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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.
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| Black-rumped Magpie |
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| Black-rumped Magpie |
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| 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.
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| Rufous Sibia |
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| Green Commodore |
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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