Another reportage from a semi-rural suburb of Pokhara...
And when I say "semi-rural", I mean this type of area:
The green neighborhood in the bottom (a photograph from my walk from Pokhara to Sarangkot).
It's an area of private houses, corn fields, freely roaming buffalos as well of guesthouses, homestays, and even hotels of a posher level - it's called Sedi. That's where I have already been staying for 2 months.
Quite a typical view for Sedi, however, I am staying higher on the slope, with more 2-floor houses and gardens, with pathways running between them.
That's where I live - in this building but from the opposite side.
On my birthday, May 18, around 3:15 pm I left the room and headed to the lower parts of Sedi to photograph whatever I would come across on the way. And at that very time, I noticed an owl...
I had never seen an owl in the daylight! Always in the dusk, and normally - only wing flaps in the dark, and me enchantedly sighing - "an owl!"
As a cat person, of course, I love owls.
Because they are obviously cats of the birds.
I always felt a sort of cursed 'cause I never could enjoy the beauty of this bird while spotting an owl isn't a rare thing in this world.
But at last, the spell was lifted!
Believe me or not, I found this beauty not leaving the yard of the guesthouse. I had only 50mm on my camera at the moment and had to rush back to the room to swap it for 70-300mm. Of course, I was afraid the owl would leave but no, she was patiently waiting for me to mount a telephoto lens.
I later found her species: the spotted owlet (Athene brama). They live in South Asia - India, Nepal, Bangladesh - as well as Southeast Asia - including Thailand.
This owl was neither timid nor secretive. The fun fact is that I couldn't make her open her eyes (the pictures above I took later).
Although she noticed me, she wasn't scared of me and kept trying to sleep.
In the meantime, I was trying all sort of shouts, cries, and whistles to see her amazing eyes.
She didn't care, and was trying to focus on the sleep:
I was making my way closer to her through the thick bushes growing under the tree, and twigs were snapping beneath my feet...
At last, she got disturbed enough to check the things this way:
When I was 3 meters from her tree, she woke up and changed a branch but didn't leave her tree.
That was a sign that I crossed the line, and I decided to leave her alone to let her sleep...
I focused then on another cool feature of this part of Nepal:
Epiphytes. I heard it's dry here in winter, however it's also cold at that time: +7C (47F) at night is normal. As for the warmer part of the year, it never lacks water here - rains are regular, and downpours are wild, like, really WILD. And the result is all those tiny, charming plants on trees.
Some of them are ferns and there are many orchids.
They say they bloom in the monsoon season, and that's quite soon so I will have a post or two about these wondrous plants.
That how my birthday in Pokhara looked: +28, sunny weather, softened by some kind of haze.
I didn't say anybody in the guesthouse - have no real friendship here, and imposing any sort of celebration would be silly and could bring nothing else than a soft, slightly awkward type of fun, nobody actually needs.
Moreover, why? - if I don't eat cakes anymore, lol. (Keep avoiding fast carbs).
That evening, I immersed myself in reading about the spotted owlet and editing photos. A lovely birthday gift from the Universe, it was. 😊
More stories from Nepal are coming! Stay tuned! 😎
The owlet photos were taken with a Nikkor 70-300mm on a full-frame DSLR Nikon D750 on May 18, 2026, in Sedi, Pokhara, Nepal