The Allure of Little Birds
Birders may go through many phases in their birding life.
4 February 2022, 18:00 PM
Book Hounds
We are a perpetually curious group. Like members of secret societies of the Middle Ages, we quickly recognize each other.
7 January 2022, 18:00 PM
The Enigmatic Thick-knee
Whenever I hear “Thick-knee” I think of Majeda Haq, birder, conservationist and friend who left this world too soon in 2019.
31 December 2021, 18:00 PM
Good-looking Birds
We all have our notion of “good-looking” when it comes to people. This idea extends to other creatures.
24 December 2021, 18:00 PM
The Dining Room
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.
17 December 2021, 18:00 PM
Predators of Muhuri
Screaming loudly and wildly flapping their wings, the ducks abruptly took off from the water about two hundred feet from our boat.
10 December 2021, 18:00 PM
Red Munia
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.
3 December 2021, 18:00 PM
Primates of Bangladesh
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.
26 November 2021, 18:00 PM
Ratites
On a grey morning three years ago in northern Queensland, Australia, I boarded a microbus with several other birders.
12 February 2021, 18:00 PM
Bitterns
The first word that comes to mind when I think of bitterns is “shy.” Although I have seen all three species of bitterns found in Bangladesh, it has never been easy. They hide inside foliage, camouflage exceedingly well and fly away quickly when I approached.
5 February 2021, 18:00 PM
Madagascar Memories
I visited Madagascar a little over three years ago. Memories of this unique island in the Indian Ocean southeast of Africa have remained vivid. Why? The unexpected and strangely beautiful forms of life that I saw there are impossible to forget. It was as if time had misplaced this island.
29 January 2021, 18:00 PM
Grey-headed Fish Eagle
The Grey-headed Fish Eagle, which lives all year in Bangladesh, is the most common of our four fish eagles and found all over the country.
22 January 2021, 18:00 PM
Hyena
I saw my only wild hyena at Kenya’s Maasai Mara park: a mother lying on the ground and her cub. The cub was plain dark brown.
15 January 2021, 18:00 PM
Piranha
Over a century ago, in late 1913, Teddy Roosevelt went on an expedition in Brazil to navigate the mysterious and uncharted river called the River of Doubt.
8 January 2021, 18:00 PM
Snail Kite
Five years ago, I was looking for birds at a lake in Florida. The lake had a grid of piers for boat landing. I was walking along one when a reddish-brown bird, medium in size, flew by close to me and started circling above the water.
1 January 2021, 18:00 PM
A lifetime of dedication to his people and country
Today is the first death anniversary of Ambassador Syed Muazzem Ali. He was born in Sylhet in 1944 to an enlightened and accomplished family.
29 December 2020, 18:00 PM
Weavers
Weaver birds are nature’s engineers. They build intricate nests from vegetable material such as grass, leaves and palm fronds. Most weaver birds are found in Africa with a few in South Asia and Australia. They belong to the Ploceidae family of birds which has over 120 species.
25 December 2020, 18:00 PM
Lion
The first time I saw a wild lioness was in Kenya’s Maasai Mara last year. It was fast asleep on a large slab of granite and least bothered by several tourist vehicles that stopped to watch. I was disappointed. I had hoped to catch its eyes on camera and this one’s eyes remained firmly shut.
18 December 2020, 18:00 PM
Birds of Prey
Birds of prey capture our imagination for many possible reasons. It could be their display of power and agility. It could be their spare, elegant beauty.
11 December 2020, 18:00 PM
The Running Life
I came into running by chance. There was a “sports” requirement for graduation at the university in the USA where I studied.
4 December 2020, 18:00 PM
Tern, Tern, Tern
I became interested in Terns upon learning that the Arctic Tern flies roundtrip between the North and South Poles annually.
20 November 2020, 18:00 PM
Nest
I saw the Black-shouldered Kite flying across the paddyfield holding a lizard with its talons and I knew there was a story here. When a bird catches a prey, it consumes it as soon as possible before other birds snatch it.
13 November 2020, 18:00 PM
Birds and Animals by Night
The first time I tried birding at night was several years ago in Rajshahi. My friend Niaz and I had spent a day cruising the Padma searching its chars for birds.
6 November 2020, 18:00 PM
Black-shouldered Kite
One morning I was looking for birds in the open spaces of Purbachol. The spot I chose yielded nothing, so at around 10:30 I left and started driving around.
23 October 2020, 18:00 PM
Captain Cook’s Voyages
Recently I read a biography of the famous English explorer Captain James Cook (1728-1779). He was an expert sailor, surveyor and cartographer who mapped thousands of miles of the Southern Hemisphere over three epic ocean voyages.
16 October 2020, 18:00 PM
Frogmouths and Nightjars
In far north Queensland, Australia, there is a rainforest called Wet Tropics. Meandering through this forest is the Daintree River. Two years ago, I was on a boat on the Daintree with several others, looking for birds the area is famous for.
9 October 2020, 18:00 PM
Eurasian Wryneck
There are over two hundred species of woodpeckers in the world. The vast majority of these are grouped as “true woodpeckers” with similar features and behaviours. There are, however, two other groups in the woodpecker family: the strange-looking Wrynecks and the diminutive Piculets.
2 October 2020, 18:00 PM
Purbachol Encore
After three years I have returned to a birding spot in Purbachol that I once frequented. While the rest of this massive urban expansion east of Dhaka has developed fast in the last few years, this small area remains largely unscathed.
25 September 2020, 18:00 PM