Blooming!

Dance off, Egret style

Monarch of all it surveys

One from the summer

Squatters! A gulp of cormorants in a heronry

Gull perched on a post

Bhutan trek: a few photos

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Jhomolhari (7326m) from base camp

First sight, at the end of the trek, of the trekkers

 

The guide, Jamyang Dorji, finishing the trek

Shona finishing the trek

Chris finishing the trek

Inspecting the damage

Celebrating with cake and drinks

Goodbye to the crew

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Dairy of Madcap Idea or preparations for my next trip
    Diary of a Madcap Idea part II
    Diary of a Madcap Idea part III
    Diary of a Madcap Idea part IV - I've got to go up HOW far!!!
    Diary of a Madcap Idea part V - I have a cunning plan 
    Diary of a Madcap Idea part VI Decay of a Madcap Idea (Diary part VII)  
The Trek
     The Sun in his Glory
      A few photos
Not trekking
     Black-necked Cranes
     Wildlife - the story behind the pictures

Bhutan trip - wildlife, the story behind the pictures

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Wildlife photography in Bhutan was a learning experience. Most photography was done standing on or immediately adjacent to the Bhutan primary national road, running across Bhutan. This was not as dangerous as it seems - the level of traffic in the East of Bhutan is low. It did mean that photography was conducted by peering into the undergrowth on the upper side of the road; or the tree tops on the lower side of the road. The vegetation was so dense that birds did not give themselves away by the movement of trees or bushes and were well concealed. It took me the first full day to get used to seeing birds in the forests. It is also the longest consecutive period I have devoted to wildlife photography.

The results from this provided the good, the bad, the rubbish (now deleted), the bizarre, and the ugly.The bad were mostly birds sky-lined and distant. Some shots were better than expected and in some cases good enough for identification. One example enabled me to identify a bird I had first seen in West China, a Black-rumped Magpie.

Black-rumped Magpie

Black-rumped Magpie

Black-rumped Magpie

There were opportunities to try out little used techniques. These included birds in flight; butterflies in flight, feeding on flowers; creating usable photos from the tree-top birds (all of which were heavily backlit) and researching and identifying many unfamiliar species. This latter task has involved a lot of (pleasurable) work, and is why it has taken so long to publish the photos.

Some species are ones also found in the UK. Birds such as the Carrion Crow, Raven, House Sparrow, Whitethroat, Eurasian Collared Dove, and Rock Dove (pigeon); the Queen of Spain fritillary butterfly; and balsam are in this category.

There are a number of species that fulfill the same role as UK birds but are different species. Tree Sparrows do not appear in Bhutan; their place being taken by Russet Sparrows. Pigeons are far fewer than in the UK. The deficit is remedied by masses of Oriental Turtle Doves. House Crows are found in addition to the Carrion Crow, and are far more common.The Pied Wagtail only appears in the UK. In Bhutan its place is taken by the White Wagtail.

Most of the subjects were unfamiliar. The wildlife seen included whole families of birds that were novel, such as the Sibia, the Rufous Sibia being the species photographed.

Rufous Sibia

Unfamiliar birds included: Bar-winged Flycatcher shrike, Black-necked Crane, Changeable Hawk-Eagle, Common Myna, Grey Treepie, Red-vented Bulbul, Rufous-necked Laughingthrush, and Taga Flycatcher. A list I am very happy with.

Green Commodore

The bizarre arises mainly from the names of butterflies: Common Satyr (who names a butterfly a Satyr!), Green Commodore, and Paris Peacock.

Birds did contribute their own share of silliness: the Changeable Hawk-Eagle (which sounds like a name from a RPG game). This bird although a very impressive bird, does have a crest which looks like those on the chicks in Chicken Run. I can forgive this silliness, given that the bird was sitting in a treetop about 10m from the road; the driver spotted it as we were leaving the wildlife reserve, braked to a halt, and I got my pictures out of the open car window.

I saw an insect that looked really unusual. Winged, colourful, big (about 60mm long) and wicked looking. Although winged, it was walking on the ground at a reasonable pace. Given the appearance of it (picture included here). I was careful not to disturb it in any way, and not get too close to it, but got some reasonable photos. When I got back and investigated what it was, I was too close and insufficiently careful. It is an Asian giant hornet.

Some of the quotes about this beast are:
"The stinger ... is about 6 mm long, and injects an especially potent venom.....sensation as feeling 'like a hot nail being driven into my leg'. ....Whilst a single wasp cannot inject a lethal dose, it can be lethal ...... if multiple stings are received......The stings can cause kidney failure."

"Fatalities .....primarily related to anaphylactic shock or cardiac arrest,.....patients died as a result of multiple organ failure.....exhibited signs of skin hemorrhaging and necrosis..". 

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Bhutan trip - preparing not to trek

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When I broke-out of the trek, and descended back to Paro, my main question was 'what now?' Karma, the owner of the travel agency, Travel with Nivvana, was much more precise. Her questions for me were: 'do you want to see a doctor so you can claim on your insurance?'; 'do you want to rearrange your flights so you can return home?'; and 'do you want me to arrange a cultural trip?'.

I responded that I wanted to see more of Bhutan, we worked out, over the next four days, to put together a trip that would suit me. It ended up taking so long as all the government agencies were closed over the weekend, and so could not issue revised permits and visa.

My parameters were that I wanted to see the cultural sights of Bhutan; its landscape and scenery; and wanted the opportunity to do some wildlife photography. In addition I preferred to go to fewer places, and spend several days at each spot, rather than rushing from place to place. Adding a cost ceiling completed my part in these preparations. So for these four days I wandered about Paro, and its immediate environs.
It was only after returning to Paro that I started to get a full idea of how pervasive and important archery is in Bhutan.

