Nepal's cawing 'bird brother' amazes crowds, raises awareness

Reuters Nov 6, 2013, 07.56PM IST

KATHMANDU: A young man with a microphone stepped onto a small stage and cawed like a crow. Minutes later, hundreds of noisy birds circled above him, perched on trees and sat on roof tops, astounding the crowd at a show called the "crow conference".

Gautam Sapkota, fondly known in Nepal as "charidada" or "bird brother", then made another series of sounds. The crows fell silent before disappearing into the grey sky before dusk.

"I told them to come, sit, be quiet and fly away," said Sapkota, a 30-year-old school dropout who has been doing "crow shows" at schools since 2005 to entertain students and raise awareness about nature and the conservation of birds.

He says he can imitate the sounds of 251 kinds of birds and hopes for recognition of his talents from Guinness World Records. He plans to broaden his conservation message with an album that remixes Nepali songs with the sound of a crane.

"I want to preserve the sounds of birds which may eventually become extinct, by keeping them in recordings," he said.

Conservationists say 149 of Nepal's 871 bird species face the threat of extinction. Although not considered to be threatened, crows are disappearing fast.

Sapkota has given more than 3,200 shows in 66 of Nepal's 75 districts and received an award from the conservation group WWF-Nepal for his efforts.

Continued

In love with birds

KATHMANDU: As a child he used to enjoy in the wilderness for hours. Though away from green woods and wildlife, he stills longs to be with nature. So, at the age of 45, Dr Hem Sagar Baral is seen in the courtyard of his house pottering with trees. This love for nature and its creatures was one factor that brought Dr Baral close to nature making him the first ornithologist of Nepal with a PhD. 

His contribution to discover four grassland bird species in Nepal along with conducting different activities for bird conservation independently and in association with various institutions has made him a valuable ornithologist of Nepal.

Childhood in wilderness

Born on October 12, 1967 in Prakashpur village of eastern Nepal, Dr Baral liked outdoor activities from a young age. Because his village was very close to Koshi Tappu wildlife reserve, “I often used to go there to enjoy the wilderness,” he says. But his family migrated to Dhangadhi, far-west of Nepal when he was 10 years old.

Dhangadhi was a “big change” for him in terms of language, culture and people there. But the wilderness was “still the same”.

Travelling was another thing that he enjoyed as a child. Even today he remembers walking the entire Churia hill with his father to buy a buffalo. “My father was like a vagabond who loved travelling and I too acquired that characteristic from him,” he expresses.

And as a student, “he had a strong desire to study biology”. So, despite lack of textbooks and trained teachers, he studied biology in school and even at college though Dr Baral “was never a good student”. However, encouraging words of two teachers — Tulsi Dhar Bhandari and Sushila Sitaula — turned him “into a good boy”. And he became the only student to pass SLC in his batch in 1983 (2040 BS).

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