The country's haors, baors, beels, lakes and countless other wetlands are now a paradise for migratory birds, and Tanguar Haor can be called the heaven of migratory birds. This year, 51,368 migratory waterbirds of 35 species were counted at Tanguar Haor.
The figures came from this year's bird census, run jointly by the Bangladesh Bird Club, IUCN (the international union of nature conservation organisations), Wild Bird Monitoring and the Bangladesh Forest Department. A 10-day bird research and observation programme began at Tanguar Haor on 15 January and will end on 25 January.
On Sunday (19 January), a team including Bangladesh Bird Club founding president Enam Ul Haque, IUCN researchers Sakib Ahmed and Jenin Azmiri, Rebound Bird Club member Paul Thompson and British birdwatcher James Pender carried out a day-long count.
Coots, pochards and rare ibis
Simanta Dipu, lead researcher of Wild Bird Monitoring and IUCN's lead researcher in Bangladesh, told Jago News that with support from IUCN and Linnaeus University, the Wild Bird Monitoring Programme is carrying out bird censuses at Tanguar and fitting birds with satellite rings.
He said: "In this year's census we found 51,368 waterbirds of 53 species. The most numerous was the common coot, at 9,925. We found 8,394 common pochards, 7,278 common teal, 5,000 northern pintails and 4,846 Eurasian wigeon. We also saw many rare and threatened birds, notably 120 glossy ibis."
Birds are being fitted with satellite rings again this year. Simanta Dipu said 44 birds were ringed last year, several of which have returned this year, and two of them are on the haor.
Numbers expected to rise in February
He said that although there are 51,000 birds in January, the number will reach two lakh in February. "The lower the water falls, the more aquatic plants will surface. Aquatic plants are the main food of these waterbirds, and when the food surfaces, more of them will arrive. We expect one and a half to two lakh birds to come here next February. Last January there were about one and a half lakh migratory birds at Tanguar, because the water was low then and the aquatic plants had surfaced."
Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.
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