With Pelden’s help we identified over 50 of the many more different species we saw. Among those we saw two endangered species–the black-necked crane and the white-bellied heron. With my little camera I only managed to capture a handful, and those aren’t great photos. So here are a few more from the web.
Rufous vented Tit
Green-backed Tit
Rufous winged Fulvetta
Snow Pigeon
Yellow-billed Blue Magpie
Yellow-bellied Fantail
White-collared Blackbird
Spotted Nutcracker
Russet Sparrow
Driving back to Thimphu from Wangdi we stopped at two locations–the Royal Botanical Park and the Dochu La. We only stopped at the botanical park because the road was blocked with an accident.
Accident at Royal Botanical Park
We made use of the time by doing some birding.
White throated Laughingthrush
Eurasian Jay
Mountain Bulbul
Great Barbet
The Royal Botanical Park was inaugurated by Queen Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck on October 28, 2008 in commemoration of 100 years of the Wangchuck dynasty and the coronation of Druk Gyalpo Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck.
Entrance to Royal Botanical Park
The rhododendrons and primula were blooming.
Red Rhododendron
Primula
At the Dochu La, a mountain pass at 10,300 feet, 108 chorten were erected in 2005 in atonement for the lives lost when the Bhutanese army went after Indian militants in southern Bhutan.
Here are a few of the birds we saw on the trek.
The Bumthang valleys are filled with lhakhangs and gonpas. It was here that Guru Rinpoche made his first visit to Bhutan in 746. Moreover, one of the five great tertons of Nyingma Buddhism–Pema Lingpa (the one who prophesied the building of Gangte Gonpa)–was born here in 1450. There’s a three-day trek that traverses the area called the Bumthang Cultural Trek, but I was going to do another trek later on in the Black Mountains, so I just went for a day hike in the Chokhor valley.
After the driver dropped us off, we crossed to the other side of the river
on a suspension bridge
where there was a wayside shrine.
We walked a wide, dusty track
passing prayer flags and a mani wall.
I saw men erecting a new row of prayer flags
and a man plowing fields.
Farmers use bamboo to weave baskets and fence sections which are then left in the fields to dry.
With no paved roads, mules and donkeys are used for transporting goods.
Note the khonying (walk-thru) chorten over a parallel spur path. In this area, just one chorten is not enough.
After cross another suspension bridge, we entered a pine forest with an occasional view of a mountain top.
We passed through an area that seemed more like a rain forest with lots of lichen and moss. It reminded me of the Olympic Peninsula.
We forded a small stream, but compared to the trails I regularly hike, stream fording was a rarity in Bhutan. On the other hand, loose domesticated animals were not a rarity. Fences were amazingly scarce, which is why there were cows on the roads (see my previous post) and donkeys in the streams.
I assumed this was a laborer’ camp, although it was far nicer than the typical road crew’s hovels, and there were no roads around.
Nowhere else did I see such an orderly row of latrines.
We eventually reached a high point with a spectacular view of the valley.
I’m assuming this was a lhakhang, but there were a number of buildings in a cluster here.
After a gradual descent along more dirt tracks covered in inches of dust, we recrossed the river. Note Pelden’s use of an umbrella for shade since he cannot wear a hat. It’s only furled because of the bridge wires.
From here we walked at least another mile on the dusty, dirt road until we met our driver.
The only new bird for the day was a black-billed magpie.
The drive from the Phobjikha Valley to Jakar was less than 100 miles, but it took all day. We started at 8 and arrived after 4. We made a couple of brief stops and a much longer one to tour a museum and eat lunch in Trongsa. The scenery was spectacular, but, with all the curves and bumps in the road, I was glad to have had a motion sickness patch behind my ear.
How to summarize the day?
Let’s start with some animals along the road–a yak in an area where they browse on a specific type of bamboo called cham,
some cows near the driveway to a guest house,
and cattle attacking the van.
We must have spent at least a half hour watching a group of crows harass four Himalayan Griffons.
The griffons would move around or take off and then land again, but the crows just kept on swooping, pecking, and, of course, making a lot of racket.
Griffons are a type of vulture–small head, large body.
We also saw a few people, but not many.
I got to see snow for the first time since I’d left home ten days earlier with 3+ feet of snow in my yard, and here I was at over 10,000 feet!
There were lots of waterfalls.
