By Amrit Prasad Poudel
Myagdi, Sept. 21: For the first time in Nepal, a new species of bird has been found in the upper part of the Trans-Himalayan district of Mustang.
A bird never seen before in Nepal was noticed in upper Mustang. The bird named “European Roller” has been spotted in Kekighang of Lomanthang Rural Municipality of Mustang district.

Rishi Baral, head of the National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC), Annapurna Conservation Area Project, Jomsom said Ram Bahadur Gurung, an employee of the ECAP Area Conservation Office in Lomanthang, managed to capture the bird at Lomanthang Rural Municipality-5, Kekighang at an altitude of 3,781 meters.

Baral said, “After the bird was found, a picture was taken and sent to ornithologist Dr. Hem Sagar Baral and Som GC for verification and they also confirmed the bird is European Roller.”
They have also sent pictures of the bird to ornithologists Tom Inskip and Carol Inskip for further confirmation. “If they confirm it to be European Roller, we are confident that we have identified a new bird,” Baral said.
Earlier, 518 different species of birds were found in the Annapurna Conservation Area, but one more is added now, said Baral.

After seeing the new type of bird, Ram Bahadur Gurung took a picture and sent it to the head of the office.
According to Baral, the bird was last seen in the Kekighang area of Lomanthang for three days.
Gurung spotted the bird first while travelling with locals to study an alternative footpath to Chojung Gumba in Lomanthang Rural Municipality.

Gurung, who took the picture on the first day, found out that the bird was new and took some more pictures in later days. With this the total number of bird species in Nepal has reached 889.