Satchari National Park Naturewatch, Habiganj, January 2009

Dewdrops Shine: Satchari National Park
Habiganj, Bangladesh

23 Janaury 2009


It was a crazy idea! Well, how many would come out of home at 4:00 in the morning with the aim of seeing a jungle wake up?? Yes; we did the crazy thing! Actually for birders and wildlife enthusiasts, its not an unusual practice. Animals and birds are at their most active during the early part of the day. I got a similar experience from my visit to Lawachara National Park in 2008. So, the idea was actually not total guesswork. We had some experienced bird photographers with us, whose idea of going out very early didn’t surprise me too much. But it did put me in trouble in other places. I had to convince my family that it wasn’t actually a crazy idea after all. I still don’t know whether I was successful in my effort.

Since coming back from the great tour to Tanguar Haor, bird and wildlife began to attract me. And why not? This is the season to go out for such works. The weather is tolerable and lots of migratory birds are crowding various places. I had been to Lawachara and being very close to that place, Satchari National Park almost waived at me. I was thinking of an outing for the day, and Satchari came as the first choice. Its on the Dhaka-Sylhet highway and comes before Habiganj while we start from Dhaka. This small forest of some 243 hectares is also one-sixth of Lawachara, which is a small forest itself. But the real surprise of Satachari is its avifauna. It has 218 species of birds within such a small place. It’s a paradise for birdwatchers.

Collected some friends who were very enthusiastic about it. But I didn’t even know how to reach there. Desperately needed someone to guide us. And who better than the great Zamir Bhai!! I hadn’t been with too many birders in my life. But of those whom I’ve met, Zami Bhai was the craziest. He does exactly what is required of him to collect bird photos. His dedication cannot be doubted. He was on his toes to go and so was another crazy birder, Gazi Bhai. Those two had made many birding trips together. So, we three, Kamal, Arif and me, had a couple of great birders to accompany us! It would be a learning trip also.

As we planned; Zamir Bhai came down with his car and we came out of home sometime after 4:00AM. We took fuel and our main journey started by around 5:00AM. The main thing that worried us was fog. Just the day before, we saw perfect weather with excellent visibility. But coming out of home at those early hours was a real shock! Visibility was extremely bad and we began to count time. When we started our journey, we could hardly see anything ahead of us. Zamir Bhai is a good driver and he drove pretty slowly. We hardly had a sleep at night, yet, our eyes were glued to the windshield with concern! We had to do some guesswork regarding the right choice of road several times. And that choice wasn’t helped by the thick fog.

It didn’t really clear up that much until around 6:30AM when the sun began to smuggle some light through the thick curtain of mist. We finished our breakfast at a roadside restaurant (less than five-star quality) and began moving once more. My fingers were itching to click!! There were so many subjects flying past us and I was just looking! Well, we had a more important goal and that goal required continued driving. Zamir Bhai is an old visitor to Satchari. He even went there seven day in a row! He knew the forest like anything; but even he required some guide, as he hadn’t been to the place during the last one year. He called Palash, a local trained guide, over phone and told him to be ready. Palash was trained by Nishorgo, a USAID-funded project aimed at sustained conservation and development of our forest resources.


Welcome to Satchari!!........ Entrance to the one-hour trail.......

We reached Satchari by around 8:05AM. It was foggy. Though the surrounding area was full of tea gardens, we couldn’t see a thing. We arrived at the forest almost without a warning. It just arrived in front of us! Palash was already waiting for us there. We parked our car and started walking. Palash took time to show us the activity of the primates. This is the time when the primates are at their most active. We watched several primate families around the highway. The highway actually goes through the northern edge of the forest. Some of those primates were on the northern side of the highway although the main forest lies south of the highway. Palash showed us the Pig-tailed Mccauqe. In that low light condition in the trees, we could at best notice that there were some primates in the trees. It wasn’t that easy for us to identify their species. We also saw some Capped Langurs. They moved and made sounds. Zamir Bhai was remembering his infamous welcome from these animals during a previous visit, when they were being thrown various stuff from the trees. Anyway, we proceeded. We walked along the highway northward; searching for the trail that would take us deep into the jungle.

