Exploring the hidden gems of Sundarban
The pride of West Benga, India, Sundarbans covers an area of around 10,000km2 in the delta of Ganges. It lies on the south-east of Kolkata and borders the Bay of Bengal. This wonderful biosphere reserve houses many rare and endangered animals including aquatic mammals, tigers, birds and reptiles. Sundarbans is mainly located at the confluence of Ganga and Brahmaputra basin in between India and Bangladesh. While the major portion of Sundarbans falls in the Indian territory, a small portion lies in Bangladesh as well which makes it a significant natural wonder of both the countries.
The mangrove forest supports the tiger population, which happens to be the largest in the world. The tigers are largely adapted to an amphibious life.
They can swim and run very fast and live on fish, crab and water monitor lizards. Other than tigers, Sundarban also houses wonderful variety of aquatic mammals such as Ganges dolphin, finless porpoise, Indo-Pacific humpbacked dolphin, and Irrawaddy dolphin. Significant varieties of waterbirds are found in Sajnakhali area of Sundarban. The variety includes various indigenous species like black-necked stork, Asian open-bill stork, white ibis, greater adjutant, white-collared kingfisher, swamp francolin, black-capped kingfisher and brown-winged kingfisher. Wader, a rare winter migrant and marsh bird is found in this area.
