Himalayan Romance and River Dragons
High up in the Himalayas lives a society of svelte birds, the black-necked cranes. Each fall they cross the sky-scraping range from the highlands of Tibet to the north, and settle in for winter among the alpine valleys of Bhutan, Nepal, and India to the south. There are only around 11,000 individuals, and it seems to have always been this way. No human interference has caused this; they have a small population by nature. When the cranes come soaring in flocks from those deep blue heavens, the swift silky air quietly bears their chamber-timbred gawking down as they recongregate and gradually return to terra firma in wide circling turns. One place they like to end their migration is beside the Gangteng Monastery, on a little hill in the Phobhjikha Valley of Bhutan. They grace the valley with their cloud-white black-fringed wings, their slender black necks and heads, red crown, and glacier-clear eyes.
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