Beautiful, mystical

Birds are lost to us when their forest and wetland habitats are converted into houses, malls, roads and fields. Peacocks fall prey to pesticides when they stray into agricultural land. Vultures die because of the widespread use of a drug to treat cattle, whose corpses are eaten by these scavengers. Birds like parakeets are popular with the pet trade.

Many cities have fortunately saved a lot of their bird life by protecting large numbers of pavement trees, patches of urban forest and creating parks. Dhaka has some birds, mainly because some trees planted in the city in the early 20th century, and in the recent past, and some of its green areas like Suhrawardy Uddyan, Ramna Park, Cantonment areas, Zia Uddyan etc, also represent the remains of tropical forest that contribute to the survival of bird life. But felling of old trees in Dhaka has also come to an alarming stage. If trees are not safe, bird life becomes extinct.

Now, tall, old trees are under threat from concrete tiling of pavements, cutting and lopping. So, we should join in the struggle in our neighbourhood to defend them. We should protect the guest birds, and grow only local trees and shrubs in our gardens as exotic ones are of least benefit to our birds. Please grow more mango, mulberry or drumstick trees etc, and protect the bird habitats.