When: September 2014 Weather : Hot 30C
We had been told that wolf snakes were easy to locate in and around the Punggol waterway park so J and I set off for it 7am last sunday. So we walked up and down the whole 1km or so of the whole park but sadly we were unable to find any snakes…the other fauna though made up for it and I saw some interesting other birds…
Almost the first thing I saw as we started our walk were these beautiful bulbuls, the Sooty Headed Bulbul with its distinctive black head and beautiful deep orange vent….in contrast to the much commoner yellow vented bulbul in Singapore. There were quite a number of them here and they have also been reported in the Lorong Halus area.
Sooty headed bulbul
A pair of them…note the brilliant orange vent
feeding..
found a berry…
and down the hatch it goes..
contented
Paddyfield pipit
the changeable lizard was basking
as was the turtle
dragonflies were hovering
water insects floating…
then we saw this little grey heron
adopting the attack position when he saw a fish..
the strike was faster than the eye could see…
gotcha!
licking his lips after the meal…
another contented bird…
white throated kingfisher from afar..
sea eagle
And then this big, brownish red bird flew over me…I thought it was a coucal but the plumage seems redder than the typical brown of the coucal
another view…
there were also lots of common long tailed parakeets
So although we didn’t find our serpents, the other bird life did not disappoint…
Brilliant photos. Love the geometry of the pond skater.
Thanks.
Hi Ron. Fantastic shot of the grey heron extending it’s neck – unbelievable neck anatomy! As for those parakeets, they may be red-breasted parakeets. SB