The calls of several thousand Asian openbills (shamukkhol) fill Machhimpur village in Jamalpur. For the past 20 years the birds have lived undisturbed in the simul and koroi trees at the home of Nurul Haque Master in the municipal village. Finding a favourable environment, the flocks return year after year and stay for six to eight months at a stretch.

From a distance they look like white egrets, but they are openbills, named in Bengali for the snails they search out with their long beaks. The English name is Asian openbill. According to animal experts, these birds like to live in large flocks in a favourable environment.

Locals say the village wakes to the birds' calls. Early each morning the birds leave in flocks, roam all day and return before dusk to roost on the branches of the simul and koroi trees at Nurul Master's house. Curious crowds gather at the house to see them. There are no hunters there, and no predatory eyes from locals.

Local farmers Anwar Hossain, Ali Ashraf, Selim and many others said the birds eat snails and insects in the rice fields, which protects the crop from pests while their droppings serve as fertiliser.

Golam Rabbani, a resident of the same village, said the birds have a kind of spiritual bond with the area's light and air in winter. After they first came, many people came to hunt them, but the villagers together stopped the hunters, so the birds have lived safely in the village for almost 20 years.

Nurul Haque Master's son Shimul Mia told Jago News that about 20 years ago, on a winter morning, the family woke to birdsong and went outside to find countless birds sheltering in their simul and koroi trees. At first they thought they were egrets, then learned they were openbills. He said the birds are black and grey in colour. They have sheltered in these trees ever since, staying in the trees normally but taking shelter in people's houses on stormy, rainy days. The family sometimes feeds them flattened rice and puffed rice.

Professor Jahangir Kabir, head of the zoology department at Government Ashek Mahmud College, Jamalpur, told Jago News that openbills like to crowd together in a small space. Their beaks work much like a nutcracker, letting them swallow hard snails with ease.

He said that if the birds can be protected, they will play an important role in preserving biodiversity and the balance of the environment.

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