I also had my first opportunity to photograph a blooming rhododendron. I’d seen a fair number of white ones along the roads we’d driven, but this was the first time I’d been on foot or seen a red in full bloom. In Bhutan and Nepal, rhododendrons are not the bushes we have in our yards or even the ones like I’ve seen on trails. Here they are trees!
We crossed two passes–Pele La and Yotong La–but neither had spectacular mountain views. At Pele La there was a chorten and an amazing number of prayer flags of which only a few are captured in my pictures. You can sort of see some mountains in the background.
At the confluence of two rivers after descending from Pele La, there are two chortens–one Tibetan-style and one Bhutanese-style, as well as a couple of organized rows of prayer flags.
The Tibetan style Chendebji Chorten (correctly named Chorten Charo Kasho) was built by Lama Shida in the 19th century. Note the Buddha eyes; you’ll see lots of those when I post my photos from Nepal.
The mani wall chorten dates from 1982.
Prayer flags always make good pictures.
About 16km before reaching Jakar we stopped at Zungney to visit a couple of shops where weavers create strips of woollen fabric that is made into jackets and blankets.
Have you seen the movie Travellers and Magicians? If not, watch this trailer and then get the movie. Part of it was filmed along the road between Pele La and Chendebji, most notably a scene at this roadside shrine.
The inscription reads:
“May all sentient beings be free from,
Wanting to be praised.
Not wanting to be criticized.
Wanting to be happy.
Not wanting to be unhappy.
Wanting to gain.
Not wanting to lose.
Wanting to be famous.
Not wanting to be unknown.
Thus prayed at the occasion of filming in Bhutan.
Nov. 2002
Scene 112, take 101.”
After lunch back at the hotel, we returned to the monastery or Gangtey Gompa. This small chorten near the parking area was very unusual in that it had a roof over it.
Chorten outside walls of Gangte Gompa
See the bird on the roof of the building on the right. It’s a Red-Billed Chough, a very noisy member of the crow family that seems to prefer lots of company.
Red-billed Chough
Pema Lingpa, a famous saint of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism who was born near Bumtang in Bhutan, prophesied the construction of a gonpa here while visiting the valley. His grandson and first reincarnation Gangteng Tulku (Gyalse Pema Thinley or Rigdzin Pema Tinley (1564-1642)) started the monastery in 1613 by building a temple on the site. The 2nd Gangteng Tulku completed the monastery later in the century.
Exterior of Gangtey Gonpa
Details of Exterior Painting
If you’re wondering how a 17th century wooden building looks so magnificent after 300 years, it’s because a seven-year reconstruction effort was just completed in 2008 with the aid of the Landmarks Foundation. In fact, some work continues today. For a video showing how the gonpa looked during renovations, check out this youtube video Gangte Gompa.
Woodcarvers at work
The carvings are very detailed
One enters the monastery through this porch-like structure.
Entrance porch to Gangte Gonpa
Detailed painting on entranceway
The walls of the porch are covered with paintings.
The three-story central tower contains several temples and prayer halls, but we could find no one to open them for us.
Temple Building at Gangte Gonpa
Carving on central tower
Details of painted carvings
The above woodworkers were in an open, covered pavilion on one side of the courtyard in front of the central tower.
Woodworkers' workroom
Opposite was an interesting enclosed building, and
Building facing central courtyard
there were, of course, some fabulous “gargoyles.”
Roof ornament
I’m not sure where I saw this carving, but it doesn’t appear to be on the front of the central tower.
Skull carving
After leaving the monastery we visited the Black-Necked Crane Information Center, which had just a couple of pretty basic displays and two spotting scopes. The crane is about 4-ft tall with a distinctive red crown patch. It’s life span is 70 to 80 years.
A Black-Necked Crane
Since it was mid-afternoon, most of the live cranes had moved out of the valley to shadier, cooler locations, but with the scopes we found a pair of Northern Lapwings.
Northern Lapwing by Nigel Pye
The next morning as we were leaving the valley the light was just right to get some good pictures of a pair of cranes in a farmyard.
Black-Necked Cranes
Before closing this post, let me tell you about the hotel I stayed at in the valley–the Dewachan, although the fact this hotel has its own website should tell you something. According to LP the hotel was built in conjunction with a US travel company. It is a beautiful stone-and-wood building set on a hillside with fabulous views across the valley.
Dewachen Hotel in the Phobjikha Valley
The rooms are huge with two beds, a large sitting area, and a nicely tiled shower. The furnishings are stylish, like what you would find in a better-than-average lodge in the US. There is a small wood stove and electricity for a few hours in the morning and evening.
