Leopards, Tigers and Bears! (Okay, maybe not...)

Nepal is known for its abundant biodiversity*. For being a small country the size of 6 Rhode Islands it spans an elevation range of almost zero (59m) to 8,848 meters (that would be Mount Everest - the highest point in the world)! Much of its land is tropical or subtropical and its central location in Asia serves as a migration destination for many birds, which helps to explain this. You can find almost 9% of the world's bird species here!

Animals have always fascinated me. Nepal is home to many exotic species -- and a lot of threatened ones at that: the Ganges river dolphin, red panda, rhinoceros, elephant, tiger, and snow leopard, to name a few. Although my chances of seeing any of these charismatic megafauna at site are pretty much zero, I am happy to report that there is still plenty to marvel at. Here's what I have seen out and about in the village.

*It was not known to me when I applied to serve here, but I was delighted to discover this after my arrival.

My trusty identification guides bought in the capitol.

MAMMALS
Mammals make up probably the smallest percentage of the wildlife I see, surprisingly. According to my mammal book a variety of animals live in the jungled hills around my village: felines, canines, civets, porcupines, boars, cervids, foxes, mustelids, bats... That being said, however, most of these animals live in the jungle and stay there. Some of them might venture into the village on occasion, but this would be at night when the lights are out and villagers are asleep.

Mongoose are fairly common and seeing them scurrying past is a delight every time. Unfortunately they are a menace to villagers due to their propensity to steal eggs and chicks. Three chicks at our house got carried off by a mongoose a week ago, in fact. I have a lot of respect for these ones regardless for their intelligence and vigilance. They are wily, fast, and fun to watch.

A snapshot of a mongoose that I took through my binoculars. I staked out this spot for an hour or two watching mongoose come by to pick over slaughtered chicken remains one morning.

I have on two occasions heard (but not seen!) what were likely leopards that came for a night visit. (The first time it made a great racket trying to break in to our goat shed -- I woke up irritated at whatever the @$#! my host father was doing in the middle of the night, turned over and went back to sleep... then found out in the morning that it was, in fact, not my host father that I had heard, but a hungry leopard).

Compared to leopards monkeys are a fairly common sight around the village. They are typically assaulted by anyone who sees them with aggressive shouting, chasing, and rock-throwing. And for good reason - they peruse the villages for easy meals and eat almost everything. Their indiscriminate penchant for theft and destruction cuts into farmers' stomachs and their profits. I said mongoose were menaces, but monkeys are a huge threat to food security here, especially for poorer folk who live on the outskirts of settlements and near the jungles. It's a country-wide problem.

Mammals I have identified at site:

• Small Indian mongoose
• Rhesus macaque
• Irrawaddy squirrel
• Asian house shrew
• Langur*

*There are, according to my Nepal mammals book, two species of langur that are perhaps difficult to distinguish from each other and have overlapping ranges, so I'm not sure which I have seen.

A rhesus macaque cautiously appraising me as I walk to a neighboring village.

I passed it and its troupe in the jungle a few days ago.

INSECTS

While I have much respect for insects, I don't have enough interest (or a good enough camera) to be able to capture and identify them. (Though volunteer Mark's mother is a retired entomologist, so sometimes we send him photos of insects to search for and identify for us. This will become relevant later.)

I find myself spending a lot of time admiring the insects I come across. The other day I noticed a dragonfly laying eggs at a waterfall in the jungle; had never seen that before. On more than one occasion I have stooped to watch lines of ants following their formless chem trails across the steps and stones of the villages... reveling in the serenity of the moment. And there are soooooo many beautiful butterflies that can be seen in so many colors and forms. The diversity and beauty of the insects here is stunning. Beetles, flies, dragonflies, bees, bugs, snake flies, praying mantids, katydids, grasshopppers/locusts, walking sticks... yes, even the spiders.

My favorite insect here has got to be jumping spider ant-mimics. (I am not sure if they can truly jump as their name would imply, but they are in the jumping spider family nonetheless). I spotted these early on during pre-service training and was shocked the first time I came across one. You have to wonder how many hundreds of thousands of years they took to evolve.

Ant-mimic spiders are quite small. This probably just looks like an ant to you and to most people who see them.

Photo credit to my friend Colton.

Does it look like an ant now? How cool is this guy?! (Super. Don't argue with me!!)

Photo credit to OrionMystery.

My least favorite is also a kind of spider. This would be the up-to palm-sized Huntsman spiders that occasionally share my room space. I will not disparage them without cause... but I will say I would not mind whatsoever to develop a sudden and selective blindness for them.

