Dhaka Botanical Gardens
04 October 2005

Dhaka (the romanized spelling of the Bengali name was changed from Dacca in 1982) is the capital and largest city of Bangladesh. Founded during the 10th century it is located in the geographic center of the country in the great deltaic region of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers. The city is within the monsoon climate zone, with an annual average temperature of 25 deg C (77 deg F) and monthly means varying between 18 deg C (64 deg F) in January and 29 deg C (84 deg F) in August. Nearly 80% of the annual average rainfall of 1,854 mm (73 in) occurs between May and September.

Dhaka is located in one of the world’s leading rice- and jute-growing regions. Its industries include textiles (jute, muslin, cotton) and food processing, especially rice milling. A variety of other consumer goods are also manufactured here. The Muslim influence is reflected in the more than 700 mosques and historic buildings found throughout the city.

Local time: GMT +6h
Approx noon temp: 30C
Weather: Overcast with heavy showers, occasionally sunny
With: Dr Paul Thompson (Bangladesh OBC Representative, email paul AT agni.com)

The area outside the Dhaka Botanic Gardens and the Dhaka Zoological Gardens

This was the first time I’d birded in Dhaka, having had two previous trips cancelled, and another where I’d spent a day indoors watching the rain fall - very heavily! Much as Kolkata two weeks previously the ongoing monsoon period looked as if it was going to put a literal dampener on my birding hopes, but the morning of the 4th dawned overcast but (thankfully) dry.

I knew very little about Dhaka and its birds before I came here. There is hardly any information available on the internet, and few reports seem to have been submitted to the many internet sites that store birder’s trip reports (so I hope that this one - brief as it is - will be of use). It would seem that Bangladesh just isn’t on the radar of many birders, perhaps because neighbouring India is so much better covered. The best sites are well-outside the city but there is at least one within the city limits that’s easily-reached and it provides a good number of locally-common species - the Dhaka Botanical Gardens (and to a lesser extent the adjacent Zoological Gardens, the trees of which can be considered contiguous habitat for species like parakeets and woodpeckers).

Dhaka Botanic Gardens:

Anyone who reads this blog with any regularity will know that I’m a great fan of Botanic Gardens: they’re usually fairly safe, have a reasonable selection of common birds, and are usually well-known to taxi-drivers. This year so far I’ve already been to Botanic Gardens in Rio de Janeiro, Singapore, Melbourne, and Kolkata, India - and enjoyed each one of them.

I was very fortunate indeed to have an RFI I put out on the Oriental Birding yahoo group asking for advice on the trip answered by a regional expert, Dr Paul Thompson - a long-time resident, Bangladesh’s OBC Representative, and expert on the region’s birds. Paul suggested that given the limited time I had available (and the unpredictable weather) my best bet would be to go the Dhaka Botanic Gardens. The birding won’t be too exciting, he suggested, but it should be enjoyable…

He was right. In an almost full day’s birding I saw quite a good range of species (see below for list). Many were typical of the subcontinent (and any birder who has visited India before will probably already have seen a number of them), and, like Kolkata, the area really comes into its own during the winter months when the Northern Asian and Siberian migrants return - but with it’s varied habitats - which include lawns, bamboo thickets, tall trees, and lakes - what I did see included representative species from groups including raptors, flycatchers, woodpeckers, and kingfishers.

The car journey to the Gardens from the hotel took about 30 minutes - but that was at 06:15am, which was when Paul and I met up at the hotel: the ride back in the afternoon took more like 90 minutes! The entrance to the Gardens was wide open, with a fairly steady stream of people coming in and going out. The first 400 metres or so is apparently not so good for birds (despite the large lake on the right hand side of the main path) and Paul suggested we head for an area of bamboo thickets in the heart of the Gardens. We did stop a couple of times en-route - once to see a small raptor frustratingly disappear over the trees, and once or twice because I just had to…it’s difficult not to bird in a place that looks potentially so good…

Jungle Babblers Turdoides striatus

We really only saw common or widespread species - Black Drongo, Oriental Magpie Robins, Common Iora, Jungle Babblers, one or two Black-rumped Flameback, Common Tailorbird, and the ubiquitous Common Mynas, Asian Pied Starlings, and Spotted Doves - before arriving at the bamboo, but as soon as we did things began to pick up. The dense shade and bare earth here is a real migrant trap (Paul reeled off a list of excellent records he’d made here, including Indian Blue Chat and Snowy-browed Flycatcher, as well as near-annuals in winter like Blue-throated Flycatcher, Lesser Racket-tailed Drongo, and Emerald Dove), and we soon had brief looks at one of my favourite birds - an Orange-headed Thrush, and the first of a surprisingly large number of Red-throated Flycatchers.

Moving on from there, we went up towards a nearby area of “allotments” (actually a formal rose garden and part of the research conducted at the Gardens) and a track through some exciting-looking, forested depressions down to a lake with a small (garish) viewing platform shaped like a clover leaf. This was another productive area - we picked up Greater Coucal, Ashy Wood-swallow, and a fairly confiding Rufous Woodpecker here - along with a dukhenensis White Wagtail, another Red-throated Flycatcher, and Rufous Treepie. In the past the hollows and dips here have produced local rarities such as Dark-throated Thrush, Orange-breasted Green Pigeon, and Radde’s Warbler.

