KATHMANDU — Growing up in the southwestern plains of Nepal, Prashant Ghimire was always fascinated to observe birds roam the fertile farmlands. “I especially liked to watch storks and cranes fly. I would throw pebbles at them to make them fly,” remembers Ghimire, whose interest in birds led him to study forestry and then ornithology. […]
Tag: yellow-breasted bunting
Winter sanctuary in Nepal proves a killing field for yellow-breasted buntings
KATHMANDU — Ornithologist Hem Bahadur Katwal, who studies farmland birds, says he’s excited about an upcoming trip to visit Nepal’s plains when the monsoon rains end in September. This is the time when the cold starts creeping in over the lands farther north — Russia, Mongolia, China — and thousands of migratory birds flock to […]
Yellow-breasted bunting population collapses across Eurasia
In 1914 the world’s last passenger pigeon died. Nicknamed Martha, she was not killed by hunters—like so many others of her species—but simply old age. With her passing, the passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) was lost forever to extinction. A hundred years before Martha’s death, however, the passenger pigeon may have been the most populous bird […]