Kirchlengern is a small town in eastern Westphalia. We spent a weekend in the countryside near it with friends. It was a perfect spring weekend, cool and sunny, with puffy clouds. Now and then they would gather in promise of rain, but then would scatter again to let us see the blue sky. “It’s perfect for a walk,” The Family said late in the afternoon, and everyone agreed. So we walked past the last houses, and past meadows full of buttercups and late daisies to the stream nearby. It’s called Ostbach, and it drains into the Else, which joins the Werre, which falls into the Weser, which flows into the North Sea.
We crossed a bridge over it. The river is shallow under it, strewn with rocks. Looking at the quick flowing water, I guessed that it would be deeper and broader upstream. That was the way we walked. The river floods now and then, so houses are built further away, leaving a lot of moist land to turn into meadows. The result is beautiful. I took a few photos: I’d not seen a spring day like this for a long time. I took my phone out of my pocket to take a few shots. In places like this, you don’t even have to think about structuring your photos. Depth arises naturally from perspective and scale. You can keep your mind on the beautiful present.
Sure enough, as we walked along the water turned placid and deep. This was the home of coots and geese. The banks were overgrown with wildflowers. I recognize very few of these flowers of north Europe, so I just admire them in passing. The path faded into squelchy mud in about a kilometer,. A little before that a fallen trunk was covered with mold and moss, with a scramble cleared over it by previous walkers.
On the way back I noticed places where there were path down to the water, and benches at the edges. You could come here with a book and a bag full of berries. Or you could spend a few hours fishing. Or, like us you could just meet with friends and walk past the benches. Anything at all is pleasant on a mellow spring day like this.
Quite a bit of snow had fallen overnight, as we discovered when we went out for a walk on our first morning in Abisko National Park. It wasn’t a surprise; the place was 250 Kms inside the polar circle. We had our warm layers on, and good boots, so we were comfortable enough, even though it was 15 below zero. Although I’d worn only the thinnest of gloves, so that I could handle my cameras, I could stick my hands in my pockets if I felt cold. It was a great walk.
As I walked on the fresh powder snow, the squeak under my boots sounded familiar. Slowly memories of these sensations began to come back to me: the soft sound of the snow compacting under your feet, the warmth spreading through me as I walked, the feel of the crisp air. I’d walked in cold before, and I’d enjoyed it. Later, The Family told me that she also recovered old memories of such walks. What was new to me was the sight of a frozen river below us. I liked this sight: the blue of the ice, the white of snow, the dark rocks and the birches, the pillowy softness of fresh snow and the specular smoothness of the ice.
A little further on, the path turned and we could look back at the waterfall we’d crossed, frozen in mid-cascade. Under it we could hear the water gushing, muffled under the covering layer of ice. It was the only sound in the quiet landscape. I recalled now how quiet snowy landscapes are: no bird calls, no voices, no sound except of water and air. We were fortunate with the weather, there was no cold wind blowing into our eyes and noses. At these low temperatures a walk is often more pleasant than it would be with the temperature around freezing, when there can be rain or sleet.
It was time to pause a while and look at the little details. At the bottom of the waterfall I could now see a little gap in the ice, that’s where the sound of water was coming from. I zoomed in to take a photo of the icy stalactites in this lowest layer of the frozen waterfall. That’s the featured photo. Closer at hand was the snow caught in the branches of birch trees. In the old days of film I’d tried to take photos of the texture of this snow, but never managed to control the exposure well enough. It turned out to be easier now; the lenses, sensors and software have got better.
We walked on, past a monumental plastic folly whose purpose was to tell us that we were inside Abisko national park. It was incongruous enough that I felt like taking a photo. The Family said “At least it can be removed easily if they change their mind about it. Better than leaving a concrete menhir there.” That’s true, I guess. We stepped up on a boardwalk to nowhere.
