Monthly Archives: July 2014

Sashimi, wasabi and otter

The Smooth-coated Otters (Lutrogale perspicillata) are a perennial favourite of mine. From the early days of my wildlife photography journey, I have encountered and written about them here, here and here.

I continue to bump into them repeatedly in recent years, but unique photographic opportunities have been rarer.

On an early morning in April this year, I managed to track down a family of these otters at Sungei Serangoon near to the barrage. Lighting condition was still low, but these otters were happily frolicking by the bank of the river. One of them had a fish and seem more interested in eating than playing with the rest of the group. My long lens setup was ideal for some close-up shots, as it was unconcerned about my presence, while the rest went away soon after.

What’s with the mention of wasabi? Go to the photo gallery to find out.

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Oriental Plover in Singapore

The Oriental Plover (Charadrius veredus) also known as the Oriental Dotterel is a long-legged, medium-sized plover. Its breeding range covers southern Siberia, through northern and eastern Mongolia and into north-eastern China. Post breeding season, it migrates southwards to the Greater Sundas and Australia. En-route it may pass by Hong Kong, the Korean Peninsula, Japan, the Philippines and parts of Southeast Asia.

In Singapore, it is considered a rare winter visitor/passage migrant. Since 1985, there have only been 5 records of this species locally. The most recent one was from October 2012 at a small strip of beach with an area of mudflat next to Seletar Dam.

On the early evening of 1 October 2012, I stopped by this area, en-route to check out a migratory Black-backed Kingfisher that normally bathe in the late evening at Lower Peirce. I had some time to kill. As I was checking out the beach inhabitants, two birders that I did not recognise came over and told me they think they have seen the Oriental Plover and needed me to get some photo evidence. I asked them to show me where the bird was and through their scope I could see a very distant and tall plover. I rushed back to my car to get a longer lens. Standing beside them, I managed to get a few shots. Then I decided to climb down from the roadside to the beach proper to get a closer view. Unfortunately during my descent, the plover flew off. So I went back, reported the sighting with small record shots to show. The next day, many birders came to try their luck, but the plover did not show up. I chalked that up as a lucky lifer, being at the right place and at the right time.

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Great Cormorant in Singapore

The Great Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) is a very common and widespread member of the cormorant family of seabirds. It is found on every continent except South America and Antarctica.

The species breeds along rocky maritime coasts, nesting on cliff ledges or rocky islands free of predators, and feeding in sheltered inshore waters.

In the past, Great Cormorants migrate to Peninsular Malaysia an possibly Singapore, but now only rare vagrants occur in Malaysia. In Singapore, there is/was however a population of Great Cormorants, escapees or free ranging birds from the bird park. They have been found residing at Kranji Dam, Sungei Mandai and Mandai mudflats near the estuary of the river. In 2004, there was a record of 11 birds seen at Kranji Dam1. Breeding is suspected as there were juvenile birds along with the adults.

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Yellow-billed Blue Magpie in Bhutan

I have written before about the Red-billed Blue Magpies at my workplace here. Their close relatives are the Yellow-billed Blue Magpies (Urocissa flavirostris). The most prominent difference is the colour of their bills. They are also a bit smaller, the blue plumage a little duller, and a smaller white nape patch. They both belong to the crow and jays family, whose members are generally considered the most intelligent birds, and among the most intelligent animals.

The Yellow-billed Blue Magpie, also called the Gold-billed Magpie is a species commonly found throughout the Himalayas, and in some places, co-exist with the Red-billed Blue Magpies. However in Bhutan, only the Yellow-billed Blue Magpie can be found.

On the first day of my trip, I managed to hear and then see 2-3 of them flying up the trees at the hotel where I was staying. Throughout the entire trip, I would see them quite often mostly in a group, but opportunities to photograph them well was rarer. These birds are really intelligent. Once we sighted them on a low branch somewhere and stop our car, they will very soon just fly a little downhill, out of sight. Remember than Bhutan is really mountainous and the roads all go through them, so there is always a slope downhill everywhere we go. So just like the Blue Whistling Thrush (where one is present in every few turns of a road), these common birds were not so easy to photograph after all.

But of course there were one or two encounters that were more productive so below are some photos of them.

