Prithu Emmanuel Gomes, a second-year student at Notre Dame College in Dhaka and a member of its photography club, has photographed seven familiar birds on trips around Bangladesh. Prothom Alo ran them as a photo story on Sunday, 11 October; the birds below are described from its captions.
The blue-throated barbet catches the eye with its bright green body, scarlet head and deep blue throat, yet hides so well among dense green leaves that it is easily missed; in the picture it hangs upside down. The verditer flycatcher, a pale blue bird, is mainly a winter migrant to Bangladesh's forests and can catch insects on the wing.
The common iora, bright yellow, is one of the country's sweetest singers. In the breeding season the male turns somersaults in the air to court a female and puffs up his feathers into a ball as he sings. The jungle myna is bold, quick and sociable, lives in flocks and can mimic human voices and other birds' calls exactly.
The green bee-eater, known in some places as banshpati, darts like an arrow to take its prey, mostly bees, wasps and dragonflies. Two long, thread-like central tail feathers help it change direction in flight.
The oriental magpie robin, Bangladesh's national bird, is a lively, familiar sight in villages and towns and likes to perch with its long tail cocked upward. The last picture shows a fish eagle, known locally as kura, flying off with a fish in its talons; Prithu saw it hunt at Pubail, near Dhaka.
The photographs are Prithu Emmanuel Gomes's, published in Prothom Alo's lifestyle section. The green bee-eater picture used here is from Wikimedia Commons.
Photo: a green bee-eater in Jhenaidah. Photo: Rakib Hasan Sumon / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Source: Prothom Alo
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