Chicks Sanitation

When birds hatched, they are more susceptible to disease than adult birds due to their underdeveloped immune system.

As such, sanitation is extremely important especially for chicks prior to feathering. 

Chick - "mummy, i want poo poo"

Mummy - "raise your butt & let me check!"

Mummy - "hold on...."

Mummy - "I got it!"

Mummy - "yummy!!"

Yellow Vented Bulbul Feeding

Yellow-vented bulbul (Pycnonotus goiavier) is one of the most common bird in Singapore. Even it is so common, not many people have the chance to see how they feed their chicks and what they feed with. As with many other birds, seeds of Dillenia suffruticosa or commonly known as Simpoh Ayer is one of the main source of food for the chicks.

Spiders has been sighted quite regularly too.
Termites

DamselflyDragonfly
At times, yellow-vented bulbul 'hi-jack' the food from spiders too. This bee was strangled on spiders web when it was fed to the chick.

Yellow Vented Bulbul

Being one of the most common birds in Singapore, it can be seen almost at any parks or garden in Singapore. Their diet ranging from berries, small fruits to insects.

This video was taken at Singapore Botanic Garden last week end. This bulbul is more than happy with the abundance of figs on this tree.

Birds at Singapore Botanic Garden

This is the continuation from my last post on Singapore Botanic Garden. Other than the beautiful duck that I have posted earlier, there are many interesting sighting in the garden too.Up on a very tall tree, I saw a pair of Common Myna (Acridotheres tristis) building their love nest converted from a hole on the tree. I tried from different angle, but didn’t able to see if there is any chicks in the nest. Perhaps got to come back again and check it out.The birds in & out of the nest taking turns quite often.Managed to get a shot showing the changing shift in progress.Looks like is feeding the chicks but I don't have a visual.On another branch slightly higher than the Myna nest, I saw another nest that looks like a House Crow‘s nest.I saw a big bird sneakily move to the nest direction.On a closer look, it was a female Asian Koel (Eudynamys scolopacea). Asian Koel are known to be brood parasite. This Asian Koel must be trying to lay eggs in the nest and expect the host to incubate and feed their chick until they fledged.Across the field on the palm tree opposite, I saw big flock of Asian Glossy Starling (Aplonis panayensis) perch on the palm leaves. There are at least few hundreds of them with more than half of them are juveniles.Young Starling has a very different plumage from the adult starling. They are not black as seen on the normal adult starling but appear to be scaly. The big numbers of off-spring show that the food supplies in the garden must be good. An adult Asian glossy starling snatch a piece of bread left behind by a tourist and later found it sharing with another juvenile Starling.

I’m not sure if it is feeding the juvenile or the juvenile actually try to intercept the food from another adult starling.

I saw a dark shadow slightly bigger than a carpenter bee flew pass me over to the palm tree on the opposite. Oh it was a fledgling yellow-vented burbul (Pycnonotus goiavier).

Looks like is now the peak of the breeding season for birds in the SBG.