Tian Soo e-mailed from Neo Tiew Road to inform that for over two weeks a male Crimson Sunbird (Aethopyga siparaja) was seen around the small classroom in his GreenCircle Eco-Farm. Twice a day it visited, staying for over an hour each time. It would sing in a rapid-fire, high-pitch, chit-chit-chew, hovered around the furniture and danced on the piano. (He did not say whether the bird tried to peck on the piano keys.)

The bird would allow him to approach to about an arm’s length without flying off. Tian Soo wants to know whether he encountered a rather stupid bird or was it normal behaviour.

From my limited experience (remember, I am a sometime bird watcher) I find that young birds, whether juveniles or recently fledged, have least fear of humans. These birds would allow me to approach to about a metre to photograph them. Such birds included sunbirds, Yellow-vented Bulbuls and Zebra Doves. My interpretation is that they have none or limited experience of the dangers humans can pose to them. With time, I suppose, they would be less shy and not allow anyone to come near.

Tian Soo believe that this sunbird was probably hatched from a nest found within his farm and had yet to learn to shy away from people, especially himself.

There may be other possible explanations. Let us have your views. Only by examining and discussing various inputs, however wild they may be, can we hope to understand why birds do what they do.

Thank you, Tian Soo, for sharing your experience.

I have been officially informed by Dr Geh Min, President of the Nature Society (Singapore), that at the meeting of the Executive Committee held on the 27th September 2005, the Bird Ecology Study Group or BESGroup for short, was formally accepted as an official sub-group under Article 10.4.5 of the society’s constitution.

This blog has been operating under the heading of Singapore Bird Ecology Study Group since July 2005. With immediate effect it will operate as Bird Ecology Study Group, Nature Society (Singapore).

As a sub-group of the Nature Society, we will provide exciting activities and a series of talks by professional ornithologists and birdwatchers for the benefit of members as well as anyone interested in bird ecology. We have also plans to bring out various publications that will be useful to nature lovers and birdwatchers in general. Our full programme is being formalised and announcements will be made in due course.

The BESGroup is currently being coordinated by Wee Yeow Chin, Richard Hale, Subaraj Rajathurai and Grant Pereira. We plan to replace one person each year with a new member. This safeguard is to ensure that the leadership will not stagnate, will always be vibrant and there will always be new ideas flowing into the group.

The objectives of BESGroup are as follows:

1. To encourage the study of birds and their links with all aspects of the natural environment.
2. To help fill in the information gaps, especially on the breeding behaviour of local birds.
3. To encourage the dissemination of information.
4. To encourage the publication of information collected through the internet, popular magazines and scientific journals.

At long last we can now concentrate on working in good faith with all members of the society towards our shared goals of nature appreciation and conservation. BESGroup looks forward to a cordial working relationship with all groups, especially the existing Bird Group, so that together we can offer more activities to the membership at large as well as enrich our current ecological knowledge of the local bird population.

Several years ago now I was walking down the road from the top of Bukit Timah Hill in late morning. There was nobody about and as I approached the turning off to the Telecoms building I heard a commotion to my left. There was a large tree with a trunk about two feet in diameter almost at the edge of the road and on it about twelve feet up were two male Common Flamebacks one to the left some twelve inches above the other which was on the right. Each was in view of the other and appeared to be having an argument.

Both birds started to circle clockwise and to my surprise a third bird appeared far right, again about twelve inches lower down, and calling loudly. This continued and to my amazement a fourth bird appeared still lower.

All four birds continued to circle the trunk slowly. Moving gradually upwards, calling all the time but maintaining distance from each other and keeping the  birds to left and right just in sight. They reached a height of over twenty five feet and then flew down nearly to ground level before starting the whole process again. I have no idea what was the purpose of this dance and as far as I can recall I saw no sign of a female in the vicinity.
 
Finally they all flew off in the same direction and I continued my walk.

Nearly two months after the eggs were hatched, the doves are permanently gone from tha vicinity of their nest. No more do I hear their pleasant cooing each morning and evening. No more can I see them huddling together on a branch, preparing to roost for the night. Every trace of the trial nest is now gone. Every single piece of dried grass stem has been removed. In a way it is good that they are building a new nest somewhere else. The area around the tree where the nest was is now busier than even. Workers are moving around under the tree, as construction activities of the house behind is moving forward towards the road. The birds managed to avoid detection for more than two and a half months. I am not sure whether they can avoid detection if they are to nest in the same tree again.

I am now waiting for the next pair of birds to build their nest around my place.

Amateur birders have always played an important role in collecting information that ornithologists find useful to write their papers and monograph. This has been clearly seen in the recent book by Dr David Wells, The Birds of the Thai-Malay Peninsula Vol. I. In the preamble to his book, he paid tribute to professionals whose theses and scientific papers provided useful materials. At the same time he recognized the contributions of amateurs, especially members of the Nature Societies in Malaysia and Singapore. The Malaysian society publishes Enggang while the Singapore counterpart is Singapore Avifauna (SINAV).

The Nature Society (Singapore)’s Bird Group (BG) recently made a detailed check on the number of citations from SINAV in Wells’ book. It yielded 168 citations for a total of 118 species under various aspects of birdlife such as identification & distribution; status & population; habitat & ecology; breeding; geographical variation; movement; foraging & food; moult; social interaction; and social organisation.

This is indeed quite a contribution by SINAV to the ornithology of Singapore. It certainly changes my earlier erroneous impressions of the publication. And this is only the first volume, covering the non-passerine group. The second volume covering the passerine group is coming out soon. I am waiting eagerly to make another count to prove the above point.

Well done, Singapore Avifauna!

NOTE:
Unfortunately, when I made the above post, I was not aware of the unwillingness of the Bird Group leadership to make the publication available to Dr David Wells, who was then working on Vol I of “The birds of the Thai-Malay Peninsular” - please see 1 and 2.