34th Singapore Bird Race
When: November 2018 Weather : Hot 28C
Nikon P900 and Sony RX10(IV)
When I was asked a couple of weeks ago to join in the Singapore Bird Race(No…it’s not birds racing each other …) I was more than happy to join in the ‘Photographers’ category in which the two of us in the team would try to photograph and identify as many birds as possible in 5 hours….we started off bright and early at 730am in the Sungai Buloh new visitor centre…we came in a disappointing fourth out of 9 teams with a score of 43 birds successfully photographed and identified. Here are some of them with contributions from my partner, Jimmy.
we started with some common birds….the male pink necked pigeon
the less colourful pink necked pigeon
pied triller
female brown throated sunbird…thanks to KC for help in ID. I’d accidentally forgotten to include this picture in our final submissions…we’d have come third otherwise!
oriental magpie robin
we then headed to Turut Track
Pacific Swallow
Barn swallow with its black collar under the orange
a distant osprey
a black winged kite with twig in mouth
majestically perched black winged kite
a nice view and comparison between the little egret on the left and the intermediate egret on the right
beautiful yellow bittern
yellow bittern
And on to the Kranji Marsh and central conservation core area….
resplendent dollar bird in the sunshine
Blue tailed bee eater
front view showing the blue tail of the blue tailed bee eater
and here’s the blue throated bee eater showing the clear difference between it and the blue tailed bee eater
blue throated bee eater
the core conservation area is normally not accessible but it was open for a few hours for the bird race
brahminy kite
oriental honey buzzard
grey headed fish eagle
Changeable Hawk eagle
Red wattled lapwings next to lotus pond
wood sandpiper
long tailed shrike
and for our last half hour or so we went back to the old Sungai Buloh wetland area and saw this common sandpiper
painted stork
the whimbrels were out in force
common redshank
grey heron
an ashy tailorbird
coppersmith barbet from afar
we ended up in Nyee Phoe nursery to try and find some sunbirds or flowerpeckers but only got the sclay breasted munia as our last bird of the day
So 5 hours of birding gave us a yield of 43-45 birds; we could have and should have done better but there’s always next year!
The Natural Traveller 