KATHMANDU — As a child, Shankar Tiwari and his friends killed birds for fun around Chitwan National Park in central Nepal, where they grew up. Years later, a foreign guest at the hotel where Tiwari worked took him birdwatching and turned the hunter into a bird lover. The striking yellow and black plumage and red eyes of the black-hooded oriole (Oriolus xanthornus), which he saw magnified through binoculars for the first time, sparked Tiwari’s lifelong passion for birds, he said. Today, the 57-year-old is one of Nepal’s leading birdwatching guides and a prominent member of the country’s growing birdwatching community that is contributing to bird conservation while promoting it as a tourism attraction. Enthusiasts look for birds in Suryabinayak, Kathmandu Image courtesy of Prasan Shrestha. “The birdwatching community has grown significantly today,” he said. “This has helped not just in raising awareness of the birds, but the community also helps in keeping tabs on the birds — how their habitat and population have changed over the years.” A new study suggests that birdwatching is becoming increasingly popular in Nepal, particularly among the young, and that this trend “contributes to biodiversity conservation through public engagement and ecological data collection.” In Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, nonprofits like Bird Conservation Nepal (BCN) and Friends of Birds organize events on weekends, drawing a diverse group of birdwatchers. Despite the increasing popularity of birdwatching, the study notes, public participation and data sharing remain limited. A black-hooded oriole, the bird that sparked Tiwari’s lifelong passion for birds.…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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