I do have one story to tell about trying to identify an evasive insect. A few months after my initial arrival at site I was taking the goats out with buwaa when I saw what I thought was a giant flying insect sucking the blood of the leg of one of our goats with a proboscis several inches long. I was absolutely mortified... but also fascinated. So naturally the first thing I did was ask my friend Mark if he could help me identify it based on my description and a poorly drawn reconstruction. (He couldn't).

Fast forward a year later and I saw the insect -- again! I was elated to know that I did, in fact, not dream up this grotesque nightmare creature. I was in the jungle with farmers at the time when one started hovering by us. The farmers tried to swat it dead as it buzzed round, apparently eyeing us -- more likely, our blood. They said that it is painful when it bites and they told me that this insect's name is दाँस -- daas. Surely a local name but a name nonetheless. They couldn't tell me much else.

I asked around until someone mentioned it in relation to horseflies. That turned out to be the crucial piece of information I needed as I turned to Google and began to sleuth.

That night I learned a lot about horseflies. It took some slogging but I eventually did find what I believe is this insect's genus. And a contender for its species as well: Philoliche longirostris! It struck me how I could, after a few hours, find information about this not-well studied, yet documented, wild, bloodsucking horsefly that I stumbled across in the Nepali jungle. Apparently they habit areas of water and moist soil and are only prevalent in July, August and September. That explained why I saw it once and not again for the next year. They have co-evolved and specialized to feed on a specific species of flower. However, the females require a blood meal to reproduce (it's the protein in blood they need) similar to mosquitoes. Really interesting. I found myself, in my stupor, getting familiar with some horsefly anatomy...

I was also unfortunate enough to get pricked by one a week or two later. Can confirm it is an unpleasant experience.

Behold: the bloodsucking Philoliche spp. of the Nepali jungles! (cue 1960s horror flick damsel in distress scream)

Photo credit to Knobag.

REPTILES

Snakes abound though I have not seen many. Generally, when someone sees a snake in the village proper, frantic yelling, the calling of elder men, and the subsequent death of the snake, ensues. They can get sizable, although according to my host family there is only one in the area that is venomous enough to be a serious danger -- it is bright green and camouflages perfectly in the grass. I have since forgotten which species this is but I have not seen it. (I will say that someone did get bit by one in the fields several months ago and had to visit the hospital. He was alright after.)

Lizards are an occasional sighting. During the warmer months geckos sometimes crawl around the walls of my room or window looking for snacks. I'm quite fond of them. And there are other species of lizards as well but a somewhat rare sighting.

AMPHIBIANS

Lots of toads during the rainy season. Some as big as my palm and others as small as a fingernail. Small frogs are also fairly common throughout the year.

A rather stoic toad. Photo credit to my friend Colton.

BIRDS

Birds! There are so many birds in my village and the birdscape changes with the seasons. I was startled to see Egyptian vultures soaring the canyons coming out of my first winter here. Now that summer is past they have started to dissipate with the onset of the fall season. And only recently I noticed that I no longer wake up to the wooden krok-ok-ok, krok-ok-ok of blue-throated barbets, which somewhat gratingly permeated the airspace for the muggy summer months. I remember getting tired of their calls, but now, in their absence, look forward to hearing them again.

The excitement of seeing a bird you don't know is captivating. It is also frustrating when you get home to review a combination of faulty memories, blurry photos, and several pages of bird species with seemingly identical morphology. That happens a lot, so for every bird I am able to identify there are probably 3 or 4 I have seen that I have not identified. Birds of prey, for example, are a nearly daily sight, but there are so many that look the same that it is very difficult to pin them down with a species-identification.

As I mentioned before, I was not much of a birder until I came to Nepal. I wasn't really planning on becoming one, but the allure came to me after seeing so many varied and colorful types of birds in the first months of being in country; so I indulged and bought an expensive, but nice, set of binoculars that my family sent over to me in the mail. I suppose I traded one hobby for another: the kalimba that I brought to learn to play has sat virtually untouched. So it goes.

Photos of a bird you take in the field...

...vs. your bird identification guide when you go to look it up.

