Tanguar Haor

I'm now finally getting to putting up pictures from almost a month ago, when Rana, Khalid, Ben and I took a weekend trip over to Tanguar Haor in Shunamganj.  The haor is a large area of lowland bils, rivers and marsh.  It stays wet all year round, and attracts thousands of migratory birds in the winter.

I've never seen so many ducks in one place.  We weren't able to get too close, but managed to identify a few of them, including the ruddy shelducks below, and then a red-crested pochards next down.

The purple swamphen was our favorite for pictures -- not too shy, and a beautiful iridescent blue-green plumage. 

Despite the beauty of the place and the spectacular display of birds, the area still attracts relatively few tourists ...our trip there showed us why.  After an overnight bus ride to Shunamganj, we took an auto to the ferry ghat, a boat across the river to the Westward road, and then a tempo out towards the Haor.  After over an hour of lurching about in the tempo, we reached Tahirpur, but found out that we were still a long way from the wintertime edge of the haor.  And from there on, the only transport option was motorcycle -- doubling or tripling up behind the young guys who drove their hondas as taxis.  Because the roads are all under water half the year, they are often little more than badly-washed out mud trails.

The trip was more or less organized on the fly, so we were pleased to find these fishermen who allowed us to sleep in their boat.  They also cooked us dinner, and wouldn't accept any payment -- just let us buy one chicken for the curry.  The chicken was good, but couldn't compare to the fish curry they also cooked, using a large boal caught while the cooking was going on.

Thanks to Rana and Ben for most of these pictures.