Stretching Dollarbird

Saw this pair of Dollarbird (Eurystomus orientalis) perched on this high vantage point waiting for any flying insects for breakfast. Dollarbird got their name for the 2 silver spots on their underwing when they fly.

Looks like the bird on the right equally puzzle by the sudden actions of the bird on the left. The bird trying to open (stretch) it's mouth as wide as possible without making any noise or call.

My curiosity was answered when the bird come back with one huge prey! From the hard elytra of the prey, this insect was indeed are dollarbirds' favourite food - beetle!
The bird on the right just look on but did not show any sign of interest or looking for free food.

After the attempt to swallow the beetle fair, the bird whack the beetle hard on the tree branch. Some fluid was seen splashing but not sure is from the bird or the beetle.


The bird did not manage to swallow the prey on the second attempt.

The whacking continue and more fluid are seen splashing.

The bird managed to swallow the beetle on the 3rd attempt.

The beetle completely swallowed by the bird.

After this observation, I am curious if the stretching before the hunt is planned in anticipation of bigger prey? The beetle was seen flying nearby but the bird did not go for it right away instead the bird take its own sweet time to do some stretching before the hunt.

Monkey Business

It was the 2nd day of Parks Festival 2011 when I visited Singapore Botanic Garden. Among the many visitors to the garden, this monkey certainly happy to be part of the week long events.
Indeed, the presence of this monkey were welcome by many visitors who trying to take a photo with it in the background.

The monkey scanned through the content of the bin looking for food!

The monkey just sit on top of the bin and starts to consume the free food on the spot.

After the monkey was done with this bin, it just climb up the tree and cross over to other bin.

Is a good thing to be able to see the abundance of wildlife in Singapore! However, is not right for the monkey to search for food out of the forest. Lots of signs on 'No Feeding of Monkeys" were placed at the Nature Reserves but not at SBG yet.

For whatever reasons, this monkey decided to look for food out of forest and move to high human activities park/garden! Once more and more visitors feed the monkey, it is almost certain that the monkey will not go back to the forest. Whenever there's a conflict between wildlife & human, the wildlife always at the looser end. If we love this beautiful monkey, please help by not feeding them before they turn aggresive and have to be 'removed'.

Fishy Story

It was a quiet morning at SBWR and I happens to see this egret happily hunting his breakfast.

Fish after fish! They are really good at hunting fish!

Since birds don't have teeth, they swallow their food as it is.

The shape of the fish can be seen clearly and slowly moving down their throat.

The fish finally got aligned and going straight to their stomach.