 

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Helping a dull bird shine – Greater Racket-tailed Drongo

The Greater Racket-tailed Drongo (Dicrurus paradiseus) is by no means a dull bird in character. In fact it is one of the liveliest bird around, with the ability to mimic and create a variety of calls and sounds. It has been suggested that it’s ability to mimic other birds, serves the function to create mix-species flocks. The purpose being to steal food (kleptoparasitism) from the member of the flock or to find insects disturbed by other foragers around.

In Singapore, they have been observed following macaques around, probably gathering food or insects disrupted by the activity of these primates. There are many other stories about this very interesting drongo, that I will leave for another time.

Today the attention is towards photography. And unfortunately for the drongo, it’s a rather neglected species photographically. Its plumage colour is a glossy bluish black. That alone is a turn-off for many photographers who would gladly choose more colourful birds. The other thing is that it has a distinctive, long outer tail shafts ending with twisted pendants. That is a very attractive feature, but is challenging composition wise to get a ‘balanced’ picture, without it being blocked or cut off.

So what are the so-called features of a good bird photo? The answers are varied and for every feature I say is good, someone is bound to disagree. But generally, a few things normally stand out.

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Grey thickheads at Ghost Island

Sometimes it is interesting to know how things are named. Most people with a passing familiarity with this blog knows that I writes mainly about birds, with occasional articles about the other wildlife that I encounter. But it will be a small minority that will know what I refer to as a grey thickhead unless they really know where is Ghost Island.

Ghost Island is the literal translation of Pulau Hantu (a Malay name), a small island (actually 2 islet, Pulau Hantu Besar and Pulau Hantu Kechil) located south of Singapore. It is best known as a destination for fishing, scuba diving and snorkeling, as well as a weekend retreat for campers.

The island itself is pretty small at 12.5 hectares, so chances of meeting many birds there is limited. Yet I have been to that island a total of 4 times since 2011. The reason is very simple. I was looking for the grey thickhead. What is this bird that doesn’t seem to have a Wikipedia entry? Thickhead is the old name for a genus of birds called the whistlers. It is a literal translation of the generic name, which is derived from the Ancient Greek terms pachys “thick” and kephale “head”. In other words, all the birds under the genus Pachycephala are called whistlers. In Latin ciner means “ashes”, and in scientific naming convention, normally is used to refer to the colour ashy grey. So Pachycephala cinerea is grey thickhead. Its English name is Mangrove Whistler, but that really isn’t very evocative of how it looks.

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Bottlenose Dolphins at Singapore Strait

Recently, dolphins have been in the news in Singapore for the wrong reasons. Captive dolphins dying at the Marine Life Park at Resorts World Sentosa, as well as the recent dolphin carcasses swept-up on our beach made for some depressing news.

Most people’s idea of seeing wild dolphins is to go on a holiday far away, perhaps Australia or New Zealand to experience them first hand. So it comes as a surprise that dead dolphins can wash ashore locally. Yet, Singapore does have a healthy population of wild dolphins around its territorial waters. The most commonly encountered species in Singapore are the Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus). If one take a boat ride along Singapore Strait for a day trip, there is probably a 50% chance that a pod or two of them will show up.

I had been involved in a few pelagic bird survey trips in the Singapore Strait for the past 3 years, mainly organized by Nature Society (Singapore), so there have been a couple of times that I have seen these aquatic mammals. Most of the time, the encounters have been brief, and I am exceedingly bad at getting decent photographs of them. It is almost like a game of whack-a-mole, trying to predict where they will surface again after the initial contact. These are wild dolphins. Though curious, they do not linger for long, and there is no history of prolonged contact with human, unlike their cousins elsewhere. Nonetheless, the encounters are always a delight to almost everyone on-board, again underlining the charismatic nature of these animals.

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The Great-billed Heron and the Barramundi

The Great-billed Heron (Ardea sumatrana) is a large heron (up to 1.15 metres in height) that inhabit coastal areas in South-east Asia, Papua New Guinea to Australia.

In Singapore, it is considered a rare resident bird species, with sightings mainly on the various small offshore islands, although occasionally they turn up in Sungei Buloh. One of the most reliable place to see this species is at Chek Jawa Wetland in Pulau Ubin during low tide. There seem to be 2-3 of these around regularly, out about hunting on the shallow waters of the seagrass lagoon. There they wait patiently for fishes that pass by. As the name suggest, they have large, long and sharp bills, which they use effectively to spear their victims.

