereby completing the set of Bhutanese Yuhinas) and Lesser Necklaced Laughingthrush.