Birds at site I have been able to identify:

• Red-vented bulbul++
• Himalayan bulbul++
• Black bulbul
• Egyptian vulture
• Blue-throated barbet
• Great barbet!
• Black kite
• Himalayan vulture
• Spotted dove++
• Oriental turtle dove
• Asian koel!
• Collared Scops owl!
• Himalayan swiftlet
• Barn swallow++
• Red-rumped swallow++
• Black-winged cuckooshrike
• Scarlet minivet
• Long-tailed shrike++
• Grey-backed shrike
• Indian golden oriole
• Black drongo++
• Ashy drongo++
• Grey treepie++
• Yellow-billed blue magpie
• Large-billed crow++
• House crow++
• Common tailorbird++
• White-crested laughingthrush
• Rufous-winged fulvetta
• Jungle myna
• Common myna++
• Chestnut starling
• Blue whistling thrush
• Oriental magpie robin
• Common stonechat
• Crimson sunbird
• White-rumped munia++
• Grey wagtail
• Eurasian tree sparrow++
• House sparrow++

++ common resident throughout the year

! identified by sound

Living Conditions At Site

Yesterday I walked five minutes down to the spring by our house to bathe. The spring is so beautiful this time of year. Look at it!

The neighborhood spring under an open sky. Villagers use this on a daily basis to bathe and wash clothes.

The spring is sometimes occupied by other villagers but I only had to wait a few minutes to have the spot to myself. I relished the peace. Moments like these bring me profound contentedness and root me in gratitude -- bathing in a mountain spring under a warm sun surrounded by green fields of rice, millet, a banana tree, and verdant hills. Not even the foreign service and embassy workers in the capitol can enjoy this!

Although we have had a shower at home for many months, I have started bathing at the spring on sunny days whenever possible. Winter is coming: it will soon get too cold to make this comfortable. I am also forcefully aware of how finite this experience will be.

I was originally planning on just sharing the photos of our spring with a glib "That's it. That's the tweet", but I figured I should make this post a little more educational (cue disappointed audience "awww..." sound clip). So, if it pleases you, continue reading for a tour of my host family house.

The homestead, mostly traditional with a splash of modernity.

This is the front of our ghar. It is an old house and has probably been in the (paternal) family for several generations. My host parents like to talk about how, decades ago, 20+ people used to live here all crammed together. Phew!

You can see the stone-and-mud-caulked veranda below the painted posts supporting the upper floor.  Our previously paraplegic kid wanders the agan. The bottom room to the the far left is the kitchen. Then there is the main section of the house next door which serves as a bedroom and living space for my host parents. Vines of giriula snake up from the garden to the attic on the second floor that sits on top of this. On the right side, starting at the second set of steps, is the renovated annex: the window of my room is mostly obscured by vines but you can see it if you squint. And in the very back stands our livestock shed.

We'll explore left to right according to this photo. First off, here's the kitchen.

The kitchen with a fresh coat of mud-plaster in preparation for the holidays.

It is extremely narrow, the most narrow kitchen I have seen in all my time in Nepal. Most of the cooking is done over the fireplace in the far back. Aamaa prefers to cook over fire -- it is cheaper than using the gas stove (out of frame on the table in the bottom right). Food also just tastes better when cooked over fire (I was at first skeptical about this, but it really does). Traditional urns such as our gagri are used to store water (though there are so many varieties of containers and urns with specific formations, shapes, materials, and uses... don't ask me what they are, I don't work here). Next to the copper gagri is the silauto, consisting of a flat stone and a handheld rock, which gets daily use grinding garlic, spices, and peppers for cooking.

The walls and floor are red because they are plastered over their stone foundations with a mixture of red soil, cow dung, and ash. All areas of the original house are maintained in the same way. Aside from being a natural cover for the house foundation, it imbues pest-resistant and temperature-regulating properties, keeping things cool in summer and warm in winter. Its upkeep is laborious (aamaa applies a fresh coat of mud to the oven area every evening to keep things clean, and the floor of the front porch is supposed to be coated every morning), but it is really beautiful and calming. I will definitely miss Nepal's mudded walls when I leave.

"Living quarters": a double bed, cabinets for storage, and an open cupboard for kitchenware.

Adjacent to the long and narrow kitchen are the "living quarters". To the right my host parents' bed can be seen - the left, our open cabinet for dishware, cookware and utensils. Out of frame on the left is a small shelf-shrine for Hindu worship. Cabinets on the side and in the back are storage areas for dried goods and household effects like soap; the staircase in the back leads up to the attic.

The attic filled with your standard inventory: hoarded curiosities and keepsakes, clothes and dried goods.

Here is the attic, full of dust and random stuff, some of which gets touched occasionally but most of which sits in dust for years. Not much difference there from its American counterpart.

In the back on the right is a large woven silo for unmilled rice (this spell-checker is telling me that "unmilled" isn't a word -- what other adjective am I supposed to use, then?? As an agriculture major, should I know this? ... I digress.) As the milled-rice stores become low, the family pulls some raw rice out of storage, dries it in the sun for a few days, and then aamaa carries it to the mill to be hulled.

