A couple of years ago, I hand-delivered a top quality nesting box to my colleague in Nepal, Dev Narayan Mandal, the Founder of our partner NGO, The Mithila Wildlife Trust. Such items are not readily available in Nepal or are not made to the very exacting specifications that birds require. It has taken all this time for the first birds to move in (I think they are cautious of human smells that accompany a newly installed box), in this case the Cinereous Tit, otherwise known as the Asian Tit (Parus Cinereus).

As well as being a fellow bird enthusiast, Dev happens to be a brilliant wildlife photographer. But he has found it challenging to capture the title picture and the images below of these birds that flit in and out so quickly, busy with nest material and now, happily, with food for their nestlings.

The Cinereous Tit isn’t a rare bird, but there is a shortage of nesting sites because of habitat loss on Nepal’s southern plains. We can remedy that by copying the design of this box and by installing initially around twenty of them at safe locations not far from the Mithila Wildlife Trust office.

Other birds like the Lesser Adjutant Stork don’t have to worry too much about finding a site and can be quite leisurely in their daily routine. Here is a picture of a couple of storks taken near one of our rapid-growth Miyawaki forests in the Kamala River Basin area of south Nepal. Picture also by Dev.