Far away one could see the big lake, Torneträsk, frozen through at this time of the year. As someone would tell us later, while lighting a bonfire on its frozen surface, “You can drive a tank across it”. But right in front of us was a field of soft snow, hiding the trail. I could see the bridge by which we would have to cross over the river again, and the trail was visible on the far side. Now, it was time to put my camera in my backpack, and change into a better pair of gloves, just in case. The remainder was a short walk though, and we would soon be back in the hotel for a coffee and a cinnamon bun.
Wakayama peninsula is known for two things in particular. The first is the Kumano Kodo trail, a religious pilgrimage route across the Kii mountain range. This is what most visitors come for, and it is now inscribed into the UNESCO world heritage list. The other is an old and living tradition of fishing all along the coast, with its harbours and villages. In one long day we sampled both. We took a four hours’ trip from Wakayama city to the village of Nachi-katsuura by a fast train, then a bus to the beginning of a pilgrimage route, walked uphill to the Kumano Nachi Taisha and the Nachi waterfall, and then came back. Although the twelve hour day was tiring, in retrospect it is one of the unexpected highlights of our trip.
We got off the bus at the Daimonzaka stop and walked to the beginning of the slope (zaka) that would take us to the big gate (dai mon). We took a shadow selfie at the sign which marks the beginning of the slope. Trying to read the three character sign, I was surprised that the first character is pronounced almost it would be in Chinese, rather than in modern Japanese. The steps wound through a forest. Bears have been a problem this year in Japan; so much so that the kanji of the year was chosen to be 熊 (kuma, meaning bear). I thought there were enough people on the trail to keep them away. I started taking photos along the route, but after climbing about two hundred steps I gave up.
After a little more than an hour’s uninterrupted climb we reached the last steps below the big gate that you see above. This would turn out to be the entrance to the Kumano Nachi Taisha. This houses the kami (the god) of the Nachi mountain. I understand that the worship of the kami of this mountain and two others that lie in this range are the oldest religious beliefs surviving in Japan. I do not know enough about the architecture of these shrines to be able to show you its telling details. Moreover, I was really hungry, and the last eateries were going to close soon, so we hurried through this complex.
According to Kojiki, the creation myth of Japan written in 712 CE, the first emperor, Jimmu-Tenno, landed in this peninsula, and walked to Nara. On the way he discovered Nachi waterfall and its kami. The shrine complex is big. From the top we could look over its rooftops to the beautiful three-story pagoda of the temple of Seiganto-ji and the waterfall. The temple to Kannon (Avalokiteshwara) was founded by a monk who is said to have come from India in the 4th century. The pilgrimage route was initiated by the emperor Uda in 907. It is interesting to follow a route that has been walked for over 1200 years. Bears would certainly have been more common when the route was new, and it might have been quite an act of bravery to make the pilgrimage.
We took a detour for a late lunch, centered on a very filling bowl of udon. After this we were too tired to walk back up to the shrine and get a view of Seiganto-ji with the waterfall at the back. In any case it was late, and neither would be in sunlight. Instead we took the shorter walk to the waterfall. The 133 m drop of the waterfall is truly spectacular. It is Japan’s tallest waterfall with a single drop. Even today one can understand why so many features of the landscape here are said to be embodied into kami.
With the end of our walk we took the bus back to Nachi-katsuura. It would be dark soon, but we had time to walk around the town once. The first discovery was a picturesque house with a very colourful door, two lovely windows, and a bench from which to watch people go by (that’s the featured photo). We walked on to the deserted harbour. It had a beautiful rock formation at its mouth. I’d been hoping to see some birds, but it was too late. Wakayama province is the birthplace of whaling. It started here in the 16th century, but now the coast is known for its tuna. As I stood on the pier and looked for birds, someone came along and offered to guide me through the tuna auction the next morning. It was a natural confusion. This town has an onsen, and many visitors stay overnight.
