The final edition of “What I saw” segment for this year, and what a year it has been. As the year is ending finishing up on the remaining work becomes a priority so this month I just did a short visit to Chitwan National Park with two of my good brothers Umang Jung Thapa a wildlife photographer and Prakash Chhetri a naturalist.

Spread in an area of 952.63 km² and terrain ranging from 100m to 815m in the Chure hills, this park has designated the status of the world heritage site in 1984. Although I have visited the park on numerous occasions this trip was a trip to remember as I was able to go deeper in the jungle towards the Chure range. 

Every day was an experience to be had as going from grassland to Sal forests to mixed forest and waiting out in the banks of rivers helped in documenting various species of flora and fauna. The excitement reached new boundaries as I was able to see and photograph two leopards and a 20cm beautiful Collared Falconet.

Seeing a healthy ecosystem growing defiantly brings a smile within but at the same time seeing things that impact that ecosystem does make us question humanity. As we talk conservation there are a lot of things that need to be worked out and hopefully, things go in a positive progressive way with experts in this field leading the changes.

This trip helped me see a lot of flora and fauna but missed documenting some. Following are the species of flora and fauna that I was able to see this month.

Birds:
Bush chat, Jungle fowl, Indian Peafowl, Ruddy Shelduck, Red-breasted Merganser, Asian Openbill, Black Stork, Lesser Adjutant, Black-crowned Night Heron, Indian Pond Heron, Purple Heron, Grey Heron, Darter, Collared Falconet, Grey-headed Fish Eagle, Egyptian Vulture, Crested Serpent Eagle, Indian Spotted Eagle, Changeable Hawk Eagle, Common Coot, Red-wattled Lapwing, Little Ringed Plover, Black-headed Gull, Spotted Dove, Plum-headed Parakeet, Indian Roller, Common Kingfisher, White-throated Kingfisher, Pied Kingfisher, Green Bee-eater, Oriental Pied Hornbill, Racket-tailed Drongo, Black Drongo, Red-whiskered Bulbul, Red-vented Bulbul, Jungle Babbler etc.   

Mammals:
Leopard, Hog deer, Barking Deer, Wild Boar, Mongoose, Chital, Sambar Deer, Terai Grey Langur, Rhesus Macaque.  

Insects:
Spined Micrathena spider.

Thank you all new and old visitors for supporting the blog for all these years. Wishing you all a very HAPPY NEW YEAR 2019 and hoping to bring you some interesting content this year.