After an amazing morning I was moving on towards the next valley, but I did not get far before I encountered yet another exciting mammal – the third of the langur species in Bhutan.
My first reaction was how big it was – so much bulkier than the capped langurs I had encountered. It was sitting all alone by the side of the road, and I was hoping it was reacting the same way as my encounter with the lone caped langur some days earlier. That one was even walking closer to the car.
Alas – this one was timid and moved downhill as soon as the car had stopped and I opened the window. I hoped it would return out of curiosity, but after some waiting I decided to slowly approach to see where it had gone, only to realize it was indeed on its way back up to it previous position and now I had ruined a close encounter.
We decided to drive a little further and stop after a bend in the road to see if we could see it approaching from above. It was in fact sitting just as I have captured here, and with a distance of about 80 meters it did not feel concerned about me or the car.
Like the capped langur I encountered by the roadside earlier on in my journey, this one also looked a bit lost, or perhaps without a direction. It was not eating, nor looking for anything to eat, instead it was sitting in one location for a long time, watching and listening. Just as it did by the road when I first encountered it. Had it been expelled from its group? Had it left the group to find his own female and start his own group?
Some time later that day I encountered a group of grey langurs further down the road, and I wonder if that was his group, and perhaps that he eventually went back to it after a day of solitary adventures.
Elevation: 3270 meters
Last updated on 24 November 2020
