Halus, SBWR 27Aug11

From JS

Today, Kok Hui, my father and I planned to do a late catch-up with the lone whiskered treeswift at Rifle Range. Alas, the dark clouds caught up with us instead. Thus, we headed eastward to Lr Halus in search of some exotic birds to add to our worldlist. Unfortunately, that also didn't work out and it may have been caused by the islandwide bad weather. Still, we saw and photographed the nice-looking, approachable White-browed Crake, who even called some "goodbyes" to us, found the Little Grebes at its last stronghold and witnessed the hardworking, non-native male Golden-backed Weavers at work on their nests. These were, however, little consolation for missing on a Singapore lifer.

Friendly White-browed Crake

Male Golden-backed Weaver making nest

Common Sandpiper displaying?

Baya Weaver

Finally, the rain clouds caught up with us at Lr Halus and we headed westward to SBWR for some refresher course on waders. After almost 4-5 months of hiatus from waders. It was nice to see them again and with some brighter colours. We saw a flock of 8-10 LSP (including 2 juveniles, 2 confirmed male schfaeri and 1 suspected male mongulus or female schfaeri), 1 Curlew Sandpiper, 1 PGP, 2 Little Egrets and many greenshanks, redshanks and whimbrels. Nothing unusual though.

From KH

Adding to JS's report, we also saw

1) 1 Ruddy-breasted Crake at the same pond as the White-browed Crake.
2) 1 Purple Swamphen at the manicured pond at Halus.