Austria 01-13Jun14

From Con

Con was on an all-expense-piad trip to Austria by Zeiss!

http://www.pbase.com/con_foley/europe

Singapore Strait 17May14

Attendees: Con, Danny, JS, KH, Colin, Robert Tizard, Frank Rheindt, John Ascher and ???

Today is a strange pelagic day. First, I forgot to set my alarm, hence missing the boat initially. Then there were some irregularities in the paperwork due to changes in immigration rules and I managed to get on the boat about 1/2 hour before the boat could sail.

We saw our first Water Monitor out at sea, followed by hundreds of Bridled Terns, a few Black-naped Terns, two Little Terns, a Common Tern and several Swinhoe's Storm-petrels.

However, the best birds of the day were three Short-tailed Shearwaters. Photos from Jia Sheng.

Con's write-up (including the 3 May 2014 trip): http://confoley.com/pelagic-outings-may-2014

Zoo 13May14

From KH

As the rest were recuperating from their Java trip, I did my own birding at the Zoo! The aim was the locate the purported Crested Goshawk nest.

Initially, I spent quite a bit of time at the wrong part of the baboon enclosure. Seeing no goshawk, I moved on to other enclosures. Need a toilet was a huge cotton tree and on this tree was the Purple Heron heronry reported by Danny when he was at River Safari.

On the same tree were nests of Painted and Milky Storks.

As I moved on to the rhino enclosure, a House Crow was chasing a huge bird. It turned out to be a Spotted Wood-owl.

Under a certain roof were Lesser Dog-faced Fruit Bats.

Back at the baboon enclosure, I found a Colugo on one of the trees.

Finally, at about 2:30 pm, I spotted a Crested Goshawk. However, it just perched there, doing nothing most of the time, preening away at other times. After an hour, I left the place, failing to locate the nest...

Java 4-11May14

Con, Danny and JS went to Java for birding: http://confoley.com/java-trip-report-2014

Black-capped Babbler capistratum subsp.

Singapore Strait 03May14

Attendees: Con, Danny, JS, KH, Colin, Geoffrey, Albert, Francis, Richard

This is our first pelagic trip this year. We had the usual seabirds:

1. Bridled Tern 3
2. Lesser Crested Tern 1
3. Little Tern 3
4. Black-naped Tern 1
5. Swinhoe's Storm-petrel 1 group of 4 sitting on the sea

Today, we did something different, we disembarked on Pulau Hantu. Sure enough, a pair of Mangrove Whistlers were at the "summit".

So was a Great-billed Heron at the breakwater.

Next, we headed to Pulau Salu for the Pied Imperial Pigeons. Sure enough, three were seen fluttering at the tree top.

Jia Sheng saw a sea turtle, as well as some Ocean Sunfish!

Changi, Halus 01May14

Danny and I started the day at Changi. Both airshow and LP149 were accessible.  Three Monk Parakeets can still be found here.

The purported Short-eared Owl was nowhere to be found, but we did see another migrant - a Black Drongo.

While tracking the drongo, a Large-tailed Nightjar flushed about 1 m from my feet!

Only local raptors (WBSE, Brahminy Kite, CHE, BWK) were to be found, the migrants seem to be gone. The only munia we saw were Black-headed Munias. Baya Weavers were building nests. Other then these, the usual birds were present.

At carpark 7, a huge WBSE nest on casuarina was clearly visible together with its residents.

After lunch at the usual Punggol foodcourt, we headed to Halus. There were many Little Terns, as well as many calling Cuckoos (Rusty-breasted, Plaintive, Banded Bay, Little Bronze). Reed Warblers (Oriental, Black-browed) were still around. Sharp-eyed Danny spotted two nests - one belonging to Common Iora

and the other to Sooty-headed Bulbul.

Swiftlets 30Apr14

From Con

About to catch a bug.