| Special Interest Tours |
| |
- Guided Bird Watching
- Tiger Tracking
- Rhino Photography
- Demoiselle Crane Migration watching and Filming in Mustang
- Bird Watching
- Medieval cultural tour of Kathmandu
- Red Panda tracking
- Jeeping to Upper Mustang
- Snow Leopard and hight altitude animals tracking
- Festivals of Kathmandu
- Chariot Festival of Kathmandu
- Ethnic trails of the Himalaya
- Mahsheer Fishing
- Temples, palaces, courtyards and alleys of Kathmandu Bhaktapur, Patan, Kirtipur, Sankhu and Bungamati
Wild Tiger Tracking:
Best way to spot a tiger is to spend as long as you can in their prime habitat and follow their tracks, scats, kill, and search their lair. In order to do this a is a marathon walk, elephant safari, canoe ride, jeep safari from one end to the other of the Chitwan National Park and or Bardia National Park, where there are over 100 tiger living in the wild. Remember tiger is a a very shy animal hence needs all the privacy he loves.
Duration is about four days, and the bonus is about 150 species of birds, two species of crocodiles, sloth bear, wild elephants, rhinos and other peripheral wildlife.
Best itme of the year is May when it is very hot for the tigers too. They do come out of their shelter to and bath in the cool streams. Best place is Bardia National Park where there are more tiger and prey species and less tourists.
Honey Hunting
Twice a year in the Himalayan foothills of central Nepal teams of men gather around cliffs that are home to the world's largest honeybee, Apis laboriosa. As they have for generations, the men come to harvest the Himalayan cliff bee's honey.
This was also documented in a BBC2 documentary in August 2008 entitled Jimmy and the Wild Honey Hunters-Sun. An English farmer travelled into the Himalayan foothills on a honey hunting expedition. The world's largest honeybee, Apis laboriosa is over twice the size of those in the UK where their larger bodies have adapted to the colder climate for insulation. The documentary involved ascending a 200 foot rope ladder and balancing a basket and a long pole to chisel away at a giant honey comb of up to 2 million bees and catch it in the basket.
The harvest ritual, which varies slightly from community to community, begins with a prayer and sacrifice of flowers, fruits, and rice. Then a foire is lit at the base of the cliff to smoke the bees from their honeycombs.
Honey Hunting is the real and frequent activity of indigenous Gurung, Magar and Tamang Community in Nai Chi, Dare, Naya Gaun, Ludhi, Bhujung and Pasgaon for honey hunting from which they are able to solve their problem of bread and butter. This ancestral job of honey hunting still continues in many remote villages of Nepal while offering high tourism potential. A large section of travelers are increasingly showing their interest in honey hunting thereby ensuring staple sources of local revenue generation. Nevertheless, few lucky tourist get chance to observe honey hunting on spot while traveling along the trekking routes. There are myriad be nests found in the inner and outer rings of different trekking areas which if professionally scientifically and technically managed, provides an immense potentiality of promoting honey hunting as an add- on product.
Butterflies of Nepal
Country status
Nepal houses excellent representation of butterflies found both in Oriental and Palaearctic realms. The total diversity of butterfly reported so far comprises about 650 species out of 20000 species found in the world. All these species are categorized under 11 families of the existing 15 families in the world. About 29 species and subspecies have been found endemic to the country.
Himalayan and Mountain species
Butterflies have been found thriving at the maximum altitudinal level of 5500 meter in the Himalayas. Parnassius acdestis (Sikkim Banded Apollo), Aglais ladakensis (Ladak Tortoise Shell) and Pontia sherpae (Sherpa White) exist in such high level of altitude in the West Himalayas. Parnassius species (Apollo) are confined above 2700 meter of elevation stretching from east to the west Himalayas. Speciation has been found high among the Himalayan species.
Mid mountain region is the meeting point both for the Palaearctic and oriental species. Among the notable and rare species found in this part include Teinopalpus imperialis (Kaiser-E –Hind), Papilio krishna (Krishna Peacock) and many other interesting species.