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Misty morning at Satchari..........01

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Art of Nature..........01

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Just like the witch-tree!!

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Bamboo chaos!!



Sound of dewdrop shower.........


It would be hard to describe the mystery surrounding those mist-covered threes. The road vanished into that ghostly haze and the trees barely announced their presence. It was a perfect setting for a thriller movie! We found our trail soon enough and entered the forest proper by around 8:45AM. Anticipating some mobile phone network problems, we finished our talk before we vanished into the forest. The entrance to the forest was full of leaning bamboo trees, almost creating a gate of nature. And there were birds composing the welcome tune! Couldn’t help recording the sound of that. We crossed one of the several wooden bridges there. These bridges are built across some narrow streams that were completely dry at that time. Needless to say, these streams are quite a handful during the rainy season. The appearance of Satchari wasn’t too different from that of Lawachara. My experience at Lawachara told me what to expect in a rain forest. Yet, I couldn’t hide my excitement. I continued to enjoy the beautiful tone of Nature and the mystery of the environment. The continuous sound of dewdrops on dead leaves amazed me most. I couldn’t help recording that beautiful music.



Laughingthrush sound.........


Our first find was a noisy bird in the bushes. The bird was making some really interesting noise, but we couldn’t see it. I was able to take a peek at the yellowish bird through very thick vegetation. Our birdwatchers identified the bird as a kind of Laughingthrush. We were able to record the sound of the bird, but failed to shoot a picture. This was one of those encounters that would be repeated many times throughout our hiking. This was the same experience I got at Lawachara. There too, we were able to hear many types of birds, but we could hardly see them. Vegetation here is very thick and the trees are so high that a bird sitting on top of a tree would be difficult to see even with good equipment.



Barking Deer sound............

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Art of Nature.........02

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Spiderweb..........01

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Ant-house!!!

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Art of Nature.........03

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Art of Nature.........04

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Art of Nature.........05

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Art of Nature.........06

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Art of Nature.........07



By around 9:20AM, Palash alerted us to listen to Barking Deer. It certainly sounded like a dog! And that’s why its called Barking Deer. Our hiking took us past numerous spider webs. I hadn’t noticed that many spider webs at Lawachara. At Satchari, they were noticeably more in number than at Lawachara. We took our time painstakingly documenting the spiders in our way. The spider webs were also something to see. Dewdrops on those webs formed pearls in the air! They looked like latest designs from international design houses! Their beauty and complexity made me wonder how small we are in terms of making things. All our achievements go down the drain when Nature defeats us with these simple creations. And how dare we that we proceed to destroy the things that we can never make! That’s foolish arrogance!

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Spiderweb..........02

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Spiderweb..........03...... this was the biggest spider web I had seen!!

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

They also dwell at Satchari...........

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Collective presence!!

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Not bigger than a waterdrop!!

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Big antennae........



On the way, I discovered the biggest spider web that I have seen in my life! It was hanging from a tree and didn’t have the spider on it. But it was huge! It was several feet in length. By around 10:20AM, we found a bit of an oasis! It wasn’t pleasant to see some clearings right in the middle of the forest though. We spent some time there recuperating. Also started a bit of competition to find as many species of insects as we could find. Zamir Bhai was always leading!

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Spiderweb..........04

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Believe me, its a spider and its alive!!

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Noisy dwellers of Satchari........01 (Grey-headed Canary Flycatcher)

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Noisy dwellers of Satchari........02 (ID please!!)

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Small but stylistic!


By 10:45AM, we were on the move once more. Soon, we found a particularly interesting spider. To the untrained eye, the spider might look like a dead one or even the prey itself! It had an uncanny ability to fool its victim or predator alike! We spent some time photographing that marvel. By around 11:30AM, we arrived at a place where we got convinced that we could get glimpses of quite a few birds. The birds were very busy, so we had a tough time shooting them even with our big lenses. We brought out our field guides to get some instant ID. And we got ID on at least three species.

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Art of Nature.........08

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Lesser Racket-tailed Drongo........ have a look at its exotic tail....



