White-bellied Heron in the Phochu River in Punakha! The White-bellied Heron is a very large heron standing about 4 feet tall. A magnificent bird! The White-bellied Heron is a bird in big trouble due to habitat loss. Bhutan is one of the few places in the world for its last refuge and there probably are less than 200 birds remaining in the world as per the International Birdlife. Sadly, this bird may be headed for extinction. We are very lucky to spot it on 17th April 2011although by this time they leave to their summer habitat. We finished our 21 days birding tour with 315 species seen and 15 heard. On the last day of our birding we headed to Chelela pass 3800m. We are gifted with the 6 Himalayan Monals. Best thing was, we all had very good views of male Monal in sun, what a bird. Like people say it is the bird with 7 different colors. Other birds of the day were Lammerger, Eurasian Woodcock, Blood Pheasant and few high altitude Finches.

CROSS-COUNTRY BIRDING
I am almost coming to an end to my crossing country birding tour with 5 customers and Josh, foreign birding guide with whom I have worked successful for the past few years.
We have started from the Samdrup Jongkhar south east of the country on 2nd April 2011 and going to finish in Paro western parts of Bhutan on 22nd. We did very well in the past but this year is exceptionally going well. So far we have already crossed 200 species. This year we have seem most of the difficult birds. Including all the Wren Babblers. I also managed to get very good recording of Wedge-billed Wren Babbler and Long-billed Wren Babbler, which I will be posting in xeno canto soon. Other amazing bird for this year was Gould’s Shortwing. So far I am not sure how many Bhutan trip report mention about that bird. Beautiful Nuthatch one of the Bhutan specialty and hard bird to see, we saw them at three different Places.
Once I finish this tour, I will come up with more details
TASHI DELAK.