Pulau Ubin, Changi 28Apr07

As Danny put it, "It was a marvellous weekend of local birding." As a change of style, I'll do a photographic write-up instead. Photos from Danny unless otherwise stated.

The cuckoo was little bronze, juvenile. The bronze-green coloration on the wings gave it away. We were hoping for a Horsfield's, but fat hope.

The junglefowls are probably feral birds, not true wild birds, because they continued to forage despite seeing us at a distance.

As for the buttonquails, initially we thought they were chicks as they were tagging along behind the chickens. Upon closer examination, the pair of 'chicks' turned out to be a pair of buttonquails! The female has a black throat.

I think the best time to catch the elusive mangrove pitta is probably early morning (earlier than 9am). After that, the chance diminished exponentially ;).

lucionensis should have grey cap, right? So this is probably the typical brown shrike we see so often (i.e. cristatus or confusus). Dunno what's the diff between the latters though.
cristatus: E Siberia to nw Mongolia; winters to India and Malay Pen.
confusus: Manchuria and Amurland; winters to Malay Pen. and Sumatra
superciliosus: S Sakhalin and Japan; winters to Sumatra and Lesser Sundas
lucionensis: Korea and e China; winters to Philippines, Borneo, Sulawesi

After these exciting birds at Ubin, Danny and I went to Turnhouse Road (at Changi) and saw OP hornbill, Tanimbar corellas, red-breasted parakeet, all nesting on the 2 tall trees. Thanks to the many tip-offs from Con! I took a shot of the male hornbill and the pair of corellas.

Danny:"How did the Parakeet brought a piece of rock/brick into the nest? If you get too close, it may drop onto you!!"

Also, we went to the black-naped terns' nesting rocks. With Danny's scope we could see the terns and chicks (and eggs!) from the Changi boardwalk. There were also 4 little terns (3 in breeding plumage) on one of the rocks offering clear comparison of size and plumage with the BN terns. There were also many AG starlings nesting in the pole-tips at the boardwalk. The nesting season is really fantastic isn't it?! :)