• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Singapore, December 2017 (mostly urban birding) (1 Viewer)

Patudo

sub-200 birding aspirant
United Kingdom
I spent the last three weeks of December last year working and visiting family in Singapore. I spent a lot of my youth there and was familiar with the most common everyday species, but never attempted to properly observe them (through binoculars and so on) back then. I was looking forward to seeing my old neighbourhood through new eyes.

Singapore calls itself the "Garden City" - a not unmerited claim, for although most of the island is heavily urbanized and the original primary rainforest now only exists in a few reserves, extensive planting of trees across the island and a generally law-abiding populace have resulted in a pretty bird-friendly urban habitat, probably one of the most so in South East Asia.

My parents' neighbourhood in Bishan, central Singapore, is an area of terraced houses and a couple of small nearby parks. Every morning at just after 7.00am, shortly after sunrise, I would be awakened by the first good flock of rose-ringed parakeet - a bird most inhabitants of London are familiar with, and also an introduced species in Singapore, but one which seems less out of place in those tropical surroundings. Groups of four to ten would fly roughly east to west in the morning and back to the east in the afternoon. In that first hour or so after sunrise a walk up and down the street would see seemingly every pair of yellow-vented bulbul along the street perched prominently and calling and small flocks of Eurasian tree sparrow (Singapore's common urban sparrow) flying in. Stepping outside the door wasn't necessary to hear the regular call of the Asian koel, the bird that starts calling earliest in the morning and probably annoys more local residents than any other. I never saw a female (much more cryptically coloured) but would occasionally see a male perched up on a TV antenna in the mornings and evenings. Olive-backed sunbird is a regular visitor to my parents' garden and probably most others along the street.

The park just in front, where I learned to cycle, had more interesting birds than I remember there being - I saw pink-necked green pigeon and red-breasted parakeet in the tallest branches my very first afternoon and was later to see rose-ringed parakeet, a bee-eater species (I wasn't able to tell whether it was blue-tailed or blue-throated), and coppersmith barbet (a single bird sitting up high on a bare branch for five minutes or so). One bird I did remember well from childhood is the black-naped oriole, a pair of which could be seen in the mornings perched up in a tall Angsana tree in another nearby park. The striated heron which I saw a couple of times, however (the second perched on a street light like an enormous kingfisher) was totally new to me, and an even biggest surprise was hearing loud whistling calls one evening and after a bit of searching, finding they originated from a pair of hill myna.

So - probably little of interest to a seasoned international birder or Singapore resident, but a most interesting change from urban London.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_5873_02.JPG
    IMG_5873_02.JPG
    151.5 KB · Views: 46
  • IMG_5882_02.JPG
    IMG_5882_02.JPG
    96.2 KB · Views: 40
  • pastedImage1_01.JPG
    pastedImage1_01.JPG
    60.7 KB · Views: 43
  • IMG_1451_01.JPG
    IMG_1451_01.JPG
    58.4 KB · Views: 47
Last edited:
For me birding is all about making the best of wherever you happen to be, and you certainly did that. I love the Striated Heron on the lamppost - then are much shyer than here in Hong Kong - another bird-friendly Asian city. So often going back can be a disappointment. Sounds like this trip was exactly the opposite!

Cheers
Mike
 
Thanks Mike! I've really enjoyed the photos you have very kindly shared, and will be trying to improve my results on the photography front. I used my father's manual Nikkor 200mm f4 on either a Canon 30D or Rebel T3 to grab the ones in the post above - I'm grateful the birds sat still for long enough to let me take their pictures!

Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park - this is a fair-sized park a little north of my parents' place, running east to west on either bank of the Kallang "river". The park is split into two by Marymount Road which runs roughly north to south: I only visited the eastern half. Singapore's most familiar urban birds (especially Javan myna and spotted dove) are easily seen here, as in most areas throughout the island. White-fronted waterhen can be easily seen near the waterway, along with both adult and juvenile purple heron, which I'd seen elsewhere in my childhood but not had the chance to observe at leisure. Swifts and swiftlets are very much in evidence, but unfortunately my ability to identify individual species of hirundines is very poor. Birds I'd never seen before included Chinese pond heron, and quite good numbers of coconut lorikeet, an introduced species but quite fascinating to observe. In amongst the lorikeets was an incredibly conspicuous bright red bird that completely flummoxed me. A bit of web searching at home revealed it was a red lory. Singapore is, sadly, a major destination for the pet bird trade that has seen the plundering of forests around the region (for a very recent account, see dandsblair's trip report from Indonesia, especially post #17). I deeply wish it were not so, but I must confess to being glad that at least some of these birds have escaped and appear to be surviving quite well - in the case of red-breasted and rose-ringed parakeets, coconut lorikeet, and Tanimbar corella, having established local populations.

