Black-and-White Bulbul
This picture doesn’t do it justice, but there’s at least one of these very elegant birds living quite happily nearby, in the trees and bushes between the hotel and the restaurant. It’s an elongated jet-black bird, mostly starling-shaped but with a longer beak and very slender black legs, and the only white on its body is a little stripe down the side on the leading edge of the wing. I can’t find a better picture, even in my bird book, and naturally I don’t ever have a camera with me when I walk by and the bird is perched at eye level, sitting still, in good light. Alas! But despite the lack of pretty pictures to share with you, I’m quite excited about this bird, because my book says it’s extinct in Singapore. But I know better.