Ihtisham Kabir

The Allure of Little Birds

Birders may go through many phases in their birding life.

Book Hounds

We are a perpetually curious group. Like members of secret societies of the Middle Ages, we quickly recognize each other.

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.

Good-looking Birds

We all have our notion of “good-looking” when it comes to people. This idea extends to other creatures.

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.

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.

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.

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.

August 14, 2021

Watching the Sunbirds

Like a high-wire acrobat the tiny bird tiptoes forward on the thin horizontal hibiscus branch, step by step. The branch swings up and down with the bird’s weight but the grip of its claws remains firm. As it approaches the flower terminating the branch, its patience runs out. Abandoning the circus act, it jumps up, hovers for a split second in the air, propels itself forward and lands on the flower’s base. Opening its beak, it extends its needle-like tubular tongue and inserts it into the flower’s base.

August 7, 2021

Comfort Food vs. Grandmother’s Diet

Ten years ago, I wrote a Tangents column called “Grandmother’s Diet.” The idea was this: in this age of processed and factory manufactured food, how does one choose what’s best for health? The notion – originally presented by Michael Pollan - is to avoid items that your great-grandmother (or, in my case, my grandmothers) would not recognize as food.

July 31, 2021

Barbet

It was hypnotic: a persistent tunk-tunk-tunk sound with a muted texture, like a blacksmith tapping a metal pot with a hammer, its rhythm precise as a metronome.

July 17, 2021

Minivet

It is impossible to adequately describe the exhilaration upon spotting a Scarlet Minivet inside the forest. High up in the canopy, where you have to squint to discern between branches and leaves, a flash of bright red darts from leaf to leaf and branch to branch like a mirage. You squint harder, shaking your head, thinking you are imagining things. As if reading your mind it sits still for a second to convince you it is real. Then it takes off. You think it is gone but wait... freezing mid-flight it hovers to check under a leaf where it finds a juicy larva. And then it flies away for good, leaving you asking yourself, “What did I just see?”

July 10, 2021

Memories of Mexico

Details of our tour of Mexico in 1991 had started fading from my memory. A hazy outline remained: after a few days in Mexico City my wife and I had flown to the provincial town of Oaxaca and explored nearby ruins. Next we had gone to Cancun to swim in the warm Caribbean waters. At the end we had flown back to California which was our home at the time.

July 3, 2021