12:00 AM,
April 19, 2019 / LAST MODIFIED: 03:38 AM, April 19, 2019
It’s
quite an incredible feat to still have more than 600 species of birds in our
country and with the increasing numbers of birdwatchers and wildlife
photographers every year, many new species are being discovered or
rediscovered.
One such
rediscovery was made in Chapainawabganj in February by a Rajshahi-based
photographer Nur E Saud, who is a dentist by profession and wildlife
photographer at heart.
Saud
found a Brown Crake -- a bird whose presence was last reported in Bangladesh by
an English Captain named Robert Tytler in 1854. There has been no definite
record from Bangladesh after Tytler’s note more than 150 ago.
To see
this rare Brown Crake, I got on a train to Rajshahi during a not-so-cold
February night with birding mates Prince and Ratul. The train reached Rajshahi
early in the morning where Saud waited for us. Along with him, we took another
train to Chapainawabganj and then a local vehicle to Babudang -- where the bird
was spotted.
I have
always liked the countryside in north Bengal, as the landscape is never
monotonous. The famers here cultivate wheat, sesame, sugarcane and various
kinds of vegetables; the landscape is vibrant and offers a variety of habitats
for wildlife. Many ground-dwelling species such hare, button quail and quail
are still doing well in this region, although at the national level they have
disappeared from many other parts of Bangladesh.
Babudang
is basically an open space surrounded by cultivated land and villages. The
small hillocks of Babudang support patches of trees and the rest of the area is
either scrubland dotted with small bamboo stands or agricultural lands.
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