It was getting near the time of our train back. In that strangely deserted town we’d found only one restaurant open. We walked into Tuna Bowl Muromaru and found that it offered the freshest bluefin tuna sashimi that I’ve ever eaten. Maguro is my favourite, and this cut was marbled with fat, clearly a winter’s catch. A bowl of rice topped by this incredible sashimi and a bowl of miso soup was a nice meal to end the day with. We had time to sip their tea before we headed to the station to catch our train.
We drove up the road towards Chele La in the morning, and began our walk below the pass, at a height of a little above 3500 meters. This early in the morning the forest was full of bird calls. There were no animals up here; this western part of Bhutan has a relatively larger number of people and wild animals are scarce. No one else was in sight; very few cars passed us. It was a nice place for a walk.
It was a mixed forest with lots of tall deodars (Cedrus deodara), firs (Abies), pines (Pinus), and a handful of brown oaks (Quercussemecarpifolia). I’d learnt some time ago that a forest is a body of trees where the canopy covers the sky, so that the sun does not easily penetrate to ground level. On the other hand, grasslands are spaces where there may be none or many trees; but if there are trees, then grass grows below them, in sunlight. This was not truly a forest, but a typical Himalayan grassland. But language habits die hard, so I continue to call this a forest.
It had rained overnight, and there were puddles everywhere. Overhead were masses of cumulus clouds, moving slowly. We had to keep an eye on them, because when they begin to pile up a cloud or two can dump rain on you. I had my waterproof on, and everyone else in the company had raingear, or at least am umbrella. There were a few drops now and then, but fortunately there wasn’t a big shower.
I found it interesting that different kinds of lichens grow on different trees. The conifers have lichens which cling tight to the trunk, looking like splotches of paint. But every oak has leafy lichens and moss, sometimes even mistletoe and orchids. Fortunately, there was no mistletoe here to harm the few oaks. Lichens and orchids only use the wood as a substrate to grow on, and do not harm the tree.
We’d seen Kalij pheasants fleeing from the road as we drove up, reminding The Family and me of our first sighting of these birds, on the same road almost two decades ago. But during the walk we had many sightings of birds: a couple of gray-backed shrikes, several warblers and tits, Spotted nutcrackers, a bluetail, the several members of a family of grosbeaks, a rosefinch, a bullfinch, and a lifer in the shape of a juvenile Red crossbill (Loxia curvirostra) which came to investigate us. Soon it was time to bring out our picnic breakfast of sandwiches, bananas, boiled eggs and tea, supplemented by the little things that each of us had carried in our backpacks. We ate at the edge of a little field of cabbage, and then it was time to drive up to Chele La: Bhutan’s highest mountain pass.
I’m lucky to live in a part of a city with so many trees that it is not always easy to see the sky when you are walking on the road. I’m surrounded by the songs of birds which can be often as loud as the growl of traffic. I get practice in spotting birds, locating and identifying them by their calls even when I walk down the street to buy groceries. Still, it was nice to spend time walking in the forests of eastern Bhutan. How else could you be surprised by a little chorten under trees?
Spring and summer are good times in these forests. There are new leaves on trees: a beautiful fresh green in colour. And between them you see bunches of flowers. Whole trees, sometimes even whole stands of trees, are in bloom at this time. The colours are beautifully mellow, and need you to stop and admire them.
The most common animals in these forests are the strange birds, at least strange to my eyes. There are the White-breasted parrotbills (Paradoxornis ruficeps), busy picking berries, the beautiful Indian white-eyes (Zosterops palpebrosus), with their cheerful chirping, the occasional Large woodshrike (Tephrodornis virgatus), and the strutting Hoary-throated barwing (Actinodura nipalensis). All of them calling in spring time, looking for mates, or harvesting food for their young.
Less easily seen are the more numerous insects. You may feel their sting more often, or get to hear them. But actually spotting a cicada takes patience. A forest is beautiful even if you do nothing but walk slowly through it. But if you open your other senses to it: the changing smells, the different calls and sounds, and you begin to pay attention to the other inhabitants of the forest, your walk becomes much richer.
