Bird walk along the Pasir Ris coast

Because I miss the birds in Alaska and because I have not recovered from jet lag and don't want to, I headed out to the seaside at Pasir Ris Park at sunrise to look at the birds. I got some stares at my binoculars and telephoto because normal people don't do this stuff here. I had to look up all these on Nature Society's Birds of Singapore app because I don't usually do this stuff either. I wish the app would say more about what the bird does and where it is in the food chain and the tree of life, etc, though, instead of just giving names. Feynman was my childhood idol and what he said in a BBC Horizon interview has stuck with me:

One kid says to me, “See that bird? What kind of bird is that?” I said, “I haven’t the slightest idea what kind of a bird it is.” He says, “It’s a brown-throated thrush. Your father doesn’t teach you anything!” But it was the opposite. He had already taught me. “See that bird?” he says. “It’s a Spencer’s warbler. Well, in Italian, it’s a Chutto Lapittida. In Portuguese, it’s a Bom da Peida. In Chinese, it’s a Chung-long-tah, and in Japanese, it’s a Katano Tekeda. You can know the name of that bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You’ll only know about humans in different places, and what they call the bird. So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing - that’s what counts.” I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.

f/5.6, 1/500 s, ISO 100, 70-300@300 mm, Nikon D610

The awe-inspiring thing that comes to mind whenever I see a bird is its decension from dinosaurs. We learnt about the Archaeopteryx fossil in A-level biology but to see a bird fly and imagine the millions of events that must have happened between the Archaeopteryx's time and ours that led to that bird's beautiful form, how something so massive contributed to something so small and delicate, is quite something else. I also wonder if dinosaurs used to chirp like birds; that would be cool.

Anyway, here's the first bird I saw. And to make it more anti-climatic, I have no idea what it is. The bird app failed me this time. But it must be quite common since I've seen it quite a few times. I think this one is sucking the nectar out of the flowers; that looks like the function of its beak:

f/5.6, 1/200 s, ISO 100, 70-300@300 mm, Nikon D610

 This bird looks similar but it is much smaller. It's an olive-backed sunbird; its song is shrill and rich:

f/5.6, 1/200 s, ISO 100, 70-300@300 mm, Nikon D610

Nice to see a myna in a natural environment for once:

 f/5.6, 1/160 s, ISO 100, 70-300@300 mm, Nikon D610

Here's a black-nest swiftlet; it's a small bird native to Singapore. There were lots of them zooming past me like bullets and turning at phenomenal speeds (its Latin name Aerodramus maximus is perhaps a hint). I put one at the top of this post because I spent close to half-an-hour getting their pictures. I haven't seen one land, though. I wonder if they ever do outside their nests: 

f/5.6, 1/400 s, ISO 100, 70-300@300 mm, Nikon D610 

f/5.6, 1/500 s, ISO 100, 70-300@300 mm, Nikon D610

And then there was a large group of what I thought were ravens because they were very much bigger than crows and had tails that fanned out widely, but they called out like crows. It turns out they're jungle crows (Corvus macrorhynchos) which are different from house crows. But since crows and ravens belong to the same genus, I feel I could call this a jungle raven if I liked. Maybe scientists have determined that they're closer to crows but I looked it up and found their phylogeny still the subject of civilised scientific debate. They are native to Singapore but marked as uncommon here by Nature Society's census:

 f/5.6, 1/400 s, ISO 100, 70-300@300 mm, Nikon D610

And here's the common flameback, a supposedly common bird which I seldom see because I lead a sedentary life. It eats fruits and insects, probing for them with a tongue so long that it keeps most of it in its skull:

 f/5.6, 1/100 s, ISO 100, 70-300@300 mm, Nikon D610

Then I saw a collared kingfisher. Unlike some other kingfishers here, this one is native and it's pretty common. There are quite a few of them here because it's the seaside. It eats mostly fish and crustaceans but can eat insects and lizards too. I saw one with a worm or a small snake in its mouth yesterday but I didn't have my camera with me.

f/5.6, 1/125 s, ISO 100, 70-300@300 mm, Nikon D610

Then I saw this bird on a low-hanging branch. There wasn't much to observe; all it did was sit on this branch for about two minutes before taking off. Turns out it's an oriental magpie-robin; I suppose the first people who saw it couldn't decide if it were a magpie or a robin:

f/5.6, 1/125 s, ISO 100, 70-300@300 mm, Nikon D610

You won't believe me but this chicken has been marked as uncommon by the Nature Society according to the 2016 census! It's supposed common name is the Red Junglefowl and it differs from the common domestic chicken by the colour of its legs - they're grey, not yellow. They're also more muscular, agile and alert:

f/5.6, 1/320 s, ISO 100, 70-300@300 mm, Nikon D610

Here's the hen. They roost in the forest and come out into the open at dawn and dusk to forage and maybe just take a walk. They were the subject of a controversy involving the culling of wild chickens by the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority. They were responding to noise complaints by some people but ultimately changed their reason to 'bird-flu risk'. (My neighbour across the street makes more noise than all the chickens combined; could they cull him, too?) Many residents saw that the uncommon-listed Red Junglefowls were culled and not the domestic ones but AVA insisted that that was highly unlikely because Red Junglefowls were mostly found in Pulau Ubin and the western catchment area. Well, these pictures are from Pasir Ris, and once and for all, they are Red Junglefowls:

f/5.6, 1/320 s, ISO 100, 70-300@300 mm, Nikon D610

And here's the rooster on a tree:

f/5.6, 1/320 s, ISO 100, 70-300@300 mm, Nikon D610

Here's another hen foraging with her chicks:

f/5.6, 1/160 s, ISO 100, 70-300@300 mm, Nikon D610

And here's a yellow-vented bulbul. They breed all-year round and are accustomed to human presence, sometimes making their nests on man-made things on houses and gardens:

f/5.6, 1/125 s, ISO 100, 70-300@300 mm, Nikon D610

That was about all I could find. I haven't explored the other stretch of the park; I believe there are more birds there closer to the mangrove. I'll take a look next time.