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.
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
Last edited: