Watch the birds

The feathered friends are key to conservation as their ecological roles far supersede human capacities.

In an exciting development for bird lovers, conservationists and ornithologists, a large flock of the endangered Asian woolly-necked stork was spotted in eastern Chitwan in mid-April this year. In the days that followed, while the country was on a stay-at-home order amid the Covid-19 situation, ornithologists recorded some 28 storks in the area since the first sighting by villagers. Two things, conservationists believe, contributed to this development in Chitwan where sightings of this bird species are rare—reduced human activity during the lockdown and reduced use of pesticides by farmers.