I only visited the park twice, once in the afternoon/evening and once in the early morning (which was somewhat quiet). Recent Ebird reports show there are quite a few more species to be observed in this location, including some I would quite like to have seen (magpie robin and oriental pied hornbill in particular). I'll try to spend more time here next time I'm back.

Changi Beach Club/Changi Village - I tried the former area early one morning hoping there would be a peregrine falcon on the telecoms tower of Pulau Ubin (the largish island north of Singapore itself) and that any hunting flights would be better observed across the water rather than from close to the tower. Unfortunately my target bird wasn't there, but the boardwalk allowed regular views of white-bellied sea eagle (one adult successfully capturing a fish not far from my position and flying away to a perch) and Brahminy kite, small flocks of Javan myna and Asian glossy starling flying south from Ubin island to Singapore, and medium-size terns, maybe a little smaller than sooty terns (I could not make an ID) mainly flying westward over the water. A brief stopover at Changi Village for breakfast provided excellent up-close views of the large number of red-breasted parakeet around the car park/ferry terminal and brief sightings of two larger white birds floating away in the distance, gone too soon for me to get my binoculars up - clearly cockatoos but I could not tell if these were Tanimbar corellas (most likely) or one of the larger cockatoo species. This area is some distance from where I was based but another place I would like to return for a longer visit.
 
Last edited:
Singapore Botanic Gardens - One visit on the morning of the 27th with my parents. I thought the red junglefowl strutting around confidently near the car park were feral chickens but it seems as though they are the genuine article. The large bed of Heliconia near the closest of three lakes to the visitor centre (Symphony Lake) had good numbers of olive-backed sunbird descending from nearby trees to feed. A placard near the lake states that the arrow near the far bank often has a stork-billed kingfisher perched up on it, but the kingfisher I saw there, unfortunately, didn’t look like one – smaller, with a finer bill and the colours were arranged differently - I’m pretty sure it was either a common (most likely) or blue-eared kingfisher.

While walking around the Orchid Gardens a red-legged crake dashed across the footpath right in front of us. Shortly afterwards a bright red spot flitted down from the trees and was soon away. Fortunately it flew down again, giving me the opportunity to take a good look through the binoculars at a male crimson sunbird - one of the birds I had most wanted to see. A male brown-throated sunbird was perched inconspicuously several yards further down the path, while the female was more obvious. On the walk back to the car park sunbird activity in the Heliconia beds had fallen off a great deal from earlier, but we saw small groups of long-tailed parakeets flying by overhead to tall palms, and just before leaving my father spotted a large raptor soaring low to the north of the lake – a changeable hawk-eagle.

The gardens extend over a larger area than we covered and it would have been interesting to explore the entire area. I’m sure a birder more experienced in woodland would have found quite a few more species.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_1390_02.JPG
    IMG_1390_02.JPG
    166.5 KB · Views: 24
  • IMG_1392_02.JPG
    IMG_1392_02.JPG
    106.6 KB · Views: 21
  • IMG_1399_01.JPG
    IMG_1399_01.JPG
    138.7 KB · Views: 22
  • pastedImage2_01.jpg
    pastedImage2_01.jpg
    107.1 KB · Views: 25
  • pastedImage3_01.JPG
    pastedImage3_01.JPG
    98.7 KB · Views: 27
City Hall, Raffles Place - I carried binoculars with me to work every day and spent a fair bit of time glassing around the most extensively human-modified landscape in Singapore. The Esplanade rooftop has surprising numbers of olive-backed sunbird as well as excellent views of Brahminy kite and white-bellied sea eagle soaring over Marina Bay. I couldn’t identify a large brown raptor with a banded tail just below treetop level just east of the now unused Formula One pit lane - probably an oriental honey buzzard. Morning walks around the Padang/Singapore Cricket Club green would see numerous Pacific swallow (often flying very low over the turf), other hirundines, and the occasional bat hawking insects – the bats, incidentally, would be quite regularly seen at twilight. Other birds included dollarbird (a single bird perched up on top of the National Gallery dome), a large white egret flapping over Marina Bay (unsure whether this was a great egret or a Chinese egret), grey heron, striated heron (by the riverbank), rose-ringed parakeet (small groups flying towards the Gardens by the Bay on both sides of the Marina barrage), peregrine falcon (on tall building and soaring over the city), Asian koel, and pink-necked green pigeon (perched in the trees near Fullerton Hotel). On a visit to the Pinnacle Duxton rooftop (costs $6) I had the good fortune of seeing a dark phase changeable hawk eagle pop up quite close to the large building, and an hour or so later see a pale phase bird come from the north, fly around the building and head back the way it had come.

Some general notes:

December is probably the coolest month of the year in Singapore but it can still be very hot, and humidity is high. Hat, sun protection etc is essential. I found early morning and late afternoon by far the most comfortable. Afternoons would often see cloud building up, followed by showers, often quite heavy - rain gear would be advisable if birding in areas that lack shelter.
 
Warning! This thread is more than 6 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top