Our birding trips

Pulau Punggol 24Jan10

From Danny

Instead of SBG, hijacked by JS to end up at Pulau Punggol. To my surprise, Pulau Punggol was practically empty, no truck convoy other than the occasional vehicles and even group of youngsters lining up one lane with their cars for photo session. We left the wooded area after spotting the Booted Eagle in flight, as we expected the flock to hunt at the grassland in front of the runway.

Both of us walked in exactly the same route taken with KH on Sat, but we walked right across the grassland. There were no aircraft movement possibly shutdown after 5 pm. No soul in sight for the next one hour! The raptors started to gather just above the Casuarina trees to the right of the runway, accessible from the opposite side of the usual path we typically drove on if the barrier not locked. The raptors were a mixture of the Brahminy Kite (right), WBSE, Black Kite (left) and possibly one Booted Eagle.

As time passed the flock started to differentiate with the Brahminy Kite forming their own groups thermalling high up and drifting across the grassland. Believe viewable along the new Highway. It was a spectacular show and possibly repeated every evening, weather permitting. The show ended just after 7 pm.

Referring to the 4 raptors in the photo below, the left raptor was an adult Brahminy Kite with whitish throat and brownish belly (zoom in more) while the bottom bird was also a Brahminy Kite with visible brownish belly and familiar flight silhouette. The top bird was likely the Black Kite with the longest wingspans and a twisting tail. I am not sure about the raptor on the right.

From JS

My father and I were at our local booted eagle haunt finding some raptors. Instead of seeing the female dark morph booted eagle reported earlier in the migratory season, we saw a pale morph booted eagle and according to my father, its a male.

Besides the booted eagle, we saw more than 20 raptors circling in the sky. At least 18++ were brahminy kites and 4 white-bellied sea eagles. Additionally, we managed to id one black kite. Due to the presence of a black kite (a first for that area and the first bird I have seen in 2 years!!!), we had problems filtering out the dark morph booted eagle(s) or other black kite(s). To make matters worse, the birds were very far from us and high up in the sky. Clear blue sky was good for raptor photography but in such a condition, I could only get sharp silhouettes.

Below is my count (I really can't believe I spent time to count dots in the sky and identify the blacker from the browner or the bigger from the smaller!) of the identified raptors and unidentified raptors:

WBSE: 6 (2 adults and 2 juv)
Brahminy Kite: >18 (Didn't count the numbers in each age group.)
Black Kite: 1
Booted Eagle: 1
Black Baza: 5
Unidentified Raptor (booted eagle or black kite): >4
Unidentified Accipter: 1 (Probably the wintering Chinese sparrowhawk)

My father and I saw a paddyfield-like pipit that called a metallic "tun-it". My record shots clearly shows a typical Paddyfield Pipit but it looks rather short (more horizontal positioned legs) and stouter. The call is obviously unusual because we also had flushed several other pipits that called the typical paddyfield's swi-ii call to compare their alarm calls. This bird was seen at the grassland where we once saw >10 brahminy kites perched on a sand/soil pile. The grassland is now overgrown but with more rain, I am sure we will be able to find the currently hard-to-find grassland waders and reed warblers.