Bhutan is a land of cliffs, as we discovered when driving through it. The most spectacular of these was the Namling cliff in Monggar Dzonkhag, between Sengor and Yongkhola. The photo above shows the most beautiful of the cliffhangers: a lovely tree poised at the turn of the road on this cliff.
The most famous cliffhanger here was called the Bride’s Waterfall, known for its plunge of about 50 meters. As we moved through the basin of the Kuri river we found lots of small streams plunging down cliff faces. These spectacular waterfalls would often pass through small culverts, the actual amount of water being small. The Bride’s waterfall was different: it flowed over the road. There was a precarious older bridge that could only take light vehicles. It shook a little as I walked over it to look at the cliff from the other side.
A different cliffhanger here was a beehive. The Guru decided on the basis of a call that there was a honeyguide somewhere in the cliffs below us. At first the only thing I could see was a beehive. It took sharper eyes than mine to find the Yellow-rumped honeyguide (Indicator xanthonotus). It’s a tiny bird, about the size of a sparrow and while our search was not exactly like finding a needle in a haystack, it wasn’t so far from it either. I’m glad we found that lovely needle.
On the far side of the road, looking up was a different habitat. From somewhere in that deep forest we heard the call of a Ward’s Trogon. It tuned out to be slippery bird. But that’s another story.
When I woke up at 4 am the first thing I heard after the alarm was the sound of hard rain. There was no way we could go for a walk in that. So I rolled over and went back to sleep, leaving The Family to figure out what she wanted to do. She joined the rest of the group and sat with them on the long verandah looking at the rain until breakfast. When I joined them for the meal, the sun had come out.
It was bright and sunny, but the air was cold enough that a walk was needed to keep us warm. It was the perfect day to follow a long path that meandered through the cliffs above the village in Mongar dzongkhag. We looked down to see the cottages surrounded by fields with ripening grain. As we walked on, these open vistas alternated with views through tall trees: the sun streaming through the spring leaves in bright green.
We stopped often to listen to birds and look at them. I was also keeping an eye out for insects and orchids. That’s when I realized that we had picked up outriders. There were four dogs with us. Every time we stopped one or two would come back to thread through the group, bumping into us. After a couple of such encounters, one of us realized that the dogs were trying to herd us. They would run ahead, and if they lost sight of us on a bend, they would come back to look at us, while two tried to chivvy us on. They followed us all along our walk, looked disappointed when we turned back, but then followed us all the way back to our hotel. They seemed to belong there.
This early in spring some trees are just getting new leaves. It was only a few years ago that I noticed that new leaves of spring start off with the same beautiful reds and yellows that autumn leaves have when they fall. They change into the lovely colour of fresh green leaves as the production of chlorophyll starts. The sunlight falling on a bunch of newly opened leaves looked so startling that I took a photo. That’s what you see here.
What did we see? Too many birds and butterflies to list here. So here are two favourites. The bird is the Verditer flycatcher (Eumias thalassinus), a rather common bird. But for The Family and me it is bound to wonderful memories of spring times in Bhutan, because that’s where we first saw it eighteen years ago with another group of strangers who turned into very good friends. The butterfly is a new acquaintance: a Yellow coster (Acraea issoria) which I identified with a little work.
It was only when I looked at the photos from the walk that I noticed this beautiful farm house had prayer flags around it. They were the goendhar flags which I thought I did not have a photo of when I wrote an earlier post about the varieties of prayer flags in Bhutan. I also realized why I’d not remembered them. The farm house was in a lovely spot overlooking the valley. We walked around to the side which faces the valley and stopped with the farm house on one side and the beautiful sunny vista on the other. That remains my memory of this house, and the flags were on the other side of the building. I’m happy I noticed this photo.
