Singapore Summary

Another four months have come and gone and all too soon I'm leaving on a jet plane. The 12 hour time difference is ready to deal a heavy blow to me. But I've come with a trick up my sleeve. My remedy to jet lag?
Hangovers are a proven remedy for jet lags. They're the equivalent of an anti-jet lag.
But I'm not much of a drinker, so I've adjusted myself to the time difference 'gradually' over the last few days - I'm writing this at 5am, or is that 5pm ;)
I hope it works out!

Anyway, this is supposed to be about my last 4 months in SG.
I arrived in Singapore in early January without having studied the avifauna of the region in any detail. Every time I opened the field guide I was overwhelmed so I decided to just immerse myself without any practice and see how I came out!

On my first morning I had one of these guys chilling out on the side-view mirror of a car. It was a relatively easy identification as an Olive-backed Sunbird - I quickly learned to ignore this species in favour of others despite their good looks:

Later that day I took out my digiscoping gear in hopes of photographing something colourful. I was happy to find not 1 but at least 8 White-throated Kingfishers hanging out on a railing. It was nice to get this photo of one of them, but I expected that soon these birds will lose their appeal if they're going to be that common!

It turns out that I never saw many more White-throated Kingfishers. Maybe another 10 at most over the last 4 months. I don't know why they all seemed to congregate there on that one day (they shouldn't have been migrating at that time).

I also got this photo early on in my visit of a Collared Kingfisher (a very common species in SG):

By my second week I had already seen 2 Pitta species (I never did see anymore after that). Pittas are all the rage in Asia, they've been dubbed the jewels of the forest - and many birders bankrupt themselves in their attempts to see all 32 (or so) species.

Personally, I never took a liking to them. Their big beaks, and lack of honour and manners really turned me off - the 2 Pittas I saw were only too happy to gorge themselves full of handouts from the local photographers. They're 'supposed' to be deep in the forest, rarely seen, not eating mealworms from a plastic cup.

In after thought, the colours on that bird sort of look unrealistic. So I can see where their attraction lies.

I was lucky to come to SG this year because at least 4 local birders are doing an 'all out' big year, with several others semi-keenly following behind. Exciting birds are constantly being found and have been well staked out making the tickin' easy.

One birder found a pair of Greater Painted Snipes at a grassland near my campus:

It became my temporary patch, although I never did go all that often in the end. I did luck out in finding this Common Kestrel - which was one of the "rarities of the month" for March:

Not long after that I found this Buffy Fish Owl - a rare resident in Singapore. The bird showed up for a daily rendez-vous for 5 days straight, never to be seen again:

 Of course, being in SE Asia I took the opportunity to explore the region a little. Mira came to visit me in late February and we decided to travel to Thailand for a week of birding.
Spoon-billed Sandpipers was our "most wanted" bird, and we succeeded with 4 individuals:

The other main success was finding this Asian Dowitcher after sunset on our last day in the area:

In the end I saw or heard 181 species in Singapore - I was hoping for more than 150. I really don't think I would have reached that number if the SG Big Year wasn't this year, so I owe them all a big thanks!
Of the ~2800 species of birds documented in Asia, I have seen 290.
And my year list is at 303, last years was ~450, so it should be easy to pass that mark, maybe even by the end of the month?

Tomorrow I'll be in Canada chasing after warblers - the jewels of the boreal forest - at least they don't have big ugly bills, and for the most part are very principled in their ways.

Stuff

Some stuff (i.e. filler) worth sharing:

SG Bird App: The local Nature Society recently released a FREE app to help identify the birds of Singapore. This is the first app of its kind for Asian birds! Even if you have absolutely no plans or desire to come here you may as well download the app ...it's free. You never know when one of those Asiatic megas will show up on your patch!
Don't expect an app as thorough as the Sibley App, but you get what you pay for and I understand that updates and improvements are on their way.
Considering that it's free there really doesn't need to be any other incentive. Did I mention that it's free.


This video deserves way more views than it already has. It freaks me out every time I watch it:

The locals

My neighbours, the Straw-headed Bulbuls, continued to visit the fig tree on an almost daily basis up until sometime last week. As I expected, another juvenile did appear. But I only recorded two juveniles on one occasion. All the subsequent visits were from an individual adult and juvenile.

Now they've pretty much eaten all the berries and I don't see them anymore. I do hear the adults singing occasionally. Hopefully they've found a new food source elsewhere.

(not digiscoped)

Straw-headed Bulbuls are one of the 'specialty' birds of Singapore. I understand that they're rather difficult to see in the rest of their range. So I was very lucky to be able to record the juveniles from my window :)

The other local is the Buffy Fish-Owl, who I saw literally 5 days in a row, it was within a ten minute walk from my room. It doesn't get much better than that!
Unfortunately, the bird all but disappeared on the 5th day. I've frequently checked back without success.

Nothing else of note lately, trying to clear up some random work before heading back to Canada.

Here's a photo of a random fish that we saw on one of our pelagics.

It was actually at the dock so wasn't technically on the pelagic:

Do you see the small guy 'hitching' a ride?

Don't forget about the quiz below!