On the first day in Bhutan I had seen the local archery field, and seen some people in a friendly competition.  The Sunday I was there, it was a full moon, and it was a Buddhist festival day. The archery field was transformed - there was a serious match on, between two different Dzongkhag (equivalent to UK counties), and the match was also a celebration of the festival. Archery is to Bhutan what cricket is (was?) to the UK. There are two teams of five to eight competing; each competitor gets two shots from each end of the field; the match takes a long time (I was there most of the afternoon); the distances they fire over is long; and serious matches have a dress code - everyone is required to dress in the national dress. There is a great deal of offering and morale boosting between shots, as they go into team huddles. There is even a role for WAGs in this team building - their job is to flirt and to act provocatively with the opposition while they are in their huddle to try and put them off their beat. Archery is practiced at all levels, from infants to Olympic standards. Truck drivers tend to practice with heavy darts, while the very poor will throw rocks at a target. It is played by various sets of rules - modern compound bows, traditional bows only, and so on. There did not seem to be any use of modern sport bows, ie counterweights and sights. I saw no women involved with archery, but the dart throwing does seem to be by profession rather than gender.

The other sight of interest was a motor bike. I knew Royal Enfield were continuing to be made in India, but I had not seen a pure Indian design. The bike below corrected this omission.


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Black-necked cranes

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I had the opportunity to visit the Black-Necked Crane Information Centre while I was touring Bhutan. While there I realised that I have had the opportunity to see these birds at both ends of their migration route - from Tibet in the summer, over the Himalayas (at very great altitude), to Bhutan in the winter.

In the first pictures they are in Tibet feeding up in late summer in preparation for their migration southwards. Those in the snow are late leavers from Tibet, with winter just around the corner.

The last pictures show the only crane in Bhutan while I was there. All the other birds would have been in Tibet for the summer.

The bird in Bhutan is a rather sad story. It was injured by a feral dog, and has had to be retained in an enclosure, while it heals. The bird has been in its enclose for nearly two years. My guess was that it has healed, but is unlikely ever to be able to fly (you can see that the injury to its left wing is extensive, and seems to have set badly), and so will not be released to the wild.

These cranes are sociable animals and use the crane dance for mating, but also for all sorts of social interactions in groups of up to a dozen. While, like most wild birds, they can be frightened by humans near by, there is some evidence that they recognise men in the Bhutanese national costume, and are less scared by such individuals. This individual bird seems to have adapted somewhat to its living conditions, and will tolerate humans at fairly close quarters. It also, on occasion, does the crane dance when there are people there. I was very fortunate, that it did the dance for me.

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A Tale of Two Teasels

The Sun in his Glory

I know that life is the integration of experience over time, but occasionally I wish that the experience was a little less lumpy.

In the past I have only used sun cream on one occasion - the first time I went skiing, when everyone said "Chris we know you tan well, but you must get some sun cream to go skiing". So I went out and got a bottle of of factor two or three (I forget now, which) and applied it on the first day. This was such a faff that I didn't bother subsequently, and four days into the trip I was getting asked for directions in French as everyone thought me a local.

Equally, I have sun burnt on only one occasion - working in a market garden for six weeks, usually without a shirt, doing stoop labour, the back of my neck went somewhat pink towards the end of this period.

So it was a bit of a shock when on the first couple of days on the trek, I not only burnt, but burnt very badly on the outside of my lower arms and hands, the back of my neck, and more lightly on the top of my head, my forehead, the edges of my ears, and the tip of my nose. By my estimates, it probably took five minutes to start to burn; 10 minutes to burn badly; and that I was in the direct sun at 4000m for about 11 minutes. Also my estimate of the temperature in the direct sun was 48o C. I lost all the skin on my lower arms and hands, and a chunk from the back of my neck. It took about 10 days to repair the damage. One additional unexpected effect was that the areas of my hands that lost skin have grown back with a lot more hair there than I had previously.

So I've learnt always to cover up well in the direct sun at altitude. A much deferred lesson or hubris justly punished?

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Decay of a Madcap Idea (diary part VII)

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Jomolhari (7324m) from Jangothan Base Camp (4040m)

Instead of 24 days , I only did six days walking in Bhutan. After the first hard day trekking; 22.7 km, 1000 m ascent, 10 h 25 m of walking, and difficult terrain - switchbacks, mud, rock, and flowing water; I was totally exhausted. By the end of the day I was moving extremely slowly.

The second day confirmed I was having difficulties acclimitising.  An easier day; 6 hours walking, 16.8 km, 350 m of ascent, and similar but less muddy terrain. but I was exhausted and moving slowly by lunchtime. One possible cause was that I developed a minor chest infection, with a rubbishy cough, and a snuffle. I assume I had caught this en-route to Paro, either in Delhi, or on the flights. While I did not feel ill, and would have said that it was not affecting me, I was not performing as I have in the past, nor as I expected to.

These difficulties put in perspective that there were only three break out points on the entire route; that the first was very close to the start, and was the only one that it was possible to walk out from; that the second was seven days or more into the trek and the last about 21 days into the trek; and from these latter two the only way out was by helicopter.

It was obvious that I would have very great difficulties if I were to continue, so it wasn't even a decision. I opted to break out, and walk out from the trek back to Paro. In all I had done six days walking. I covered about 60km; climbed at least 4100m; reached an altitude of 4430m.

The whole trek would have worked out at:
24 days trekking
270  miles (432 km)
at least 10 km ascent (possibly as much as 15 km)

Having got down, I accepted that all the money spent on the trek had been spent. I arranged with the tour operator to set up a culture, sightseeing and wildlife photography trip for my remaining time in Bhutan. So an enjoyable time but not what I had gone there to do.

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