Bhutan-4 Animals

We did see some animals on this trip, although it did not compare to what we saw in Puerto Deseado or Ushuaia, in Patagonia. Note the Golden Langur at the top of this post; I will discuss them further at the end of this post.

We stopped at one of the mountain passes, Pele La pass, because the local herders have small stands where they are selling yak wool textiles and reputedly the best prices. We did see Yaks strolling along the road.

Yes, the Yaks did have Yak Bells. You can hear them in the video.

On several occasions, we saw cows roaming.

There were wild horses, including this white one we saw on one of our hikes.

On the same hike, we saw some of the severely endangered Black-necked Cranes that we had learned about at the Royal Society for the Protection of Nature. Unfortunately, I did not have my telephoto lens with me.

We saw many Ravens.

Birders in my group identified this as a Yellow-billed Blue Magpie, and a Google Image search agrees.

Great Cormorant

We had a riverside picnic under a tent, and these otters were in the river below.

This cat was at one of the Chortens we passed on a hike.

On a bus trip, we stopped at a small snack shop for a restroom break, and saw this tiger.

On our drive to Wangdue, we stopped at the Royal Takin Preserve, a wildlife reserve area for the Bhutan takin, the national animal of Bhutan.

According to legend, the 15th-century saint Drukpa Kunley, known as the “Divine madman,” noted for his incredible virility (see previous post) was asked to perform a miracle by local villagers. He told them to bring him a cow and a goat to eat.
The villagers prepared the roasted cow and the goat and presented them to the Divine Madman, who immediately devoured both of them in minutes, leaving behind only bones. The Divine Madman then took the head of the goat, attached it to the skeleton of the cow, clapped his hands and the skeleton grew a full body, jumped up and ran into the meadow and began grazing. Because of this magical creation with religious implications, the unusual animal with a goat-like head on the body of a cow has been adopted as the national animal of Bhutan.

I did not get any really good pictures of a Takin. They were crowded near a fence where there were feeding troughs. The afternoon light was harsh, and the shadows from the chain link fence put these animals in poor lighting conditions.

Honestly, you can get much better pictures with a Google search for Takin Images.

There were also deer in the preserve.

We saw Yaks on the drive through Pele La pass (see above), and earlier that day we were travelling through a forest when we saw monkeys in the trees. Actually, they were not monkeys but Golden Langurs, an endangered species. Initially, I was taking pictures through the window of the bus, but then we stopped and got out to look at these amazing creatures.