In Kurigram, Fazlul Haque, 45, has fed birds regularly for about five years. For just 10 minutes each day his home becomes a gathering of birds. Every morning he gives them a mixture of oranges, bread, rice and chanachur, ready to satisfy the hunger of birds of many kinds and colours. People come to watch the scene.

Fazlul Haque is the son of Md Nasser Ali of Kabiraj Para in Palashbari, Kurigram municipal town.

At 6.30 in the morning there was no bird to be seen at his house. Within five minutes, flocks suddenly flew in from nowhere and settled on the roof and in the yard. Their chirping not only wakes Fazlul Haque; it tells him it is time to feed them. He comes out into the yard with the mixture of chanachur and rice kept in the house and scatters a measured amount on the ground from a plastic jar at his side. Within 10 minutes the birds have eaten and flown off to unknown destinations. In this way he feeds hundreds of birds every day.

He said that about four years ago he was sitting on his veranda eating a homemade roti when two crows suddenly landed there. He threw a piece of roti on the ground, and the two crows ate it undisturbed and left. The next day, as he lay in the house, the two crows came back to the veranda and began calling. When he came out and gestured for them to fly away, they flew to a branch and kept calling, and he understood they wanted food. When he scattered some rice from the house, they came down from the tree and began eating. The next day five to seven crows came to eat in the same way. Later, not only crows but magpie robins, woodpeckers, several kinds of cranes, bulbuls and other birds began coming in flocks. "Now I have to feed more than a hundred birds every day. I hope I can go on feeding them like this for the rest of my life," he said.

He added that while the other birds like chanachur, oranges have to be cut separately just for the bulbuls.

His wife, Mst Sharmin Haque, said he has fed the birds year after year. If the food is even a little late, the birds grow noisier, and once they have eaten they vanish, no one knows where. "At first I found it annoying, but now I have grown fond of them too. I feel at peace when I can feed them," she said.

Local resident Md Nur Islam said: "Many people live in our village. I don't know why the birds go to Fazlul Haque's house and eat from his hand. I love watching the birds eat there every day."

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