April was an adventure in the concrete jungle but May became a dream that came true, up in the Everest region. This month I was off to Gokyo region to work as a first responder for Everest 135 ultra-marathon race representing Himalayan Medics. The journey to and back gave me new lessons and a whole lot of to-do lists regarding wildlife photography.

In these 10 years of seeing and photographing various insects and animals, I have a growing list of flora and fauna I want to see. Musk deer was one of them and this time I was presented with two sightings in which one was a trail crossing/grazing and the other was of a male marking his territory. Please do forgive me for not being able to present these opportunities in photographs as one contains the shot of the back (rump) with the deer feeding and the other was due to heavy fog. The other sighting which also put a smile on my face was of a Mountain Weasel jumping around a meadow and then entering a nearby house. But before entering the house it presented itself for a headshot and those curious eyes just made me grin for the next couple of hours.

As this is my second time traveling to the Gokyo region I have to confess that I have fallen in love with this place and Sagarmatha National Park. It is defiantly encouraging to see how humans and wildlife have coexisted in this zone. It also seemed like some animals were conditioned to human presence in the trekking trails due to a large number of tourists visiting Everest Base Camp during the spring and autumn season. 

This month I have been able to see and photograph a lot of new species and some of them are presented below. But on a side note I have also failed a lot to take pictures of some species as well:

Bird
Tibetan Snowcock, Himalayan Monal, Ruddy Shelduck, Northern Pintail, Tufted Duck, Snow Pigeon, Oriental Turtle Dove, Red-billed Chough, Northern Raven, Green-backed Tit, White-capped Redstart, Verditer Flycatcher, Blue-fronted Redstart, Indian Blue Robin, Rufous Sibia, Wabler, Plumbeous Water Redstart, Grey Bushchat, White-browed Fulvetta, etc

Mammals
Musk Deer, Himalayan Tahr, Mountain Weasel.

Flora
Evergreen Laburnum, Himalayan Pieris, Wallich Spurge, Primula, Rhododendron, etc

Hopefully, June brings in another set of assignments and a new location to be in so that I can bring you guys more content regarding the flora and fauna of Nepal. Thank you for visiting the blog. Please feel free to put in your comments and suggestions so that I can bring more content.

Thank you
Ajay Narsingh Rana