Ihtisham Kabir

Birders may go through many phases in their birding life.

We are a perpetually curious group. Like members of secret societies of the Middle Ages, we quickly recognize each other.

Whenever I hear “Thick-knee” I think of Majeda Haq, birder, conservationist and friend who left this world too soon in 2019.

We all have our notion of “good-looking” when it comes to people. This idea extends to other creatures.

One of my most memorable jobs was being waiter. My cousins in Chicago had invited me to spend the summer after college freshman year. Looking for summer work there, I responded to a newspaper advertisement and was hired after an interview. My title was Waiter at the restaurant of Metropolitan Club on the 67th floor of Chicago’s Sears (now Willis) Tower.

Screaming loudly and wildly flapping their wings, the ducks abruptly took off from the water about two hundred feet from our boat.

The Red Munia entered my childhood through a story about the Creator painting birds after creating them. However, one fidgety bird has flown off before being painted and returns just when He finishes. There are a few drops of paint remaining with which He splatters this bird. And so this exquisite bird was created with spots of white sprinkled on red.

On a summer morning several years ago I climbed up the watchtower in Satchori National Park looking for birds. In two hours I saw little.

Many people exercise for fitness and good looks but I exercise to stay out of trouble.

The year was 1989. Right after I started working at Silicon Valley’s Sun Microsystems, I was at a dinner party. My friends were inquisitive about this high-flying company. I offered two observations: every other car in the parking lot was a Porsche, BMW or Mercedes; and every other (male) engineer had a ponytail.

Sometimes an ordinary event triggers an extraordinary flood of memory.

Birds do funny things sometimes.

When we look at a photograph, our eyes latch on the main subject and zero in. Only then do we understand the photograph and respond to it emotionally.

My most memorable encounter with a dove took place in Kalenga forest in Habiganj. After a long unproductive day I was about to exit the forest. Ahead on the trail was a small bridge. From nowhere a green Emerald Dove descended on the bridge and puttered around, perhaps ten feet from me. Here was a gorgeous bird, normally elusive, so close to my camera. In a minute or two it turned a dismal day into a joyful one.

In Madagascar, nine out of ten species of flora and fauna are endemic. That is, they are found in Madagascar and nowhere else. When looking through photographs from a trip in 2017, I am vividly reminded of this fact.

Night was falling when we left our hotel in a small town in northern Queensland. By the time we reached the forest inside the adjacent national park it was dark.

Lalbagh Kella in Old Dhaka is an unfinished but picturesque Moghul fort with surrounding gardens. It was started in 1678 by Prince Azam, son of Emperor Aurangzeb. After the prince was recalled to Delhi, construction continued under governor Shaista Khan. But Khan’s daughter Pori Bibi died suddenly, leaving him heartbroken. The half-done project, now deemed inauspicious, was abandoned.

I read a book about goshawks long before I saw one. A Northern Goshawk is the star of H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald. It is the riveting true story of the author training her newly acquired goshawk, and how her relationship with this wild bird of prey enabled her to cope with severe depression and emotional crisis following her father’s death.

I went to the U.S. on a scholarship as an undergraduate Physics major. After a semester, however, I was having trouble believing fundamental concepts of modern physics. So I changed my major to Electrical Engineering. Being strong in mathematics I jumped right in and earned decent grades. The switch did not cost me extra semesters. But troubles of conviction continued nagging me. I could not envision a career designing electric circuits.

The first bird that many remember from childhood might be an owl. In my case, there was a massive Krishnachura tree just behind our house.