My messy room at the Dewachen
The dining room was on the second floor with bay windows looking out over the valley. The first floor probably was used as a bar when there were more people at the hotel, although with just sixteen rooms I doubt that it ever feels crowded.
The Dewachen at dawn from my room
The Phobjikha Valley is the winter home for about 300 black-necked cranes, an endangered species with at most 6,000 birds. These particular birds breed in northern Tibet.
The lower 10-15m of the hills or mounds in and around the valley (kame terrace) is composed of sandy silt (48% silt, 52% sand) saturated with water that seeps out in contact with the impervious clay glacial moraine of the valley floor turning it into a marshy wetland with scattered shallow ponds–ideal habitant for the wintering cranes. They forage on plant roots and tubers, insects, snails, shrimp, fish, frogs, lizards, voles, and waste grains.
I spent a day in the valley hiking, birding, and visiting the Black-Necked Crane Information Center and a nearby monastery. Before breakfast we strolled along the paved road on the west side of the valley hoping to see the cranes leave their rookeries to begin a day of grazing in the fields. For some reason I expected something akin to the the dawn takeoff at Bosque del Apache in New Mexico when large groups of birds leave the ponds for the fields.
Morning Take-off at Bosque del Apache
Instead, the cranes mostly left in small groups of two and three; the largest I counted was seven. Since the rookeries were on the other side of the valley and it was dark and slightly foggy, I have no pictures.
After breakfast we rambled along the Gangte Nature Trail, a 2.5-mile semi-circular trail that crossed the valley and then followed the edge of the valley along the hillsides until it reached Gangte Goemba. We stopped to identify birds unknown to us, take pictures, watch the cranes, and generally enjoy this beautiful place on a warm, sunny day.
Gangtey Nature Trail Map
The center of the valley was very marshy.
Marshy wetlands of Phobjikha Valley
We often had to jump from tussock to tussock to get to the Khewang Lhakhang. The lhakhang was built in the late fifteenth century by Thulku Penjor Gyeltshen, the reincarnation of the Tibetan saint Kuenkhen Logchen Rabjampa, using Tibetan laborers.
Khewang Lhakhang
The monks who have lived in the old Tibetan-style building for centuries
Old Khewang Lhakhang
are getting new Bhutanese-style quarters.
New building at Khewang Lhakhang
Nearby there is a very old chorten and a small hillside village.
Village and Chorten
In this part of the valley we saw many Oriental Skylarks
Oriental Skylark
and passed several farmhouses.
Phobjikha Valley Farm
Farmers were out working in their potato fields–the primary cash crop for the valley. This was one of the few places I saw tractors during my entire trip.
Farmers in their fields
Trailside Chorten and Prayer Flags
From here we had a good view of the cranes grazing in the fields.
Black-Necked Cranes Grazing
Every once in a while a small group would take off, heading for one of the higher, shadier and, therefore, cooler side valleys.
Black-Necked Cranes Aloft
While we were sitting and watching the cranes, a few women walked by carrying huge bundles of dead ferns, pine needles and other forest detritus to be used for feeding their farm animals.
Walking Trees
Hillside trail above the crane rookery
Soon thereafter the trail entered the forest (blue pine, fir, hemlock, larch, birch, rhododendron and maple) where clearly years of harvesting the understory for forage had left it picked clean.
Pine forest free of understory
Many trees were draped in a lichen called “Old-man’s Beard,”
Old-man's Beard
and we saw a Grey-Crested Tit.
Grey crested Tit
When we emerged from the forest we walked along a farm track, some of which was covered with several inches of dust.
Valley Farm
Then we climbed again to the road leading to Gangte Goemba where there was a large chorten.
Chorten near Gangte Goemba
As we walked down to meet our van and driver, we saw a White-browed Wagtail.
White-browed Wagtail
Driving back to the hotel, we found a group of three cranes, including a juvenile, in a farmyard along the road.
Pair of Cranes with Juvenile
When we left the drubchen at mid-day, we walked along the Mo Chhu and then drove northeast along the Pho Chhu searching for birds. Being mid-day, we really didn’t see many, but there were some Great Cormorants, Common Shelducks, and Ruddy Shelducks.
Common Shelduck
Ruddy Shelduck
The next day when we left the dzong, we drove north along the Mo Chhu where we also saw mallards, a Crested Kingfisher, a White-throated Kingfisher (a beautiful bird), a Crested Serpent Eagle, and some sort of kestrel.
