The snow white egrets or herons locally known as ‘Shada Bok’ that flew in flocks everywhere in Dinajpur district and searched for food by standing on one leg beside ponds and other water bodies are rarely visible now-a-days.
Destruction of trees, clearing of forests and indiscriminate hunting of these birds have been identified as chief reasons behind making this exquisite birds near extinct.
Both egrets or herons and the storks have occupied a substantial dimension in Bangla poems and in literature. The flocks of snow white egrets flying through blue sky in the early dawn sunshine and the returning to their nests under the red horizon of the setting sun have been charming the people of the country from time immemorial.
After the days hunting of food, the egrets or herons returned to their nests which they built on top of the bamboo groves, cocoanut or palm trees or even on the branches of dense, high trees.
The clamouring shrill of egrets and their chicks at the nests, feeding the chicks by their parents and the nasty odour of faeces under those trees are now only an imagination.
According to sources, there are eight species of egrets in the world of which five species are available in Bangladesh. The standard size of an egret is 45 to 150 centimetre long. With long legs and beaks, the entire body of an egret is covered with white feathers.
Defying the ban some dishonest people were engaged in hunting egrets by shooting or by using traps. Due to indiscriminate hunting the egret is now on the verge of extinction.
It is learnt, egrets mainly hunt frogs, small snakes, snails, crabs, small fishes and insects through their long, sharp edged beaks and consume those, They work as natural cleaners of harmful aquatic pests, insects and reptiles.
This correspondent recently watched a number of egrets standing silently beside a water body of Ghughudanga union of the district. While this correspondent tried to take photographs of those egrets, they were changing their position a little fluttering their wings as though they were vanishing away from this world.
