Nature still shines, despite being under threat.....

07 January 2011
Jahangirnagar University, Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh

its been a while since I've made my last visit to JU...... if I needed to see Nature within the shortest possible time, it had to be JU.... winter is the best time to see JU at its most vibrant..... the idea of going there came from my family.... my two-year old daughter Lamisa hasn't seen JU yet, so, it was the perfect opportunity to let her get close to Nature.... she has already stepped foot on the beaches of Kuakata, has sniffed the cute kaash ful, and seen the colours of endless mustard fields........

I had tested my Sigma 50-500 (BIGMA) at JU three years back..... that was the first time I got to know about the biodiversity of JU.... a first-hand account.... since then, I started to train my lens towards birds whenever the opportunity came...... I haven't done such bird photography in a while..... it was almost as if I had my finger ready on the shutter release.....


migratory ducks at JU........01



migratory ducks at JU........02



migratory ducks at JU........03



a tree-full of Asian Openbills......01



a tree-full of Asian Openbills......02



Asian Openbills basking in the afternoon sun......



Jungle Babbler...... a common resident of JU.....



White-breasted Waterhen searching the green for food.....



Magpie Robin, can't get enough of them.....



Common Snipe..... (thanks to Zamir Bhai for the ID)



Bronze-winged Jacana.......



Bronze-winged Jacana (Juvenile)......


as I was with the family, I didn't really move around..... we stuck to one big pool, where most migratory ducks concentrate..... I could easily guess that the number of birds has decreased substantially..... but locals said that the pool was even more empty last year..... this is the first time I noticed some Asian Openbills occupying one big tree.... there were around 12 of them in that empire..... I couldn't help take a walk to get a different view of the tree from the side of Al Beruni Hall..... and in the process, I located a couple of more species around that pool..... seen a couple of Common Snipes, which I previously didn't notice at the campus... White-breasted Waterhen was my first..... the pool also had a couple of Bronze-winged Jacana dancing on the floating water lily.... I saw them before at JU, but a juvenile was my first, and the different colour confused me much....

the two-plus hours' stay there was refreshing indeed..... Lamisa has never seen that many birds flying together..... its true that the campus was losing its charm fast, but the biodiversity there still exists, albeit under a lot of stress..... I though I should manage some more time later to go around the bushes..... well over 100 species of birds call this their home.... so, a day spent there would never look like a waste....

Solar Eclipse!!!

for the office-goers like me, we have to cut a deal with Nature...... my time with the sun was fixed to the minumum....... I woke up early to see the eclipse, but went to bed soon enough after seeing the amound of clouds lurking above...... woke up once again at my usual time and started to prepare myself to go to office...... thats the time I noticed that it was really murky...... I peeked through the window and could see the sun with my bare eyes, because clouds still dominated.......


100% solar eclipse was visible from Panchagarh, a norther district of Bangladesh........ but this is not something for the faint-hearted office-goers......... even if the next chance to see this never comes.......... had to be satisfied with something less........ 93% eclipse was visible from Dhaka....... that was enough of a phenomenon for the timid........



the moment came right then...... saw some birds flying around; in fact, circling.... rushed to fetch my cam...... it didn't really become an easy thing..... the birds were not really listening to me..... but when they did show up in the right place, the sun decided to hide behind the clouds...... so, I had to wait for some time to get the moment I want...... such moments don't really come at one's own will though...... so, had to accept whatever was on offer....

Time: 08:03 Bangladesh Standard Time (BST); 22 July 2009
Place: Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Equipment: Nikon D90 + Sigma APO 150mm f2.8 EX DG HSM Macro.