Nee Soon 21May13

From Con

I went early today to Upper Peirce, arriving at the car park at 6:45 am. It only takes about 15 minutes to walk to the Nee Soon trail entrance, and I reached the last section of pipeline before the firing range by 7:30 am. I stayed in this area until 9:00 am. This should be the prime babbler period of activity. I heard or saw all the other babblers, Striped Tit, Abbott’s, Chestnut-winged and Short-tailed. But didn’t hear any call of the White-chested despite playing back the Panti dialect.

I explored in the area, and it turns out there is a trail that goes off to the left of the pipeline and then rejoins the pipeline after it gets around the really wet part. In fact it is more than a trail. It’s a road. It must be the road they built when they were constructing the pipeline, it has a proper concrete bridge that goes across the stream. The stream is pretty good size, and looks to be suitable white-chested babbler habitat, so I tried around this area as well.

Then I noticed a faint trail on the left bank of the stream and followed it in. I didn’t get very far when I flushed a troop of Banded Leaf Monkeys very high in some tall old growth trees. I managed to get my bins on one to confirm, but no photo as they moved off quickly. My first time seeing leaf monkeys in Singapore, so now at least I know one spot that they frequent.

You can not follow the trail along the stream far, as it is wet and tangled. But there are trail markings and surely this is one of the spots NParks comes to for their surveys. As I was walking out of the stream a Blue-eared Kingfisher whizzed past.

So at about 9 am I walked out, with no sign whatsoever of the White-chested Babbler.