Back to Arakul

Friday evening I received a call from the birder Omar Shahadat. He had seen some interesting birds in Arakul, including families of dahuks and kalems, as well as songbirds. Did I want to come over the next day for a look? This time of year is slow season for birding in Bangladesh. But Arakul had never disappointed me. And so it was the next morning that Shahadat, his friend Taher, and I crossed the Postogola Bridge into south Keraniganj and took a left turn. After a few minutes we came to the end of the road. Meadows stretched on all sides and it was only walking trails from here.

Readers of this column might remember Arakul. It was the setting of two stories: one on the Siberian rubythroat, a pretty and rare migrant bird; the other about the first sighting in Bangladesh (by Shahadat) of the blue-capped rock thrush. The area has open fields dotted by villages and homesteads, with streams and lakes fed by the Buriganga.

As we started walking, we were immediately rewarded with a pair of collared doves foraging on the grass about twenty feet away. With a distinctive black ring around its neck, this dove is not as pretty as our spotted dove, but in my experience rarer and harder to photograph. The pair flew quickly, but not before I got a usable photograph. We continued on the trail flanked by clumps of tall grass on both sides. It was hot and muggy but mercifully cloudy. Within a short time we saw white-throated kingfishers, paddyfield pipits and several munias, which had probably nested inside the grass columns. Presently we came to a large pond covered with water hyacinth. From across the water came a loud click-click call: a kalem (purple swamphen) took flight. As expected, its flight was short and clumsy and it landed a short distance away.

Back on the trail, we found a paddyfield pipit looking for seeds and insects in the grass. It was quite friendly but did not stand still for a second, constantly moving in its search. I kept on losing it from my viewfinder because it was so well camouflaged. With patience, however, I managed a good photograph. Some time later I saw another pipit. When I bent down for a photograph it scurried away. I searched but it had simply melted into the background, vanishing like magic.

Although I had seen several munias, none had stood still long enough to be photographed. When we went off the trail and entered a field, Shahadat pointed out a group of black-headed munias playing in the grass. They are one of four species seen in Bangladesh. One of them sat on a stalk of grass and posed for me.

Soon it was time to call it a day. On our way back to the car, we saw long-tailed shrikes and zittin cisticolas on tall grass;  palm swifts, swallows and yellow bitterns in flight; and a small tortoise climbing a pole in a pond. Thus ended a morning of discovery in Arakul.

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