On the morning of 29 January 2012, I went out to Check Jawa to observe the birds that linger around during low tide. One of my target bird species was the Great-billed Heron and as expected, a pair turned up waiting patiently for their prey, although at quite a distance away. I took a few pictures and decided to search for the Grey Plovers that were also present. Unfortunately the Grey Plovers did show up but soon flew away.

Turning my attention back at the pair of herons, I noticed one of them had managed to catch a big fish. It turns out that it had speared a big Barramundi (Lates calcarifer) using its bill and it was hanging loosely, still alive and wiggling. The Barramundi also known as Asian seabass, is a big fish (average length of 0.6-1.2 metres). It is highly prized by anglers and is an important commercial food fish. In Singapore, the Hokkiens call this fish ‘kim bak lor‘ (金目鲈), and the Malays refer to it as ikan siakap.

Once caught, the heron repeatedly placed the fish down to the water as if to wash it of any contaminant, and held it up in the air. Land-based birds normally take their prey and whack them against a hard surface to knock them out, before swallowing. The heron in contrast, cannot employ the same tactic, as the surface tension of the water is too weak to knock out the fish. Instead, I speculate that by placing it on the shallow water, it gives the heron the opportunity to re-spear the fish, causing more injury, and holding it up in the air again to deprive the fish of water it needs to breathe on. Whatever it was, the tactic seems successful, and the heron managed to kill the fish and then proceeded to swallow it.

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A Cold-blooded Encounter at Bukit Timah

Hiking up Bukit Timah Hill in Singapore with a long lens setup is never a truly enjoyable experience for me. The weight of the system, the steep climb and the general lack of any bird life on the way to the top meant that I am often staring at the road ahead instead of looking at the trees. The reward is often at the summit itself where birds tend to congregate.

So it was on one fine afternoon in late January 2012, that I found myself once again attempting to climb the summit. The climb was uneventful as things go and I was almost reaching the top. As is my normal routine, I tend to quicken my pace near the end just to get it over and done with.

Out of the blue, on the last big curve towards the top, a frog jumped out from the bushes by the side of the road. It hopped towards my direction and as my eyes was trying to keep track, something even bigger rushed forward towards me as well. I was so stunned by what was happening that I did not move any part of my body, except for my head that was tracking two things moving towards me, and then away from me. Had it been anything dangerous, I would have been toast. It took maybe 1-2 seconds before it registered in my mind that a frog was being chased by a snake. Almost instinctively, I raised my camera system that was slung on the side of my body towards my face, dialed the shutter speed knob of the camera a few notches clockwise and started tracking the two creatures. By the time I locked focus, they must have been 10 meters away. It was just a matter of clicking the shutter continuously while tracking their movement. Not an easy task considering that I was half exhausted from the climb, but the adrenaline rush helped somewhat.

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Grey Wagtail in Singapore

The Grey Wagtail (Motacilla cinerea) is a widely distributed wagtail species that spends the summer months in the Paleartic region. In winter, they migrate to Asia and Africa. One of the destination in Asia is Singapore, where the species is listed as an uncommon winter visitor.

It is one of the earliest migrant, with reports of the birds appearance as early as mid-July. In the field, they are quite likely to be confused with the commoner Eastern Yellow Wagtails. Yet, they differ from that species both morphologically as well as behaviourally. Unlike the Yellow Wagtails, the Grey Wagtails have grey upperparts. The underparts is white in non breeding plumage but turns yellow in breeding plumage. The male has a diagnostic black throat and breast. The vent is yellow throughout. Behaviourally, this wagtail prefers to hang around streams and drains, with fast moving shallow water, in contrast to the Yellow Wagtails that are more land based.

So in order to see them, one has to check streams, ponds, drains and canals. Since they tend to come back to the same place year after year, they can be quite easy to track down if one knows about previous season sightings. There is one canal at Bukit Batok West that almost always have 1-2 Grey Wagtails at the right time of the year. Other recent sightings include the small pond in Jurong Lake Garden and the canal just outside of Buona Vista MRT station.

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