Lara's Singapore Blog » Birds

Hornbills at our house

Lara — Sun, 01 May 2011 08:37:44 +0000

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, but this is pretty good for amateur opportunistic bird photography.

There is a pair of hornbills in the neighborhood; I don’t know if this is the same pair that visited the garden of the cafeteria at my office building, but I hope so. That pair parked in a tree and watched people eat for about 20 minutes. They are really large birds, with tails about a foot long, but when they sit still they’re nearly invisible – odd how something so huge can blend in with a green and gray tree.
Anyway, I like them and hope you do too.

Pink-necked green pigeon

Lara — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 01:58:01 +0000

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

Lara — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 01:52:27 +0000

Look what I saw this morning! Another Australian import.

Singapore Birds: Black Bazas!

Lara — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 06:51:43 +0000

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. Now let’s see if I can find a picture of this bird’s lovely back:

What a beautiful bird – a subtle red spot near the tail is brighter in the morning sun than on this picture, but Mr. Poh captured the white speckles, the bright, pleasantly predatory eye. These are in the same family as the local buzzards, eagles, and raptors, but are about 11-12 inches long and live on bugs. Their flight in the trees seems to be a smooth swoop.

Crane in Japanese Garden

Lara — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 10:28:36 +0000

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?

Lara — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 02:16:00 +0000

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 photo I gleaned from the internet:

Here’s a much better picture by comparison:

The stance looks right, and the confirmation of the head. Too bad I couldn’t get the bright red eye. Also its tail seemed stubbier than that of the confirmed coucal. If it’s not a coucal it might be a juvenile or damaged specimen of a grey-headed-eagle or brahminy kite. But its tendency to walk away instead of flying up to escape me suggests it’s a greater coucal. Apparently the greater coucal is a ground-and-low-bush-dwelling bird, not a high flyer.

Kingfisher companions

Lara — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 01:40:17 +0000

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 family groups. You can see why traditional Chinese jewelers used their feathers in earrings an dhair ornaments. These are bluer than the ones I’ve seen in the US or New Zealand – those have piratical-looking headcrests and tend toward greenness.

Kingfisher Morning

Lara — Mon, 24 May 2010 01:05:49 +0000

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 left:

My path took me to the other side of the tree, where I had another view of him. He was watching me too, as you can almost see in the following blurry picture.

Say what you will about my photography skills: this is a beautiful creature, and I’m glad to have a chance to share his colors with you.

Our Neighbors: Rufous-Bellied Eagles!

Lara — Mon, 03 May 2010 04:54:36 +0000

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 some imaginary thing in mid-air, and rose up to its previous height. Then both of them flapped off to the north, in tandem.

Their shape changes entirely when they dive, from the nearly flat-winged horizontal bar they resemble when flapping, to sharp-shouldered Ws zipping earthwards. I see where the designers of the Stealth bomber got their inspiration.

Our neighbors: Dollarbirds

Lara — Mon, 03 May 2010 04:41:21 +0000

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 undersides of their wings. Although they were about 60 feet away, I could still make out the orangey-red beaks. But the Wiki picture reveals the extremely appealing little red toes as well.