Tangents
Birds <i>and Flowers </i>
Lutki or Datranga. Photo: Ihtisham Kabir
For me, one of the joys of living in Bangladesh is enjoying her birds and flowers. For many, they are symbols of nature's bounty but I enjoy them simply for their beauty. Our country is full of birds, many of them exotic and rare in other parts of the world. A few years ago, a visiting British friend remarked how easy it is to see a kingfisher here: apparently this colourful bird is an exceptional sight in his home country. Another example is the masked finfoot (goilo hansh), a duck you can spot in Sundarban. It is so rare that it is a check-off item for dedicated birders from all over the world. If you don't have time or inclination to visit Sundarban to find pretty birds, they are surprisingly plentiful in Dhaka's concrete jungle. Any place with trees is home to birds. It might be that koroi tree behind your flat or the krishnachura tree on the roadside which reveals a world of birds after a little patient observation. Sparrows, fingey, shalik, bulbuli and doel are very common. Of these, I enjoy the shalik's facial expressions and the fingey's pursuit of insects and flies. One can also observe suichora, ishtikutum, kaththokra, tia, ghughu and kokil, as well as smaller birds such as fotikjal and boshonto-bouri. I have found that one of the best spots for bird-watching in Dhaka is the Botanical Garden in Mirpur whose trees, shrubs, and lakes are home to countless birds. The nice thing is that these birds are accustomed to people who stroll in the Garden, so I find them to be less shy than normal. The other green spots such as Ramna, the lakes in Gulshan/Banani/Baridhara and Dhanmandi, and Chandrima Udyan host many birds. Old Dhaka's Baldah Garden is home to numerous bats. If you like seasonal birds here for the winter, haors and lakes provide refuge for them. Close to Dhaka, Jahangirnagar University's elaborate set of lakes hosts a large number of winter birds as well as beautiful water lily. The thing birds have in common with flowers is that they add colour to our lives. Our flowers are mainly seasonal. Many native trees bloom in spring and summer. Perhaps this happens because nature wants the seeds ready in time for the rains to help the next generation of trees. So I have to wait for summer for my favourite flowers: krishnachura, shimul, mandar, jarul and sonalu. However, winter's yellow mustard flowers blanketing the countryside are a joy to behold. And our wildflowers grow year round, sometimes in the most unexpected places. There are hundreds of varieties, yet how many of us can name more than a few? Two favourite wildflowers from my childhood are lutki (also called datranga) and kash. Lutki has a colour combination of purple and yellow. Kash – immortalised in Satyajit Ray's Pather Pachali - is a tall grass whose flower blooms in white and shades of beige. Dear reader, I wish you a new year filled with colourful flowers and delightful birds. www.facebook.com/tangents.ikabir
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