The people of Ashurhat village in Shailkupa upazila, Jhenaidah, can hardly imagine a single day without the sweet calls of birds. The villagers wake every morning to birdsong and the sound of flapping wings. Out of deep love for the birds, they have turned their village into a bird sanctuary.

Ashurhat is a remote village in Shailkupa upazila. In the middle of the village are three huge old ponds, surrounded on all four banks by dense woodland with large shimul, karai, mahogany and jam trees. In 2010, Asian openbills and cormorants began nesting in the trees on the banks of the ponds. At first they came and went, but for the past five years they have lived here permanently, and for these two years they have been breeding regularly. Very early in the morning they fly off in flocks in search of food and start returning to their nests before dusk. Their wings flap all night, and at dawn they fly off again.

Villager Abdur Razzak said: "Guards have been arranged during the day. Even so, the administration needs to step in to protect the birds from hunters in the dark of night."

Faruk Hossain Biswas, chairman of Nityanandapur union parishad in Shailkupa upazila, said there are about 20,000 birds here. Local people have declared their village a bird sanctuary and guard the birds day and night. Even so, many people come from different areas to hunt birds, which often leads to trouble between villagers and hunters. Large numbers of people come from far and near every day to see the birds, and the village is now known as the 'bird village' instead of Ashurhat.

Bird lover Najer Uddin Biswas said: "Last year the upazila administration put up two signboards to protect the birds, and two village police have been deployed to guard them during the day. The government must take the necessary steps to protect these birds of an endangered species."

Deputy commissioner Saroj Kumar Nath said thousands of birds have nested in the village over the last seven or eight years and are breeding here. The village has become known at home and abroad as the 'bird village'. "We are taking all kinds of measures to protect the birds," he said.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.