Wooded savannah on the Ganges sandbars: A hidden wildlife paradise

At first glance, the landscape appears like an ideal ground for some mediaeval set-piece battle. The ground, dry and undulating, is peppered with trees and thickets that restrict visibility. I recalled all the historical epics I had watched. The terrain bids the perfect positioning for the musketeers in ambush and the cavalries waiting to charge down. 

But after close inspection — with an eye of a field biologist — the plain appears to be so much more, beyond imagination. My bird-watching mates and I were standing on a remote sandbar of the Ganges River. It is shared by India and Bangladesh, as the border pierces through.

The land has been accreted by the age-old siltation process, now about 20 feet high from the shoreline. The Ganges flowed to our left. As it is at the onset of summer, the river is turquoise-blue, calm, and serene, and wherever shallow is blanketed by newly raised sandbars with golden beige sands glistening under a strong sun. On the far left, on the horizon, lies the Rajshahi district. We were about 20km downstream from the Rajshahi Metropolitan city. 

The land has no formal name, yet is a complete wonder package. Locally known as Dosh No. Char (Number 10 Sandbar), it spans about 10 square km, dotted with small to medium-sized trees and bushes dominated by the thorny mimosa, jujube, and rubber bush. 

Although it might sound surprising, nobody planted them. The mimosa seeds have been spread by livestock; the land, except for the monsoon, is seasonally used by cattle and buffalo herders. The jujubes were carried by the birds. The rubber bushes were washed ashore by the river and settled themselves in. I have been to riverine grasslands, but this landscape looked like a savannah, exactly like the ones we used to see in popular documentaries. 

We visited the place for birds, for it is one of the most prominent bird-watching hotspots in Rajshahi. In a team of four, we were following dusty cattle trails as there are no traces of conventional roads. We were greeted by dust whirls and buffalo carts. Although the carts had rubber tyres instead of wooden wheels on iron brackets, it had been decades since I had last seen them in Bangladesh. After a half an hour's walk from the mooring under the azure-blue sky in sweltering noon, we reached our vantage point, a thinly-populated pastoral settlement. There were thatched houses and corrals, bales of hay, and stacks of fuel sticks made of cow dung. 

On this ragtag, end-of-the-world riverine island, we were not expecting to see an overwhelming number of birds, let alone wildlife. The walk was arduous as we were carrying heavy equipment. The village, I still do not know whether it should be called one, wore a rough look. But the biodiversity was extraordinary. 

Within our two hours of stay there, we observed about 50 species of birds and two mammals. There were raptorial birds such as harriers and buzzards, indicative of prey aplenty. Farmland birds were booming. There were hoopoes, babblers, bulbuls, etc. Rafts of migratory ducks were seen resting on the Ganges. There were shelducks, geese, pintails, gadwalls, and wigeons. 

The sandbar is one of the two known places in Bangladesh that houses two special types of birds: the common babbler and the grey francolin. The former was added to the country's checklist only a couple of years back. The latter, thought to be extinct in Bangladesh, was rediscovered about six years back. 

But it was not the star attractions in the place that surprised me the most. It was the apparent fearless attitude of the wildlife, almost certainly nowhere to be seen in the country. The francolins were seen grazing between haystacks and thatched houses. Within half a kilometre of the settlements, we saw about 15 of them, some even resting in the cattle shades. Tell me where in Bangladesh a super shy bird like the francolin lives in such proximity to humans. We saw hares sprinting away near our feet. We saw Eurasian thick-knee leisurely gliding past us, just to maintain a safe distance. The shelducks on the river seemed indifferent to human presence, busy in careful preening and loud chattering. The experience was unlike any other I have encountered before.

We were told that it was the apparent position of the land that allowed the wildlife to enjoy a sanctuary. As the sandbars are a demarcation of international borders, the usage of guns and other hunting practices are unheard of. The rubber bushes are highly toxic, avoided by the cattle, and thus, offer safe spaces for the birds. The same goes for the thorny mimosa. They fend off the cattle and welcome in the birds. The Ganges is also a decisive factor here. In the monsoons, the river gets swollen. The pastoralists leave and the wildlife gets time to regenerate.  

We were told of encounters with fishing cats and otters. We were told of past sightings of gavials, a critically endangered fish-eating crocodilian, basking at exactly where the ducks were roosting. Despite the enticing tales that whispered for a prolonged stay, we had to leave early for there was a bus to catch in the afternoon. I gave a last glance at the Ganges Savannah. I would not have been surprised if a leopard peeked its head out of a bush.

Wilderness grown on large river systems is the most neglected in Bangladesh. As our boat headed upstream and got us in range of a mobile network, Facebook gave updates on some illegal hunting activity ongoing on a sandbar right on the far side of the Rajshahi city. 

The city itself was depressing. Rajshahi, reputed as the greenest mega-city in Bangladesh, is losing her wild splendours at an unprecedented rate. Old mango orchards, the pride of Rajshahi, are cut down fast to make room for housing properties. We have yet to set protected areas in the Ganges although the wildlife diversity is widely known. When will we understand that ''All things are connected,'' and that, ''Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons of the earth,'' I do not know.