There is another level of the attic evidenced by a narrow ladder in the far back corner, not visible in this photo... to be honest, I have not had any inkling of desire to see what is there. I leave it as the rats' realm to reign. Occasionally I hear them fighting or snacking on crumbs in my ceiling and am amusedly reminded of my late pet rats from the States.

A newly-built house constructed of nearly all wood and cement before painting.

Before I had any idea where I would be living for my two years of service, I was speaking with the Peace Corps staff member who assessed all of our volunteer host houses. "It's an old house," she said about my family's house. "I like it -- it's really nice." And, after seeing a lot of houses since then, I have to agree. I love the natural look and feel of dhunga-maato houses which are increasingly being replaced by concrete houses.

 

The guest room.

Next is the renovated annex. You can see the plastered brick-red mud has been replaced by a concrete floor and walls and modern-style paint. In this section of the house is the downstairs bedroom (above) which is used for guests -- or, alternatively, when my host mother is menstruating, because she is compelled to sleep in separate quarters during the period (pardon the pun). Generally it is empty; though sometimes it is occupied by the chickens when someone props the door open and forgets to look after it.

Mother-in-law style stairwell to my room.

The stairs leading up to my room above. The stairs and railing were a modification imposed on my host family by Peace Corps; the previous stairs were more haphazard and deemed a safety risk, so this nice set of stairs was built for me during my first month or so at site. I thought the railing was overkill at first but really do enjoy it. I use it for exercise and for hanging clothes up when it is raining. One family kid in particular likes to use it as a slide.

You can see a mosquito net door on the outside which was recently installed with the help of a carpenter. For some reason mosquitoes swarm on my doorstep every night (that is, during mosquito season ... or half the year). I can now have double the daylight indoor, a breeze moving fully through the room, and can wear short sleeves and shorts in my room in the evenings -- so, so nice.

My room in its natural state of chaos.

My room when I am expecting guests (almost never).

I honestly love my room so much -- it is spacious, comfortable, clean and has a huge window through which I can see the hills and mountains on clear days. I couldn't ask for nicer accommodations. It gets a lot of natural light (very important to me -- without it in my living space I get depressed). And it has a lot of privacy by virtue of its mother-in-law side entrance and second-story leveling, which is very unusual for Peace Corps volunteers. I love my room!!

Livestock accommodations -- outdoor.

Inside the goat shed, bottom floor.

Inside the goat shed, upper floor, feat. one of our beautiful roosters (not for long...)

Next we have the livestock shed. During the day the goats are tied as pictured; we bring them inside at night to protect them from animals (mostly leopards which roam the villages at night and snatch cats, dogs, and any poorly-kept livestock that can't defend themselves). The chickens are kept on both the bottom and top floors of the livestock shed. For the first 8 months or so at site the top floor was more of an attic storage space until my host parents bought a batch of chicks for raising, and then it was converted into a chicken coop.

The toilet/bathroom from the porch area. We use its tin roof to dry a variety of items when the sun is out.

Asian-style squat toilet. These things are great. I don't know how I will go back to using Western-style toilets... I know I am in the minority opinion on that one.

Simple bathroom/shower room with a faucet above (tank water) and below (spring water).

Last and likely least, the toilet and bathroom! These are made of wood supports and cement. When I arrived in village there was a much smaller and rougher toilet that didn't have much room to move around. My host family tore it down and built this nice new one, again a requirement from the Peace Corps office as part of the housing agreement. It is quite nice. From the toilet you can look out and see the hills if you leave the door open -- which I often do because, 1. I am lazy, and 2. I would rather have a view while I am on the toilet than be sitting in the dark. Nepal is alllllllll about the views.

Water for the toilet, bathroom and our (also newly built) tap run from two sources: the natural mountain-fed spring and one of the water tanks that serve the community. Our house and family are quite lucky: we rarely run out of water compared to other community members who have to fetch water by hand when supply runs out, sometimes for days or weeks at length, which mostly occurs during the dry season.

How often are you going to have a view like this from the toilet?

One night I was talking with my host parents about the future of the house. Aamaa and buwaa were sort of laughing -- my host brother will be inheriting the house after they pass. They wonder what he will do with it, though their hope is that he will keep it in its basic state as a testament to the family and traditional values. Though I have no stake in the matter it is hard to disagree after living here for a year. I hope when I return to Nepal in the coming decades this house will still be standing -- though there is no doubt that it is not going anywhere anytime soon.