Wonders of Dulahazra

 location > dulahazra safari park/cox's bazar

Wonders of Dulahazra 

Every forest rest house has its own story to tell. Whether it is inside dense forest or on the edge of the woodland, one must feel the isolation while sitting in the rest house in the evening.
As the sun went down, birds of different colours, sizes and shapes passed over
us, heading for their roosting places. Scores of warblers were settling in the vegetation around us and a big geko lizard known as Mertin's Tokey, began its evening incantation -- a quiet chuckling followed by a loud Gec-ko … Gec-ko ... gek-ko. A fruit bat flew past us and a barred owlet called. Crickets and cicadas joined them with their high-pitched orchestral chorus. But still I was missing some thing, the howling of the foxes and calling of the nightzars.
Our enterprising cook had taken his duty seriously and we dined well that night. Fortunately there was no trace of mosquito and we had a dreamless sleep without its nightly purgatory.
Early next morning the rain disrupted our morning adventure. Fortunately the heavy clouds disappeared after an hour and gave way to the bright daylight.The forest department kindly provided us with their vehicle. The ranger accompanied us and as we passed the entrance to the park, we found ourselves in the heart of the forest. As the vehicle was heading slowly I saw a sudden commotion in the bamboo thicket on my right which revealed a massive greyish black cattle. As I had good look at its head and its pair of curved horns and dorsal ridge, I immediately recognised it as a gayal, a native wild cattle only found along the bordering areas of Bangladesh and the Indian state of Mizoram and Myanmar. These animals are among the least studied bovines of the world and vaguely regarded as the partially domesticated form of gaur, which it closely resemble other than the gaurs white patches of hair below the knee. Scientists named gayal as bos frontalis, whcih can weigh over 500-kg.

I never had the experience of encountering these animals and so did not know about their tolerance to human beings. But the ranger informed me that the park animals are bred in the park and are not temperamental.
The forest road led us to a beautiful lake surrounded by tall rainforest trees which reflected green in water. By aligning my pair of binoculars I spotted a stork billed kingfisher, the largest of their kind in Bangladesh. While Biswajit devoted his time to photographing flowers and butterflies, I suddenly heard a whistling sound above me and craned my neck to locate the source of the sound and was amazed to find a pair of tree-living cotton teal, the smallest ducks of our country popularly known as pigmy goose.
After a while we again boarded the vehicle and were brought to a 20 feet high wooden walkway that leads to 300 metres, providing a fantastic opportunity of watching the forest and its animals and birds. We walked down all the way and found some interesting birds such as racket-tailed drongo, strikingly coloured minivets and some rhesus monkeys. On the other end of the walkway, we discovered some samber deer resting by the forest edge. Samber, our biggest member of the deer family, are the most vulnerable of animals facing serious threat of extinction. The park animals are now thriving well in an optimistic amount.
The cloud again threatened us and we backtracked along the walkway and found a beautiful small animal on the forest floor -- a barking deer curiously looking at us. Big drops of rain started to splatter and forced us to retreat to the safety of the rest house.

Posted by Amader Campus 24 at | 4:29 AM