I was told it’s a yellow bittern, but it’s not very yellow…

and has a lovely blue rump! If anyone can help me out with a positive ID of this bittern, I’d be grateful.

here showing off its plumage and black capped chestnut head

it even walks on water…almost…making sure it stayed clear of the….

many monitor lizards cruising in the water

from the main bridge, a flock of redshanks were foraging on the mud flat…

and then this beautiful Pied Hornbill flew across the river to land in a tree just at the end of the bridge….it sat a while and then dived into the lower branches of a nearby tree in a flurry of motion…

only to emerge nearby with something in its beak…at the time I shot these images, I could only see that there was something there but couldn’t be sure what it was…

Here we can that it’s a large red praying mantis with its yellowish wings spread out..

it toyed with the mantis for a while..

before finally swallowing it..

replete..interesting also how it has eyelashes in front of its eye…never knew birds have eyelashes

a distant collared kingfisher

moving over to the coastal walk segment of the SBWR, there is a mud skipper pond where even the not very attractive mudskippers can be made to look good!

the coastal walk leads to some viewing pods where good views of the river estuary and straits of Johore can be had…there were a lot of greater and lesser egrets there…

lesser egret wading

grey heron wading

graceful egret in flight

and then from the river estuary, this estuarine crocodile swam close to the egrets…who did not seem fazed by it at all!

indeed they seemed more fascinated than threatened…

the croc’s eyes are interesting….talk about proptosis! (Protruding eyeballs)

here a group of greater and lesser egrets are ganging up on the croc

and the pack leader decides that the croc is close enough and goes into attack mode, chasing the croc off!

balancing act

Last bird of the afternoon, from a Loooong way off, halfway across the straits of Johore, (the background is Johore) was this beautiful osprey, perched on a kelong pole..

and just before leaving, the sun lit these dark clouds out very nicely….thanks for viewing