Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
much scarcer, although we were told that a pair had been seen using this area. Endemic to the
Eastern Himalayas and with perhaps fewer than 250 individuals left, the white-bellied heron
is listed as critically endangered in the IUCN Red List. The herons, like the eagles, roost in
the tall pines along the river and depend on large, free-flowing rivers, a difficult ecosystem
to protect, even in green Bhutan.
Some large herons nest in low vegetation in rookeries, so the white-bellied's propensity
for nesting very high in the trees has yet to be explained, although other large herons, such
as the great blue and grey, also nest high in trees. At least elsewhere in its range, habitat
loss and poaching of adults and eggs are the apparent causes of decline. As a result, the spe-
cies has been reduced to a few small populations in northeastern India, northern Myanmar,
Bangladesh, and eastern Nepal. Extensive hydroelectric development in the region poses a
major threat to recovery of these core populations.
As we walked past a bend in the road above the river, a group of Tibetan monks smiled at
us as they ambled past and then returned to their chant, fingering their prayer beads. Monks
are a common sight in Bhutan, where many young men enter monasteries as children. How
different their early lives seemed from ours, I thought. Then I remembered a joke told by a
Tibetan friend: “What is the difference between a Buddhist and a non-Buddhist?” The an-
swer: “The non-Buddhist thinks there is one.” As the red-robed faithful faded from sight, we
turned our attention again to the herons, which remained elusive.
Mincha Wangdi was waiting for us at the guesthouse in Punakha. The next day in the car,
we kept up a steady interrogation of our hosts. Sherub and Nawang answered natural history
inquiries and the loquacious Mincha handled every other subject, from Buddhism to Bhu-
tanese politics. During a stop for lunch at an outdoor café, the stories rolled off his tongue.
My gaze drifted from Mincha to a new sighting, a complement to the national sport of arch-
ery. Up the road, a group of young men were hurling what resembled small missiles—carved
wooden rockets with nails on the tips—at a target about thirty meters away. This was
khuru
,
a Bhutanese version of long-distance darts. As we strolled after lunch along a border of
flowering pomegranate trees, the whistles and shouts of the cheerful missileers carried on the
breeze.
We made for Trongsa, a tourist attraction because of its beautiful dzong. The highway
wound through one of the most exquisite and diverse broad-leaved forests in the temperate
regions of the world. Several of the common trees were still leafless but had exploded into
flower—the white mimosa-like blossoms covering the
Albizia
, the deep red petals of the cor-
al bean (
Erythrina
), the luscious pink of elephant ear (
Bauhinia
)—all of them accented by
the vibrant new foliage of maple, oak, walnut, chestnut, laurel, and, everywhere, the leathery
leaves of rhododendron and magnolia. Underneath lay a carpet of valerian, primrose, viol-
et, and club moss dense enough to cushion a sleeping musk deer, or yeti. The forest seemed
endless. Our van snaked around one mountain valley draped in dense forest only to enter the