Sweltering in the hot months of March and April, we looked forward to our trip to Bhutan. The unbearably hot weather of these months is captured by the unending calls of the hawk cuckoo: brain fever, brain fever, brain fever … Bhutan nestles in the Himalayas: the name of the mountain range means the home of mist. Its coolness put us in a mellow mood. We could finally pull on layers, cover our heads with a woollen cap, zip up our wind cheaters as we strolled over high passes, enjoy an al fresco breakfast below the 3988 meter high pass of Chele La in a silence broken only by the fluttering of prayer flags. A crossbill hung upside down from a tall deodar as we feasted on boiled eggs and bakarwadi. A pair of grosbeaks foraged at the far edge of the road as we sipped our tea. “The weather is lovely,” The Family said.
We were getting close to the end of our trip. A week before, at a much lower altitude, we’d stopped after crossing a mountain stream which plunged into a kilometer deep valley below us. The meadows and slopes around us were covered with wild strawberries: tiny pops of sweet and tart. As my companions picked them, I walked upstream to where the waters cascaded over a series of steps in the rock. I dipped my hands into the flowing water: a refreshingly biting cold. The air was still warm here, but this was a presaging of the lovely time we would have. Everyone was mellowing as we climbed higher, redstarts noted and then ignored in favour of the strawberries.
A couple of days later we stopped at another such horseshoe bend in a road around a waterfall. We were in the middle heights now, the weather cooler, the rocks more imposing. The stream flowed over the road, so there was a waterfall above us, and another below. Through the constant sound of the cascading waterfalls we heard birdcalls. This was a rich area, yielding honeyguides, a trogon, and even a scarlet finch. We were all in good spirits as Wangchuk and Tashi unpacked yet another picnic breakfast.
Strolls on these high roads were wonderful, the weather constantly cycling between gentle rain (raindrops so small that the rain is called egg of hilsa) and a mellow overcast sunlight, until in the middle of the morning the clouds would part briefly to let the sun feed leaves. The countryside is completely forested, people and houses were nowhere in evidence most of the day. We saw bands of monkeys now and then, usually very shy of us. The twitter of birds was all around us. I have yet to develop a good eye for forest birds, but there were several in our company who helped. We saw no deer, once a band of serow, lots of butterflies when the sun came out, and other insects. Wild edible fruits hung from trees. It was a wonderful season in this lovely place. If I had more time, and I was alone, I would not mind sitting down to watch the hills erode.
Our first walk in Bhutan was on roads through the forested slopes near Dewathang. This is a village in the district of Samdrup Jongkhar which has a bit of history. It was the headquarter of Jigme Namgyal when he launched his last battle of the Duar war against the British empire in 1864. He lost, and signed the Treaty of Sinchula, thereby ceding the Duars to India. His son eventually became the first of the modern kings of Bhutan. We finished our lunch and drove for about thirty minutes before starting our walk.
The eastern part of Bhutan is heavily wooded. The elevation was low, a little over 1500 meters. On these lower slopes the rivers are already big, even before they fall into the plains and merge with the Teesta. With two storm systems on the two sides of the Indian peninsula, the weather was unsettled throughout our trip. I had my raincoat on, but the gloomy light neither let up nor developed into a shower. There were plenty of birds, but this light made them hard to photograph. Very soon we came to a bridge with colourful prayer flags strung along it, across the river. This is always a signal to me that the culture has changed, and I would be spending some time with the soft-spoken people of the hills.
At a bend in the road we came to a large statue of the Rinpoche, Guru Padmasambhava. He is credited with bringing the teachings of the Buddha to the hills. Our guide, Tashi, explained that he is sometimes regarded as a second Buddha. The huge statue had been commissioned by the current king. Across the road from this shrine were votive flags. I’d not seen the conical shape before. Tashi said that it is a recent fashion. I’d not thought of fashions in the expression of this religion before, but I guess that is human nature.
We’d come on this trip for birding, and that is best done on foot. So we proceeded until the light began to fail. My last photo is the header. We came to a single house, the first we’d seen in more than an hour. Three generations sat on the bench outside. When I smiled at them all three smiled back. But my photo did not capture their smile because the young one was distracted and tried to get down from the bench.
