Archive for Birds

Hornbills at our house

I was doing yoga this morning, when I saw a pair of hornbills fly into the tree outside the window. My spouse took some photos, and here is the best one, cropped and blown up: Or a closer look: Sorry it’s a bit grainy.  I think it might have been clearer with a manual focus, […]

Pink-necked green pigeon

There are quite a few of these around the campus lately. Black feathers outline their wings and tails, so they look really great when they land on a branch and settle in- very pleasingly symmetrical.

Buff-Breasted Paradise Kingfisher

Look what I saw this morning! Another Australian import.

Singapore Birds: Black Bazas!

I saw at least four of these this morning on my walk. Apparently they’re migrating south from Thailand – unless they’re locals, but I’d never seen them before.  They’re in the area where the dollarbirds were nesting back when I posted about them.   Anyway, the feathers on the crests are very cute and floppy. […]

Crane in Japanese Garden

This crane was aesthetically posed in a pond in the Japanese Garden this morning.  I thought it was a statue at first.

Mystery bird: Greater Coucal?

I saw this impressive guy on the NTU grounds this morning.  It flew by me, so big I thought it was one of the local red roosters on the loose.  I didn’t quite get a picture of its head, but take a look and see if my photos look like the bird from the diagnostic […]

Kingfisher companions

Two pictures from my morning walk.  They were perched on the fence beside the man-made river that keeps this part of Singapore from reverting to a swamp. These are different from the one I photographed last time – these are white collared kingfishers, smaller, with black beaks.  They seem to hang out in pairs or […]

Kingfisher Morning

This lovely fellow posed for me in a few spots this morning.  The first picture is blurred, but you can see his brilliant blue back and red/yellow beak: Then he flew into a tree and posed for me there; for a change my camera focused right on him rather than on a spot to the […]

Our Neighbors: Rufous-Bellied Eagles!

I saw not one, but two of these last week.  The first was soaring above the trees, then suddenly dive-bombed something in mid-air (maybe a bird, but I didn’t see anything in its claws afterwards), then rose high up again and flapped away.  Then its friend flapped out from behind a tree, and IT dive-bombed […]

Our neighbors: Dollarbirds

I saw a pair of these high up near the top of the jungle trees.  They took turns swooping around catching bugs, and then visiting their nest hole in the tree trunk.  Probably feeding their babies.  They’re called dollarbirds because when they’re flying, from below you can see light blue dollar-sized patches on the dard […]