Singapore Strait 13Nov10

From KH

Danny organised this pelagic trip and 11 of us (Danny, Hwee Boon, Jean, Jia Sheng, Jonathan, Loong Tat, Martii, Poh Bee, SC, Sree and I) attended. We met at Republic of Singapore Yacht Club at West Coast at 0700. This is the rough map of our route:

Our first seabirds were Great Crested Terns. The first of which appeared at about 0900. Although we did see a far-away Bridled Tern and some White-winged and Lesser Crested Terns, for the next 3 hours, it seemed that all we were getting were Great Crested Terns...

The main action started after noon from 1210-1222. Our first Swinhoe's Storm-petrel appeared on the starboard side at 1210 and stayed with us for about 5 mins.

Swinhoe's Storm-petrel taking off ©Lau JS

About 1 min after the storm-petrel craze, our other star bird, an Aleutian Tern, showed up. It circled us for the next 5 mins.

Aleutian Tern in flight ©Tan KH

Then someone shouted "storm-petrel" on the port side. Unknowingly, we have got close to the bird while preoccupied with the Aleutian Tern!

There was a flock of more than 100 Little Terns in flight off Changi Naval Base.

Then we passed by a couple of fishing boats and they had snappers and groupers in their baskets.

Fisherman. Grouper in a basket ©Tan KH

At about 1410, we got close to a buoy and there were Great Crested, White-winged and Little Terns on it.

Little Tern in flight ©Jon Cheah


White-winged (background) and 3 Little Terns on a buoy ©Jon Cheah


White-winged (background) and Little Terns ©Lau JS


3 Great Crested Terns on the right with mostly White-winged Terns ©Tan KH

After that, the activities toned down and some of us even fell asleep!

1. Swinhoe's Storm-petrel 2
2. Aleutian Tern 1
3. Bridled Tern 1
4. Great Crested Tern
5. Lesser Crested Tern
6. White-winged Tern
7. Little Tern
8. White-bellied Sea-eagle 1 adult
9. Brahminy Kite 1 adult
10. Pacific Reef-egret (white morph on rocky bund when we left West Coast)
11. swallows
12. swifts