White Wagtail Motacilla alba (dukhunensis?)

Rufous Woodpecker Micropterus brachyurus

Greater Coucal Centropus sinensis

Paul had to get himself off to work at this point, and we headed back through the bamboo area towards the main entrance. Scanning the trees brought Brahminy and Black Kites, and a rather casual observation I made of “Black-naped Oriole” (Black-hooded Oriole is fairly common) brought the response of “You sure - only ever seen one in this area before?”. I was sure, and so was Paul when he quickly got on it. Just goes to show how many interesting records potentially get lost when a visiting birder doesn’t know the status of the birds they’re looking at…

Black-hooded Oriole Oriolus xanthomus

After Paul left I stayed on, and suddenly realised that I had no idea at all how we’d got to the bamboo patch, where the lakes are, where anything was. Should you find yourself in the same position, never fear - the Gardens are completely enclosed by a high wall and there’s just one combined entrance/exit. An ancient brick pathway (a sure draw for brick collectors everywhere) goes through the centre of the Gardens, and if you keep walking along it towards the rather unsettling groans and roars coming from the adjacent Zoological Gardens you’ll eventually reach the entrance…it’s not too difficult and the locals are very friendly if you get yourself completely lost…

Having said that, just wandering around in an unstructured, carefree (as carefree as you can be after no sleep and the high humidity and the occasional monsoon downpour) way brings its own rewards, and I found a Forest Wagtail, Fulvous-breasted Pied Woodpecker, Pale-billed Flowerpecker, and a remarkably confiding Orange-headed Thrush that gave me the photographs I’ve posted in a gallery here.

Fulvous-breasted Pied Woodpecker Dendrocopos macei

Orange-headed Thrush Zoothera citrina

Lack of sleep finally got the better of me by about 15:00pm and I headed back to the entrance myself. Catching a taxi outside was easy enough - note that the “roundabout” area outside the Gardens is in a toll-area and the driver will expect you to pay the (very small) fee to leave.

As a final paragraph, I was looking out of my window at dusk when I noticed a large flock of pre-roosting Black Kites (both the migrans and lineatus forms occur at this time of year) building up in the skies over a nearby small park. I checked the flock for about twenty minutes and possibly saw a Booted Eagle (the views through the rain-stained glass wasn’t good enough to be certain), but no Vultures at all sadly…

Black Kites Milvus migrans

So was it worth a day’s birding? Absolutely. As Paul said the birding would undoubtedly be better when the winter migrants have returned, but if you’re in Dhaka with just one spare day you could do far worse…Just be warned how incredibly sapping the traffic is here: if you’re feeling remotely fragile the constant horn-blowing and swerving and braking will have you on edge for hours to come (I’m speaking from experience here of course) - at least though there is a whole bank of telephone numbers you can ring…

Sign on back of motorised three-wheeler taxi

Trip List:
English and scientific names mainly from “Birds of South Asia, The Ripley Guide”, Rasmussen P. and J. Anderton, Smithsonian Institution and Lynx Edicions, 2005:

Brahminy Kite Haliastur indus 4-5; Black Kite Milvus migrans 40+; Shikra Accipiter badius 1; Spotted Dove Streptopelia chinensis 10+; Ring-necked Parakeet Psittacula krameri 2+ (others heard?) ; Asian Koel Eudynamys scolopacea c) 2; Greater Coucal Centropus sinensis 2; Asian Palm Swift Cypsiurus balasiensis 20+; Little Swift Apus affinis 30+; Common Kingfisher Alcedo atthis 1; White-throated Kingfisher Halcyon smyrnensis 2; Fulvous-breasted Pied Woodpecker Dendrocopos macei 1; Rufous Woodpecker Microptemus brachyurus 1; Black-rumped Flameback Dinopium benghalense 6-8; Red-rumped Swallow Hirundo daurica 2-3; Forest Wagtail Dendronanthus indicus 1; White Wagtail Motacilla alba dukhunensis 1; Ashy Woodswallow Artamus fuscus 3; Red-vented Bulbul Pycnonotus cafer 5-10; Common Iora Aegithina tiphia 4-6; Brown Shrike Lanius cristatus 1; Orange-headed Thrush Zoothera citrina 3; Oriental Magpie Robin Copsychus saularis 10+; (Red-breasted Flycatcher Ficedula parva 1 poss); Red-throated Flycatcher Ficedula albicilla at least six (probably more); Jungle Babbler Turdoides striatus c)10; Common Tailorbird Orthotomus sutorius 5-6; Great Tit Parus major 3; Pale-billed Flowerpecker Dicaeum erythrorhynchos 1; Purple-rumped Sunbird Nectarinia zeylonica 1; Scaly-breasted Munia Lonchura punctulata 1; Black-hooded Oriole Oriolus xanthornus 6-8; Black-naped Oriole Oriolus chinensis diffusus 1 (poss 2); Black Drongo Dicrurus macrocercus c)10; Asian Pied Starling Sturnus contra 20+; Common Myna Acridotheres tristis 20+; House Crow Corvus splendens ++; Large-billed Crow Corvus macrorhynchos c)10; Rufous Treepie Dendrocitta vagabunda 5-6

A boy on a bus looks at a blogger in a taxi…