Kampung Bird Watching at Bishan Park

Just like any other trip, you will not miss grey heron whenever visit to this "kampung" which means village in English. I call Bishan Park a kampung as this is one of the very few park that one can walk to the water and catch kampung fish just like the olden days in the kampung.

There are several Grey heron nest here.

Purple heron is also sharing the same tree with grey heron building their nest here.

I have seen this bird, Large Wood Shrike several time but this is the first time seeing it here in Singapore.

One of the regular migrant to Singapore - Asian Brown Flycatcher

Another bird or I should say duck that I usually see it in Thailand has also made it's appearance in Singapore! A rather uncommon Cotton Pygmy Goose.

White breasted waterhen

Yellow Bittern that usually camouflaged very well among the reed but not today. One can see it from far away. 

Blue Tailed Beeeater perched high up to get a better view of any flying insects.

Brown-Throated Sunbird that looks very similar to Olive-backed sunbird except without the distinctive purple colour throat.

Asian Koel are more often heard than seen.

Another bird that more often heard than seeing it - Coppersmith barbet.

I managed to spot this Common Flameback by following the knocking sound.

Sunda pygmy woodpecker is only one third of the size of a Common flameback.

One of my favorite bird, a very bright Black-Naped Oriole.

When come to kampung, how can we not see a Murai kampung, Malay name of Oriental Magpie-robin

Yellow Vented Bulbul took the number 16 species of birds that I saw this morning. Just less than 1 hour and I have recorded more than 15 species of birds. Not bad at all.

Collared Kingfisher

Oriental Honey Buzzard 

Bird of prey preying on bird. I didn't manage to get a clearer shot of this Peregrine Falcon. It looks like a myna has became her breakfast.

Talking about myna, Javan myna on a flowering tree.

I have another kampung chicken photo - a Red Junglefowl before ending my trip. What a fruitful trip.

Botanic Garden 2021

Is been raining and or cloudy in most day lately. Not surprisingly that this monitor lizard climbing high up the tree hope to catch maximum sunlight to bring up his body temperature in this not so hot morning.

Tailor bird is one of the smaller bird but with the loudest call. You can hear them miles away, but to look for them is another story all together. They hardly perch at one spot for more than few seconds. 

Lineated Barbet is another bird that can be heard from far and often hard to spot them due to their well camouflaged colour.

Compare to Lineated Barbet, Black-Naped Oriole is much easier to spot due to their very bright yellow colour.

A Blue-Crowned Hanging Parrot perching high up the fronds of the palm tree.

Not far from the parrot is a Yellow-Vented Bulbul.

Pink Necked Green pigeon

This Asian Brown Flycatcher will probably stay for another one or two months before fly north back to their breeding ground.

Plantain squirrel is one of the small animals that you will never missed in SBG.

Olive-Backed Sunbird taking a break after feeding. 

Just managed to have a glimpse of this Red Legged Crake before disappearing into the heavy undergrowth.

 

Goosing around in Hokkaido

From Rausu to our next destination Tomakomai is few hours drive. I'm always excited whenever travel to new location. Very high chance that whatever we see, it will be my first time seeing it.

We stop our car when we saw some goose flying at a distance in-front of us. It looks like a White fronted goose.

Among them, I saw some familiar yet seem different. I am sure there are more than one species of goose in this flock. We try to follow them by following their flight direction and stop about 10km away at an open field.

First spotted this Taiga Bean-Goose.

There is a mixture of greater & lesser White-fronted Goose!

That's not all... another new bird species for me. Is a Lesser Canada Goose! They are consider very rare in Hokkaido and we are lucky enough to see them. 

The snow start to fall down from the sky, what a beautiful scene! Another happy day at Hokkaido!

Krung Ching Waterfall of South Thailand

This trip was made back in May and not suppose to meet with any wet weather. Upon reaching Krabi airport and while on the way to Krung Ching Waterfall, the sky started to pour heavily.

Luckily the rain stop when we arrived at the waterfall.

Well, I'm not here for the waterfall but for the birds. We start to looking for birds even though it was still drizzling.

First was this juvenile  Oriental magpie-robin.

Found a male Orange-bellied Flowerpecker on a fruiting Indian cherry tree.

There are more than one actually so as this female that not as brightly coloured as the male.

Pay attention to fruiting tree is always a good idea, a Black-winged Flycatcher-shrike also make an appearance.

Follow the knocking sound, saw this female Grey-and-buff Woodpecker.

Must be the good weather after the rain, saw another Blue-eared barbet.

My luck is too good, one excitement after another. Raffles's malkoha appear before the end of the bird wave.

One of my favorite in the broadbill family is this Black-and-yellow broadbill

Follow the foot steps of Black and yellow broadbill is this pair of Dusky broadbill. Wow! With this pair of broadbill appear right in front of me, will I be able to meet with my dream bird which is also my target of this trip?

Haha... luck is with me. I finally get to see my long time target bird - Green broadbill

Not the best night for astro photography due to the rain cloud but I give it a try...

With this, I happily end my day 1 of birding at Krung Ching Waterfall.