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Story: Nepal Bearded Vulture trip

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By: Simon Thomsett For this trip it seemed essential that I should gather whatever Nordic looks I may have and be prepared to assume a steely distant stare when summiting mountain tops, the kind adopted by those who conquer Everest and wear Rolex watches. It was important too that I grew a beard, for the ice crystals that would form there and that I wore reflecting sunglasses. You never know, a photographer could be lurking anywhere. In Pokohara it was clear from the numerous super-fit young tourists, that this attire was de rigueur. Some were a bit extreme, wearing spandex and sporting two expensive walking sticks to the restaurants and market places. Shamefully a good deal dripped about with baggy trousers and had goatee beards and looked alarmingly unprepared. They looked like spoilt gap year students and should sharpen up. I was concerned, the Himalayas was clearly no joke. You must be tough, athletic and courageous. But I guess worse was to come for these intre

Raptors of Nepal is now moving to new project: Study on Bearded Vulture Movement Ecology in the Himalaya

Its a long time without updates. Now I am pleased to inform you about the current project on Bearded Vulture. I am doing a GPS telemetry project on Bearded Vulture in the Himalaya of Nepal. To the best of my knowledge, it is the only project of its kind in Asia to study movement of this charismatic mega avian fauna. In last May we trapped four Bearded Vultures and fitted with WT-200 GPS telemetry, those devices were developed by Korea Institute of Environment Ecology. By this time we already got some preliminary information about the home range area and dispersal timing of the fledgling. Summary of the current result is given below: Summary We studied the home range size of Bearded Vulture Gypaetus barbatus in the Himalaya of central Nepal using GPS telemetry. In May 2016, four birds including one pair of breeding adults and their juvenile and one sub-adult (second calendar year) were trapped and equipped with 72 grams GPS telemetry units (WT -200) developed by Korea Inst