Crested Kingfisher
White throated Kingfisher
Crested Serpent Eagle
We got fairly close to a River Lapwing, but my pictures are terrible
so here’s someone else’s.
But the best find of the two days–and for the entire trip–was a White-bellied Heron.
The White-bellied Heron is one of the 50 rarest birds in the world. According to this news story there were only 30 in Bhutan in 2008. We had gone in search of the bird at a known rookery, but hadn’t seen any birds, much less one of the rare ones. Then, on the way back to the dzong, there was one in the middle of the Pho Chhu not far from the dzong.
We also some langurs, but I didn’t get any photos until later in my trip. I did take some photos of a pet monkey on a pole in someone’s front yard.
Pet Monkey on a boxIt was wrapped in a blanket or shawl sitting on a wooden box that reminded me of a wood duck box minus a front side.
Driving along the Mo Chhu we went as far as a picnic area near a waterfall.
Waterfalls in Upper Punakha Valley
Across the river, up on a hill, is the 100-foot tall Khamsum Yuelley Namgyal Chorten, which after eight years of construction was consecrated in 1999.
Khamsum Yuelley Namgyal Chorten
Back at my hotel, I finally got a good view of a pair of Long-tailed Minivets (but not good enought for pictures like these).
Long tailed Minivet (male)
Long-tailed Minivet (female)
Remember my “Paradise hotel” in Peru? It was at the bottom of Colca Canyon, and my accommodations consisted of a bamboo hut with no floor, no electricity, and no bathroom, although the location was spectacular.
In Punakha, I stayed at the Zangtopelri Hotel, named after Guru Rinpoche’s paradise. This “Paradise” is up on a mountain, instead of down in a canyon. In addition to rooms in the central building shown above, there are a number of duplex cottages strewn around the hillside.
Cabins on Hillside at Zangtopelri
My cabin at Zangtopelri
Each of the cottage rooms had a balcony–with a fantastic view of the valley
View from my balcony at Zangtopelri
and the neighboring mountainside rice fields. I loved sitting out here in the afternoon to write in my journal after we returned from sightseeing, but it got chilly quickly, as it was still February. The following photo was taken early in the morning when the hillside was shrouded in a light fog.
Rice Field View from my room
As usual, I forgot to take a picture inside until I was about to leave, so pardon the mess–
My room at Zangtopelri
As to amenities, there was a large bathroom with a toilet, tub, and sink set into a counter. Yeh! I was tired of stand-alone sinks with no place to put anything; moreover, the sink was big enough for laundry, including my pants. The electricity only went out once, at about 5:30 a.m. on my third (and last) morning here.
One of the things I really liked about this hotel were the birds. Mynas (mostly common) were constantly chattering, and I even saw a Bank Myna from my balcony. (These photos were obviously taken in a completely different habitat.)
Common Myna
Bank Myna
Red-vented bulbuls added their songs and chatter to the mix.
Red-vented Bulbul
I would see many common mynas and red-vented bulbuls during my visit to Bhutan and Nepal.
Jigme Dorji National Park is the largest of Bhutan’s national parks. At 1,679 square miles, it is about the size of Olympic National Park in the United States. Within its boundaries, which span three climate zones, are some of the highest peaks of the Himalaya, including Jomolhari, and rare animals like the snow leopard, red panda, blue sheep, and Bengal tiger. Originally designated a wildlife sanctuary in 1974, it became a national park in 1993.
One entrance to the park, the one usually used for exiting the Jomohari Trek, is just north of Thimphu. On the drive to the park along the Wang Chhu, we passed a rock painting which Lonely Planet describes as “a large gold-painted petroglyph of Chenrisig.” Hardly!
Rock Painting in Wang Chhu Valley near Begana
There were several cars parked near the park entrance, but we never saw anyone else on the trail.
Jigme Dorji National Park Sign
If you look behind the sign, you’ll see the river.
The trail started out nice and flat, following the river
We followed it for about an hour, stopping to look for birds.
Waterfalls mean the trail is no longer flat
We didn’t see any birds, but we did see lots of Daphne. During my sightseeing tour of Thimphu, we had stopped at a handmade paper factory where the basic raw material was the woody pulp of the Daphne.
Daphne
Black-faced Laughingthrush
Chestnut-crowned Laughingthrush
At the trailhead, we were greeted by a–
Blue Whistling Thrush