When: November 2015 Weather: hot 28C
Nikon P900 and my trusty Leica binoculars.
The Muslim cemetery that is Bidadari has become one of the most enduring and productive birding locations in SIngapore, especially during the migrant season…in the northern part of singapore, it’s easily reached by MRT (Woodleigh station) or by car. Sadly, it has been gazetted for redevelopment into housing etc and this may be the last season that we can enjoy Bidadari as it is…hopefully the authorities will leave some part of it alone so that migrant birds still come… I spent a couple of hours on two different days and so some wonderful birds….once in the mid afternnoon about 4pm and the next at 8am..
I sensed it was going to be a good day when this pair of blue tailed bee eaters appeared above where I parked my car in Jalan Rindu
the first afternoon was dedicated to seeking out the ruddy kingfisher….gorgeous bird and he gave a real show!
The second target bird was the oriental dwarf or black back kingfisher…small, elusive but delightful.
I posted many more pictures in my previous blog post on ‘Kingfishers only’ if you wanna see more KF pix,
Haven’t not gotten great pics of the black back, I went back this morning to try again……it was there but hiding in deep foliage and kept many photographers waiting for many an hour…so I decided to walk around the whole area and enjoy some of the other resident birds….
taking a seldom used trail, I soon saw this head bobbing up and down in the distance…
it was a female red jungle fowl with a couple of chicks…very shy, they disappeared rapidly as I approached…
this handsome white throated KF watched over the forest
and from a distance, the very common but nevertheless pretty black naped oriole found a pedestal
then…another common bird of Bidadari, the dollar bird…
resplendent in its coat of blue and green….
it then went back to its nest in the tree trunk…
close up of dollar bird
profile picture
and then one of the star birds of the morning…the beautiful tiger shrike…
I’d never shot the tiger shrike well before so this was a great sighting
just magnificent…this one is a juvenile tiger shrike
close up of its plumage ….that’s why it’s called a tiger shrike…
and just after shooting the shrike…this other migrant appeared….the ferruginous flycatcher! Instantly surrounded by a number of photographers…it posed briefly before flying off
see how it’s colouration of greyish head and rufous brown/ black matches the branch perfectly!
back view
front view
Ferruginous flycatcher…a migrant from the Himalaya and south china
and just before I left, the female common flameback woodpecker appeared high up…
the crest is black with spots on it in the female, red in the male
So this was a most fruitful two visits to Bidadari….long may it last!
The Natural Traveller 
Stunning pics! The one of the kingfisher with a frog is a good one for the ‘nature sentimentalists.’ We only have one kind of kingfisher in the UK.
Thank you for visiting my blog. I got lucky with the frog picture as I use a very compact and light Nikon P900 which allowed me to get that shot whilst the other more pro photographers were still moving their heavy tripods and lenses to shoot! I recently birded a bit in england and scotland and the difference in birdlife there is fascinating….