Weeklong Sundarban + Northeast Bangladesh Fast Paced Birding February 2026 - Trip Report
This Weeklong Bird Photography Trip was booked by Mr. J. Hagley on facebook and with him his father Mr. R. Hagley. They are Auzzie Birders with around 3500 birds worldwide and came to visit Bangladesh for the Masked Finfoot & White-eared Night Heron, White-tailed Stonechat, Cachar Bulbul etc. We changed our schedule a little for one morning in Sylhet looking for Common Cranes, ducks and Buntings. Thankfully the Plan worked out very nicely and and we saw almost 190 species of birds in just 7 days including travel and clients went back very happily.
February 1st – The Hagleys arrived at the Airport at Mid-day and we started our road trip promptly. We stopped at Kamargaon grassland for some quick birding in the Afternoon, did not find the White-tailed Stonechat but got The Richard’s Pipit and Red-necked Falcon, both lifers for them . We continued towards Khulna and got on the ship which would start cruising right away towards Finfoot Zone.
February 2nd – We’d arrived at the Location at very early in the morning so we started exploring the Canals for Finfoot at first light. First bird of the morning was a Buffy Fish Owl which flew across the Canal and sat on a high perch giving good views. We explored the Main canal and one side canal where we saw our first Masked Finfoot female. It did not allow to go very close so we followed it while it foraged for sometime and got very good views of it foraging along the banks and swimming.
In the Afternoon we went out again and got great views of Brown-winged Kingfishers, Black-capped Kingfishers etc along with Small-clawed Otters. Due to phase of the Moon, low tides were specially low so we had a bit of trouble exploring the very shallow and narrow canals.
At night we tried for the Owls & White-eared Night Heron for few hours but only saw few Buffy Fish Owls. Later on the Ship we saw a Brown-wood Owl that flew by us.
February 3rd – We went out early at very low tide and got stuck at a narrow canal for over an hour. High Tide was coming in soon so nothing was to worry about. We sat there silently and saw large flocks of Egrets foraging around us and a family of small-clawed otters which came within 10 feet of us and foraged along the both banks. Other birds were Velvet-fronted Nuthatch, Speckled Piculet etc.
In the Afternoon session, we found a new Masked Finfoot climbing up the bank and we waited for some time for it to come down and forage, which it did after some time. It was a Lovely Male Masked Finfoot, that vanished into a Nipa Palm grove right around sunset. We stayed there a bit longer and got excellent views of a Brown Wood Owl. While returning to ship I picked up a White-eared Night Heron foraging sitting by the Bank, we went close and saw it briefly with spotlights. It flew instantly atleast for 500m, we followed it to it’s general direction and found it again. This time we could go quite close to it and then lit up the spot lights. It gave almost half a minute of excellent view before flying again down river for almost a kilometer. We came back to the Ship happily with Both Targets done in Sundarban.
February 4th – Next morning we went to that Male Finfoot spot quickly and started looking for it. The Bird jumped down from almost an overhead low hanging branch on the Bank and quickly went up inside Nipa Palm groves. We gave it some space and went around the corner. The Bird must’ve swam across the canal and went to the Other side. We found it again and observed for almost an hour. It foraged along the Banks, swam in water before we called it a lovely session and returned to ship. We then started towards a Boardwalk built around an ancient temple in sundarban. Birding was not notable in the afternoon but we saw excellent Irrawadi Dolphins and Ganges Rivers Dolphins on the way. Only lifer there was the Blyth’s pipit. We cruised towards Karamjal Boardwalk that night for on foot birding next day looking for next biggest target the Streak-breasted Woodpecker & Ruddy Kingfisher.
February 5th – The Next day we entered the Boardwalk early. Bird activity was excellent, we picked up Orange-bellied Flowerpecker, Lesser Yellownape and Black-naped Woodpecker. One Mangrove pitta called once but we could not find it, it did not respond again neither despite few hours of playing back. We finally got the Streak-breasted Woodpecker, both male and female along with a Ruddy Kingfisher aswell. We got off the ship a bit early and started towards Dhaka.
We took a break near Other side of Padma Bridge and took a boat to look for White-tailed Stonechat, which we found after about an hour of looking. We drived the later hours of evening towards Satchari NP and checked in a guest house for the night.
February 6th – Next Morning we went straight to Satchari NP which is only 10 minutes away from the Guest House. We picked up the Cachar Bulbul from the Watchtower area pretty easily and while walking inside forest we got Capped Langur, Hoolock Gibbon, Phayre’s Leaf Macaque. We went back to the Guest house for checkout, lunch and came back to the park. We got Assamese Macaque, Pig-tailed Macaque, Cachar Bulbul call again, Rufous-bellied Niltava, White-tailed Robin etc. We chased after Blue-naped Pitta for the remaining evening but could not see one despite getting responses from few hundred meters. We started towards Sylhet right away and arrived at hotel at 10PM.
February 7th – We started towards a nearby Large Wetland and bushland where 03 Common Cranes were staying for some time. I discovered them first this season there earlier in January with another group along with Falcated Duck. But this day we could not find the Falcated Duck as most of the ponds with ducks were drained of water for irrigation and they’ve moved. We quickly picked up several lifers for clients including Chestnut-eared Bunting & Black-headed Bunting, Paddyfield Warbler, Ruddy-breasted Crake, Greater Spotted Eagle, The Common Cranes and one surprising Bristled Grassbird. We then started heading back to Dhaka, had lunch on the way and dropped guests 3 hours before their flight.