Gym thrice a week is now my routine. It’s a twelve minutes’ walk through tree-lined roads which run just below a wooded hill. The woods are a wilderness, now the object of contention between the municipal council (which wants to “develop” it) and citizens (who want that wilderness left in the middle of the city). As I start my walk I can hear a thin high-pitched cry. I look up and see a black kite circling overhead, wings twitching slightly as it adjusts its line of attack against the thermals which are already rising steadily before ten in the morning. The trees around our apartment hold noisy bulbuls. I can hear both the red-vented and the red-whiskered species as I walk out. Sometimes there’s a koel with its repetitive call. I’m glad it’s not there today.
I turn right at the end of the lane, pass the little shops which are yet to open (except the tiny restaurant run by three brothers where a bunch of young doctoral students are having their breakfast). The screech of the rose-ringed parakeets is dubbed in today with the more musical tones of their plum-headed cousins. I don’t look for any of them; they are common. A couple of mynas scrabble in the dust, and for the first time today I hear a house crow.
Just past the shops I turn into the gate of the neighbouring complex. Two empty plots stand there, one on each side of the road. In one I always hear an Indian white-eye, but I haven’t spotted it yet. Every morning I think of coming here the next day with my camera to look for it. The other lot is full of the calls of house sparrows. A scooter scoots past me, filling the air with the noise and smell of a badly tuned two-stroke engine. Sometimes I’ve heard pale-billed flowerpeckers around here, but not today.
After that I come to a line of two-storied houses, each with its own garden. A Laburnum tree is covered with yellow flowers in one. Two months ago I’d stopped to admire the first flowers on my way back from the gym and heard a green warbler there. I find them hard to spot in this greenery, specially with the strong sun and deep shadows. Other houses have Bougainvillea, in full bloom at this time of the year: magenta, white, pink, and a yellow-orange. In them I hear purple sunbirds and purple-rumped sunbirds. Since there are many of them, they are not hard to spot either, even as I go past without breaking stride.
The road rises slightly from here on. This corner is purple with the flowers of a jacaranda in a garden. I turn left and see the hill in front of me. I can now hear a laughing dove. Soon the percussive call of a coppersmith barbet cuts in. Once I heard a white-cheeked barbet here. Unsure of it, I asked on a birders’ group whether anyone has seen one such on this hill, and several people replied that they have. I’m assured that I wasn’t mistaken. Before the weather heated up I’d seen green bee-eaters here, a tawny pipit, and even the brilliant scarlet and black of a small minivet. A couple of weeks ago I’d spotted a common woodshrike on a branch. Today I hear jungle babblers.
I listen to the many calls which I can’t identify. But among them is a deep call of a large-billed crow. I look for it, but it must have flown away. As I look up I see a couple of parakeets flying far above. Their call is different: Alexandrine parakeets I realize. They are big. There’s a wall around the enclave. I pass a gate (see the featured photo) which would allow me to go up into the hill. But it is closed and locked. I’ve seen cats squeeze through, and once from the gym I saw one stalking something unseen. I hope they don’t kill off all the birds here. I hear a spot-breasted fantail, but its call is drowned in the harsh calls of peacocks. The hill is seared brown now, and the lack of rains makes fire a real possibility. But in it the scarlet flowers of the flame of the forest are in profuse bloom.
I’ve been hearing a white-throated Kingfisher for several days as I walk through the trees: the last stragglers of the wooded hill which are standing in the middle of these houses. This stretch is wild enough that I’ve once seen a family of grey mongoose scuttling across the path. Finally I hear magpie-robins; they like this middle ground between people and woods. But then there is an unexpected call: a common sandpiper? It is possible, there’s a lake a couple of kilometers away, and stray waders do come this way. I’m at the gym now and the percussion of hip-hop drowns out all calls of birds.
Don't hold your breath 
