Birds in Bangladesh .

700 species of birds in Bangladesh - half are migratory

Bangladesh has some 700 species of birds practically half of which are wandering in one form or another. Hardly these birds form any large congregation excepting those that stopover our wetlands -- haors and beels as well as our coastal areas and the Kaptai Lake during the winter months. These are all traveling birds. However, recent sighting of a large colony of birds in the village Pochamaria under Shilmaraia Union of the Puthia thana in Rajshahi is no doubt a remarkable find. This heronry is possibly the largest one in the country outside the government reserved forests in the Soondarban and the greater districts of Sylhet and Mymensingh.

As I have gather Pochamaria has curved into a Heronry about a decade back when a little flock of Cormorants started roosting at first and then started breeding in the area later on. This Heronry is supported by a few bamboo clumps within the compound of a few villagers by the side of Pochamaria Bazar and the local road that links Taherpur. Some birds, especially Asian Openbill or Shamuk Bhanga, roost on a few Shimul trees (Bombax ceiba) within half a kilometer of the market.

The beauty of Pochamaria people is that for some reason they have become tolerant to the hell of a lot of trouble created by the resident Cormorants -- the Pankowris and Herons (Bok). First and the foremost negative impact resulted from the faeces of these birds that are systematically killing the local cash-crop such as the bamboos and Shimul trees. Positive impact of these faeces is that these naturally manure the fields and ponds where an assortment of crops and fish are cultivated.

In addition to natural world there are over 1000 Badur, Flying Fox or Large Fruit Bat (Pteropus giganteus) that use the area for roosting. They use the same bamboos and Shimul trees for daytime roost and make hell of a racket by continuous chattering and squeaking. Some visitors even confuse this as 'a kind of bird'! Bats are mammals like us and produce babies that drink mothers' milk and their bodies are covered with hairs. Birds on the other hand produce eggs and chicks hatch out of these. Their bodies are covered with feathers. Unlike Chamchika or Insect Bats that are purely nocturnal and move by echolocation, not by vision, Fruit bat have large eye and can also see in hours of daylight.