During my first two trips to Nepal I would go to the balcony of the Hotel Tibet in Kathmandu and watch many flocks of birds fly away from the main part of the city at dawn and back toward the city at dust. Occasionally I would see white birds in the distance that I guessed were egrets. Those two trips were in November. Last year I visited in March and April and discovered many cattle egrets building nests above the busy, noisy main drag, Kanti Path, just above the walls to the old palace compound. I had not noticed them the two previous trips even though they were along the route I often walked from my hotel to Thamel, perhaps because they were not busy building nests. After completing the Annapurna Circuit trek we spent a day in Pokhara, and I also found cattle egrets constructing nests there.
Here is a photo of the area in Kathmandu where the egrets were nesting. It is followed by a slide show of the egrets I saw in both cities. All photos were taken with a 200 mm lens—the longest I had with me in Nepal.