We moved on when we thought we had disturbed them enough. Our voices probably also gave them enough scare. The hiking got a bit harder after that. We had to do a bit of climbing. It wasn’t too easy with all the heavy photographic equipment hanging from our shoulders and neck. But the hard work paid off by around 12:30PM. We spotted a single Lesser Racket-tailed Drongo. Its exclusive tail made it my catch of the day. It was hard shooting the bird, with all the undergrowth restricting my view. We also spotted 4/5 other species of birds there. Even Hill Myna was there, as spotted by Palash. But we failed to get a real glimpse of them. As usual, we could hear more than we could see.

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

The crime scene!!

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Evidence!!



One thing that I cannot help mentioning is that we’ve witnessed the same pathetic logging at Satchari. We heard people cutting down trees and saw numerous freshly-cut trees. I’m not whom to blame here. But simple blame game wouldn’t be able to save the rare species that call this place home. I’ve seen this at Lawachara and now, I’ve seen this here too. It breaks my heart and makes me wonder what we are about to leave for our next generations.

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Who lives in there??


By around 1:00PM, we arrived at something like a cliff! When we climbed a pretty much vertical surface (almost 60 degrees) that had no support on it, we knew we would have to come down from there. So, when we arrived in front of an even steeper fall, the shock was just a wee bit lesser than absolute. Some of us wanted to go down. It must’ve been at least 40 feet at 70 degrees with no support whatsoever. Others objected. Palash suggested an alternative route, which took us through thick undergrowth and through yet another cliff, which was a wee bit easier to negotiate. We were constantly worried that someone might lose his footing and take all the others below with him. But fortunately, we were able to reach the flat trail once more. The trail that we had been negotiating, was a relatively new one. It still had stems of cut-down plants and its surface, wherever steep, didn’t have any support. And there was constant fear of losing grip.

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Spiderweb..........05

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Spiderweb..........06

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

The giant!!........ This was the biggest spider we saw at Satchari of the day......

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Deadly, but colourful.......

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Evil mark left by humans........ Whoever is reading this, please help stop these nonsense activities.......

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Spiderweb..........07

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Primates go about their activities.........01 (Capped Langur)

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Spreading wings........

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Colours of Satchari........



It was around 1:30PM and we were well on our way back. Palash’s tough detour saved us some time. Our aim was to leave the place as soon as possible. It was necessary for a quick return to Dhaka. We still went on shooting as we walked. By around 2:00PM, spotted some Capped Langurs on our way back. We also clicked yet more spiders. We got our biggest spider of the day. Don’t know the species, but it certainly was big, black and majestic. Other smaller ones also didn’t disappoint. Their colours and designs were truly wonderful. Nature is not just beautiful here, its intelligent and deadly too!

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Primates go about their activities.........02 (Rhesus Macaque)

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Primates go about their activities.........03 (Rhesus Macaques)

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Catching the sun........

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Face-to-face......... (Common Myna)

We reached the end of our hiking by around 2:40PM. Spotted some Rhesus Macaques in very much playful mood. We ended our day of shooting with them. By that time, we were pretty tired. Didn’t have a lot to eat whole day. Took some rest and boarded the car by around 3:15PM.

From Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

Tea gardens...... we completely missed them in the fog!


This was the when we began to realize what the mist kept from us. We raced through tea gardens and the vanishing layers in the horizon forced me to think that it might not have been a very bad idea to stop the car. But we had our priority once again. Reaching Dhaka within a reasonable time was first priority. We stopped by a roadside restaurant and a late lunch. It was refreshing. Generated enough energy to reach home safely. The return journey wasn’t as exciting as the journey in, but was enjoyable. With the kind of adventurers I had on that day as my biddies, it was never boring. It was hard work, but great fun. It was interesting as well as inspiring. It almost seemed liked a teaser for more visits there. And the sound of those dewdrops would push me until I pay another visit there.

P.S. This blog contains only some of the images from the tour. For more pictures, please visit the following link:
Satchari National Park, Habiganj, January 2009

For a collection of videos, please visit the follwoing link:
Satchari National Park Playlist