Pobjikha
After spending nearly a week doing trainings in Punakha, in the central part of the country, with our friend and colleague David, we were all quite happy for the chance to take a quick trip to the Pobjikha valley. At over 9,000 ft, the valley is a rare high altitude wetland, and winter home to the globally threatened black necked cranes. We got there early enough to take a walk through the woods and farms bordering the valley, trying to glimpse any of the 13 cranes that had arrived in the valley the previous week. This group apparently was the advanced guard for the winter migration. The cranes are the subject of great scrutiny - they summer in the Tibetan plateau and winter mostly in Bhutan, the Pobjikha valley being the largest of several areas they inhabit. Official counts from earlier years pegged the number at about 300 spending the winter; there are only several thousand of them on the planet, threatened primarily by loss of habitat. Most of Bhut...