The story of the masked finfoot first caught my attention in 2013. Just like most other wild animals, the news on this recluse bird that calls the Sundarbans its home was not promising.
Tangents
Masked Finfoot, Sundarban. Photo: Ihtisham kabir
Rare, endangered and beautiful, the Masked Finfoot shines among the birds of Bangladesh. In the entire world, it is only the Bangladesh Sundarban where it can be found in good numbers. This secretive and mysterious bird sometimes behaves like a duck and sometimes like a bird. The mangrove forest provides grounds for it to live, eat and breed.
About ten years ago, it was estimated that perhaps one thousand Masked Finfoots survive in the wild, the vast majority of them in our Sundarban. However, in a recent paper published in the ornithological journal