Species Richness in Kathmandu
The valley floor of Kathmandu and it’s surrounding mountains remarkable and display more than 360 species of butterflies of different status level. Teinopalpus imperialis, Papilio krishna, Diagora nicevillei, Troides aeacus etc. are the notable species found in Kathmandu. The southern part stretching from Godavari to the Phulchowki can be considered to be one of the most potential sites for the butterflies of Nepal.
Butterflies of Shivapuri National Park
Shivapuri National Park is the next hot spot for the diversity of the butterflies concerned. Studies carried out in different periods revealed the existence of 102 species of butterflies in this Park. Rare species like Papilio krishna has been reported at an elevation of 2120 meter of Shivapuri Mountain.
Endangered species
(Based on Butterflies of Kathmandu Valley by Colin Smith and Bhaiya Khanal).
About 20 Kathmandu Valley Species have been listed in Nepal’s Red Data Book as Endangered or Vulnerable. Four very attractive butterflies of Kathmandu that are under this threat level include Teinopalpus imperialis, Meandrausa gyas, Papilio krishna and Euripus consimilis. Similarly Phaedyma aspasia Kathmandia is the endemic subspecies reported from Godavari, the southern Kathmandu. Species like Amblopala avadiena nepalica, is the next endemic subspecies reported from the Nagarjun forest of the northwest Kathmandu.
Game fishes of Nepalese rivers.
|
S. No
|
Common/
Local Name
|
Scientific Name
|
Size
|
Weight
|
Habitat
|
Bait
|
Season
|
|
1.
|
Mahasheer/
Sahar
|
Tor putitora
|
2.5 m
|
50 kg
|
Large and deep rivers
|
fish
|
Mar. - May./Oct. - Dec
|
|
2.
|
Deep Bodied Mahasheer
|
Tor tor
|
3 m
|
50 kg
|
Large and deep rivers
|
fish
|
Mar. – May/Oct - Dec
|
|
3.
|
Copper Mahasheer /Katle
|
Acrossocheilus hexagonolepis
|
.6 m
|
5 kg
|
Large and deep river
|
Fish and meat
|
Mar- June / Sep. - Nov.
|
|
4.
|
Fresh Water Shark/Gounch
|
Bagarius bagarius
|
3 m +
|
100 kg +
|
Large and Deep rivers
|
Fish
|
Mar. - May/Oct – Dec.
|
|
5.
|
Jalkapoor
|
Clupisoma gaura
|
.5 m
|
1 kg
|
Large and deep rivers
|
Worms and meat
|
Mar. May/Oct. Dec
|
|
6.
|
Fresh Water Eel/Raj Bam
|
Anguilla bengalensis
|
3 m
|
18 kg
|
River and pools
|
Frogs and worms
|
Mar – May/ Oct. – Dec.
|
|
7.
|
River Catfish/
Bachawa
|
Silondia silondia
|
.5 m
|
2.5 kg
|
River confluence
|
Worms and meat
|
Mar – May/ Oct. – Dec
|
|
8.
|
Giant Murrel/
Saur
|
Channa maurilus
|
2.5
|
15
|
River, stream and lakes
|
Worms, fish and insects
|
Feb. – May/Oct to Dec
|
|
9.
|
Mud Eel/Hile Bam
|
Amphipnous (Monopterus) cuchia
|
.8 m
|
1.5 kg
|
River, stream, lakes and swamps
|
Meat
|
Feb. – Apr.
|
|
10.
|
Feather Back/
Patali
|
Notopterus notopterus
|
1 feet
|
1kg
|
River, streams and lakes
|
Worm, insects and meat
|
Feb. - May / Sept - Dec
|
|
11.
|
Knife Fish/
Chitala
|
Notopterus chitala
|
2
|
8 kg
|
River, streams and lakes
|
Worms, insect and meat
|
Feb. - May / Sept - Dec
|
|
12.
|
Catfish/Buari
|
Wallago attu
|
1.8 m
|
12 kg
|
River, streams and lakes
|
Fish, insects and meat
|
Feb. – June/Sept. – Nov.
|
|
13.
|
Tenger Catfish/
Tengri
|
Mystus seenghala
|
.4 m
|
?
|
River streams
|
Fish, insects and meat
|
Jan – June/Sept. - Nov
|
|
|
|
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