birding from the window, Singapore
There are four Tembusu trees right outside of my bedroom window and several other golden shower trees. I'm staying at a floor level that is nicely levelled with the top parts of the Tembusu trees, so I get a nice view of the birds feeding on the fruits and the insects buzzing about the flowers at eye level. The leaves of these trees used to be much denser years back. Maybe this is due to heavy pruning or poorer soil quality now, but at least they are still flowering and fruiting.
I started birdwatching just a few days after I resigned my job and eventually became a NEET for many months. The day after I resigned, I boarded a plane to Sabah with a borrowed Panasonic camera, hoping to get some crappy wildlife photos. During my visit to one of the nature reserves popular with birders, I was "adopted" by a group of Malaysian/Singaporean birdwatchers at some Borneon nature reserve. They were probably amused to see 2 young kids, clad in bright red and white clothing, trying to take photos of sharma/woodpecker. They asked me when I had started birding watching, to which I replied, "Today." We happened to stay at the same nature lodge, and there, they introduced birdwatching to us and recommended some starter cameras. When I came back to Singapore, I started paying attention to the birds from my bedroom window and surrounding neighbourhood. (haha, i have also discovered so many chicken and pigeon uncle feeders in the neighbourhood during these months). In the past 7 months of NEET-ing, I've sighted so many bird species from my bedroom window.(I do not live next to a nature reserve, but live walking distance from a park). I've never seen this large of a avian variety here in past years but perhaps my lack of observation could be due to plain obliviousness amidst the busyness of life. Perhaps I've only discovered their existence due to the slower days of NEEThood or that I've started being more sensitive to the presence of birds post-Sabah when I was adopted by a group of birders.
Male and female pink-necked green pigeon hang around here because there are some fruiting trees around
common flameback woodpecker. I've been hearing their mating calls everywhere around the hood in the past weeks
awkward Kingfishers
The mating calls of the male common iora and the stork-billed kingfishers have woken me up on occasions
Male olive-backed sunbird in one of their many acrobatic poses
Plenty of sunbirds build nests on residents' plants along the corridors, especially on those plants that spill out of the corridor ledges. Sunbirds seem to like to chat a lot and feed after a rain.
The deafening morning cacophony of bird noises is pleasant to wake up to when the rooster is not crowing. (What makes the morning even better is not waking up to any dread and stress from unresolved Jira tickets.)
pygmy woodpeckers often check out this pit in the golden shower tree for bugs
There's a pit in this particular golden shower tree which has many birds stopping by to look for bugs or to take a sip of water.
3 blue-tailed bee eaters have made this Tembusu tree their hunting grounds. They don't look too happy when being drenched by the rain
Recently, 3 blue-tailed bee-eaters have been lounging around this tembusu trees and are quite successful at hunting all the butterflies. I noticed a visible decrease in butterflies since their arrival.
some hanging parrots and iora
A pair of white-bellied sea-eagles soaring high enough in the sky to be visible from my unit and probably hunts at the nearby waterbody
Very boisterour coconut lorikeets who visit occassionally and a lone cockatoo
I often wonder if anyone living in the units around me has been also quietly observing these birds too. To most, birds can be hard to spot when unmoving and hidden amongst the thick foliage. Their location is usually given away when they make a sudden movement - a flash of bright colors amongst the green and brown foliage.
black naped oriole looking right at me
Nowadays, I can identify a bird (and maybe even their activity) by their sounds. i am notified when the bee eater has found a snack, and when a black-naped oriole chick, crow or koel chick, mynah chick is crying out for food.
Yellow vented bulbul are probably one of the biggest bird population in this small area
There is also a small group of resident rock pigeon and zebra+spotted doves. I haven't figured out why the rock pigeons don't seem to be constantly feeding on fruit like their wilder pigeon cousins, but seek the scraps (aka junk food) on the ground.
In the early mornings and late evenings, the neighbourhood chicken gang roost on the low-hanging gently sloping branches of the tembusu. There are several other birds I didn't feature photos of in this post: asian starlings, rock pigeons, (both common and javan) mynahs, scarlet backed sunbirdm, oriental white-eye, house crows, asian koels
Hopefully, the birds in my hood continue to thrive in the coming years.
First time seeing lineated barbet from the window
Disclaimer: Most photos are taken from the window but some are taken from the void deck/ground floor.
- Also see gangs of Swinhoe's white eye flitting about after a rain.
dwarf honey bee/ saw that their hive was broken later, perhaps attacked by the oriental honey buzzard/
