Nepal, Aug. 6 -- It was late afternoon on the universally dreaded Monday. I had been staring at my computer screen all day, barely able to write two full paragraphs. I had a whole thesis to write, yet I was struggling with a mere introduction. A break was what I needed-from the computer and from the frustration of my writer's block.

I've always been a nature lover; I appreciate nature and natural beings. Listening to the melody of birds, the fluttering wings of butterflies, the buzz of bees, the greens of the grasses, and the explosions of colour in the flowers rejuvenate me. As my PhD was forging me into a scientist, it was also forging me into a naturalist, more specifically a hard-core birder. I had been a birder for a long time, but ...