Steppe Eagle (Sub-Adult) Mountain Hawk Eagle chased by Black Kite After the cloudy day in 11 Nov we had different weather in the watch site. In the morning we had strong North East wind and drizzle. The wind stopped after 8:00 am however it was cold enough in the lookout. In 12 Nov we had many local raptors such as Mountain Hawk Eagle, Black Eagle, Few species of vultures were very close. The Steppe Eagle migration slowly build up after 9 am. However few of the eagles were very north for atleast couple of hours. The thick and dark cumulous cloud build up to the north after noon which pushed the stream of migrating eagles overhead. We had good number of eagles overhead and it was easy to aged the birds. After 2 pm we had light rain and migration stopped only for few minutes however it was again started quickly and the birds route changed more south. The movement was very rapid and we felt that eagles were in hurry to complete their destination. Between 2:00 to 3:00 pm ...

Now the weather is changing here, lot of cloud yesterday and today. The cloud is pushing the birds very low and even below the eye level. Some birds come very low towards the south slope of north lookout. Therefore it is a great possibility to escape few birds. We are very careful about this because Bob, Henk and Venesha are helping me on the spotting and counting of the birds. We are at the peak of Steppe Eagle migration and every day average of 400 Eagles cross the watch side. Now the total number of Steppe Eagles is close to 3000. Therefore some hours goes very busy for spotting, counting and ageing of the Steppe Eagles. At this time we are getting mostly adult birds and few first year birds and average number of Sub-Adults. Today we barely got the sunshine and there was a ground cloud so it was cold enough too. In the late afternoon many eagles were seen landed over the slopes down to the lookout for the overnight. We hope tomorrow   they will start migration very soon. ...

During the September we had a little rain and it was more cloudy towards the northern ridge (Annapurna Mountains and Dhampus Ridge) most of the days during October. Now we have clear day since few days. In clear day most of the raptors fly towards north and few towards south. Therefore we prefer to go to our North lookout to get close view of raptors. From 4 November we started counting from North lookout in Thulakharka, which is about 4 km from Dhampus at the elevation of 2050 m. From north lookout we can have a very very exciting view of overhead passing raptors. Out north lookout offers 360 degree view from the mountain top and which has grassy flat top. There are three small valleys infront of the lookout; the Mardikhola valley towards the north east, Hemja valley towards east and Marsikhola valley towards the South East. Most of the time birds rises up using the advantage of thermal from Mardi and Hemja Valley and cross right overhead, that’s why we prefer this lookout in...

Weather was very clear today however there was around 30% cloudy over the Himalayas to the north. We had a excellent flight today in terms of number of Steppe Eagles (total 572 birds). We hope the number of eagles will go higher and this indicates the peak should be very soon. Other migrants were Himalayan Vulture, Cinereous Vulture, Booted Eagle, Peregrine Falcon, Common Buzzard, OHB and few other species. Therefore the today's total was 630 raptors.  Today most of the birds were towards the north and I decided to change the lookout from tomorrow. Plan is to go to Australian camp and have a breakfast there at 7 am and start migration count from out next look out. This process will be continued until we have a lot of cloud to the north ridge. I hope this will give me new idea and probably new thing will be generate for the next year counting.   

      We had a clear days for the few days and today we got cloud overhead but not much over the Himalayas. Therefore lot of birds were still moving through the northern side however we had enough birds overhead. Many species of the raptors are continuing their flight. However we are not getting the migration of swallows in these days. In last 5 days we had total of 680 raptors among them 322 raptors were Steppe Eagles. Today we had a good flight of Steppe Eagles (132 birds). In the last 5 days we are having the good flight of OHB, and Himalayan Vulture also. In November 1 we got 5 Hen Harriers --highest of this season and a big flock of Amur Falcon (18birds).   Eurasian Hobby are again continuing their flight after few days (Not any falcons between 25 to 29). The great thing is that we have Jeff and Jim----- Great   Biologist from America. They are helping a lot for spotting raptors and working on traps. We are trying to trap the raptors wi...

     Weather is going to be very pleasant not cloud at all in the morning, in the afternoon cloud builds over the Himalayas, combination of warm sun and little chilly south bridge …………………….However the heart is not happy   ………….. may be we want to see   lot of close birds ……….circling towards the Paundur hill but not towards the far ridge over Himalayas. Jeff and Jim don’t have experience to long hike upto Karanse (Dhanpus) Hill,   even a Paundur Hill was tough for the first day. On 26 th we had a good number of migration birds dominated by Steppe Eagles (56 birds) and highest one day record (This season) of Oriental honey Buzzard (34 birds). After this day we are getting less number of Steppe eagles (15 and 14 birds respectively) none of the falcons are migration from this site. Most of the birds are using the distant path towards very north however we are getting different species like Himalayan Vulture (migrants), Golden eagle, Hen Harrier, Mounta...