Ihtisham Kabir

Last week I wrote about the book African Silences by Peter Matthiessen recounting a series of trips he made in Africa in search of birds and wildlife. Along with other animals, the book taught me about the White Rhino.

Recently I started re-reading a book I first read three decades ago. African Silences chronicles writer/naturalist Peter Mathiessen’s travels through Africa during the 1970s and 1980s looking for rare birds and wildlife.

It was a bright, sunny morning in early March. Reaching Satchori National Park, I discovered my guide Rahim had not arrived.

The chicken is the most ubiquitous bird in the world. There are over 23 billion chickens in the world, providing nutrition to humanity. How did it come to be? It was domesticated from a wild bird, the Red Junglefowl, over five thousand years ago.

Woodpeckers are specialized birds. They have unusual features and capabilities that work together to achieve one goal: to find insects that are hidden inside the bark of trees or other covered areas such as termite or ant hills.

I vividly remember when I discovered photography. I was a third-year undergraduate engineering student in the United States when I

In our age of multitasking, it is difficult – perhaps inconceivable to some - to sit still and silent for long. It goes against our notion of the times we live in. Yet, once in a while, we may find ourselves in a position of doing just that. How is that experience?

I was watching a flock of Cattle Egrets trailing behind cows grazing in the Haor’s swampy land. One of them – a juvenile lacking confidence – had caught a small fish in its beak.

Watching bathing birds is an unexpected but sublime delight. Depending on the bird, you can see them frolic in abandon, splash water around, puff up their chest before dipping, dive and pop out in a stream of water, create sprays of water by shaking their wings and make all kinds of faces while doing it.

Recently I started reading The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben, a German forester who spent several decades managing old trees in European forests. The book has many startling observations and claims: for example, trees communicate with each other, they raise alarms and work cooperatively, and they single out certain weak trees for special attention and care.

It happened just after we emerged from the bushes to face a small crescent-shaped lagoon. A thin layer of winter fog covered the shallow water.

In my eyes the Velvet-fronted Nuthatch is one of the prettiest birds of Bangladesh.

During my 2018 trip to the Pantanal in Brazil I learned that Teddy Roosevelt had travelled there a century earlier. This piqued my curiosity and I decided to learn more about that trip.

I often write about rare or interesting birds (or wildlife) I have encountered. If you read my column you might think I find them on every trip or outing.

Recently I had a pleasant surprise when checking in for a flight at Dhaka airport. After I placed my suitcase on the weight scale, the ticketing agent looked at me, puzzled. “Sir, your luggage is so light that it is showing a negative weight.”

The Felidae family, commonly known as cats, consists of 38 species of carnivorous mammals.

I had been out since early morning cruising the Padma river and was returning to Rajshahi town. After turning a bend, I noticed an airborne black silhouette against the white sand of a char to my left.

In 1519 the Spaniard Hernan Cortes landed in Mexico. His band of adventurers defeated the Aztec king Montezuma, thus starting 300 years of Spanish rule. Before that, for hundreds of years, several native civilizations rose and fell in Mexico, and the nation proudly boasts that heritage wherever one looks.

Owls occupy a special place among birds. Nocturnal creatures, they look distinctive because of their large heads and upright stance.

During my trip to Brazil last year, I travelled on a boat that traversed the massive Paraguay river - in the wetland called Pantanal - looking for Jaguars.