Ihtisham Kabir

Like a high-wire acrobat the tiny bird tiptoes forward on the thin horizontal hibiscus branch, step by step. The branch swings up and down with the bird’s weight but the grip of its claws remains firm. As it approaches the flower terminating the branch, its patience runs out. Abandoning the circus act, it jumps up, hovers for a split second in the air, propels itself forward and lands on the flower’s base. Opening its beak, it extends its needle-like tubular tongue and inserts it into the flower’s base.

Ten years ago, I wrote a Tangents column called “Grandmother’s Diet.” The idea was this: in this age of processed and factory manufactured food, how does one choose what’s best for health? The notion – originally presented by Michael Pollan - is to avoid items that your great-grandmother (or, in my case, my grandmothers) would not recognize as food.

It was hypnotic: a persistent tunk-tunk-tunk sound with a muted texture, like a blacksmith tapping a metal pot with a hammer, its rhythm precise as a metronome.

It is impossible to adequately describe the exhilaration upon spotting a Scarlet Minivet inside the forest. High up in the canopy, where you have to squint to discern between branches and leaves, a flash of bright red darts from leaf to leaf and branch to branch like a mirage. You squint harder, shaking your head, thinking you are imagining things. As if reading your mind it sits still for a second to convince you it is real. Then it takes off. You think it is gone but wait... freezing mid-flight it hovers to check under a leaf where it finds a juicy larva. And then it flies away for good, leaving you asking yourself, “What did I just see?”

Details of our tour of Mexico in 1991 had started fading from my memory. A hazy outline remained: after a few days in Mexico City my wife and I had flown to the provincial town of Oaxaca and explored nearby ruins. Next we had gone to Cancun to swim in the warm Caribbean waters. At the end we had flown back to California which was our home at the time.

I was disappointed when I saw my first munia some years ago.

Before the pandemic I travelled to many countries in search of birds and wildlife. During the dark days of the pandemic I found myself longing for those places.

Taking in a sharp breath and forgetting to exhale is a common reaction when watching a flying male Asian Paradise Flycatcher.

While we may not give them a second look, sparrows have distinguished lineage. They lend their name, Passer, to the order Passerines, which comprises more than half of the world’s bird species. Another name for Passerine is songbird.

In 1983, upon completing my engineering education in the United States, I took a software engineering job in California’s Silicon Valley.

I was walking downhill along a narrow plantation trail in Moulvi Bazar when my eyes caught movement in the Kodom tree abutting a pond at the end of the trail.

Four species of deer are found in Bangladesh: spotted deer, barking deer, sambar deer and hog deer.

In late 2019, while visiting Bandarban with friends, I saw a medium sized brown bird perched on a distant tree. It looked like a bird of prey. After looking through my binoculars for a few seconds, I saw a crest of upright feathers on its head. Instantly I knew it was a Baza, or “Baaj Pakhi” of my childhood.

I thought I knew everything I needed to know about photography. Then I found myself in a photography workshop taught by Sam Abell. That week ten years ago changed my photographic life.

One day, I was looking for birds in Hail Haor, a low-lying wetland near Moulvi Bazar where monsoon rain accumulates in large saucer-shaped depressions creating beels and fishponds.

I became interested in the work of the Goulds after noticing that two of the prettiest birds I have seen bear that name. John Gould (1804-1881) was an English ornithologist and author. His wife Elizabeth Gould (1804-1841) was an artist. The aforementioned birds are Mrs. Gould’s Sunbird and Gouldian Finch.

Shikra is a bird of prey found all over Bangladesh in forests, village groves, orchards and tea gardens. It is a handsome bird, the size of a large pigeon, with a fine bluish-grey back.

In 1758, the Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus introduced a naming system for living organisms.

I recently finished the novel Where Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. Set in the 1960s, the story is about a girl, Kya, who grows up alone in the marshes of North Carolina after being abandoned by her family.

Rare, endangered and beautiful, the Masked Finfoot shines among the birds of Bangladesh. In the entire world, it is only the Bangladesh Sundarban where it can be found in good numbers.