Collared Scops Owl (Otus bakkamoena) is a common resident. It is a small, stocky owl that got its name from the pale collar across the hind-neck. It is typically a nocturnal bird but during the daytime it can occasionally be seen dust and water bathing.

The nest is a tree-hole or hollow stump-top, usually 3-9 m up, devoid of any lining. It usually lays two near-spherical eggs – inside a cavity nest there is no danger of the eggs rolling off. The chicks are hatched blind and with a sparse covering of down. A second, thicker covering of down develops soon after.

In late March 2007 a nest was located in an old angsana tree (Pterocarpus indicus) when some pruning work was conducted on the tree in Mount Faber. The incubating bird suddenly flew off, thus exposing its nest site. The bird was nesting in a shallow cavity formed where the main branches develop from the top of the trunk. The image on the left shows the bird well camouflaged in the nest.

Because of the inaccessibility of the nest, it was decided not to document the stages.

Richard Nai of The Jewel Box kept a lookout of the owls and reported their presence throughout most of April. However, towards the end of the month the parent birds were not seen. It rained almost every day and there was the possibility of the nest being flooded.

The birds did not return subsequently and the landscaping workers managed to retrieve a single egg in a semi-flooded cavity.

The egg is near-spherical, white, plain, smooth and matt. It measures 34 x 29 mm (right top). There is a dead embryo inside, at an advanced stage of development, with traces of early down (right bottom).

Well, not every nesting ends in a success story. A high percentage fails, due to disturbance, weather conditions, egg predation, death of parental birds, etc.

Dr. Fazalur Rahman Mallick discovered the nesting; Richard Nai and Priscilla Pey of The Jewel Box provided progress reports and retrieved the damaged egg.

Photographer Wee Hiang Her captured a couple of shots of a Yellow-vented Bulbul (Pycnonotus goiavier) feeding its chick with a batch of tiny snails and published the images in Avian Watch Asia’s website (left).

These freshwater or terrestrial molluscs, probably Melanoides sp., are usually found around drains, ponds and even moist soils in urban areas. The snails appear empty, and if so, then the adult is feeding its chicks calcium.

An earlier post document a male Oriental Pied Hornbill (Anthracoceros albirostris) bringing to the female sealed inside her nesting cavity pieces of snail shells. This is not unusual as such behaviour in hornbills has also been reported in Malaysia

There are enough reports of birds consuming shells as well as other materials for their supply of calcium in the literature. Whether it is for the female during her long period of confined incubation or for the recently hatched chicks, the birds need this element for bone formation and egg laying.

At the same time the shells are useful as grit in the gizzard of the bird, assisting in the grinding of the food. Our field ornithologist Wang Luan Keng says that there were always pieces of shells in the gizzard whenever she dissected this organ.
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Images by Wee Hiang Her.

While the female Oriental Pied Hornbill (Anthracoceros albirostris) was busy sealing herself inside a cavity in an old Shorea tree at Changi in February 2007, another pair was doing the same nearby. This time it was an old angsana tree (Pterocarpus indicus) by the main road. The cavity was at the point where a branch was originally lopped off from the main trunk.

The male hornbill was seen making numerous trips delivering lumps of mud to the female inside the cavity (above). In one particular day he was seen doing five sessions within a 30 minutes period. Large pieces of mud were carried in his beak and offered to the female. The female carefully bit off small pieces each time until the whole lump either disappeared or disintegrated. When the lumps were hard, the female would have trouble pecking off pieces. There were no problems when the large lumps appeared softer.

The male would not allow the female to take over the whole piece of mud, especially when it was a large lump. If it slipped from the beak of the female due to her clumsiness, the male would invariable retrieve it to offer it for her again. Sometimes the male had trouble getting the lumps through the opening, trying this way and that for up to eight minutes each time.

The delivery of mud continued from the 17th to 24th February. After eight days of mud delivery, the female had yet to completely seal herself in.

On 24th March the female was seen spending some time nest cleaning. Obviously with so much mud being delivered, there would be plenty of debris that needed to be removed. She continued to ‘shovel’ debris out of the nest at least 26 times on one occasion.

In between delivering mud, the male was delivering food (left). Fruits were delivered by regurgitating once every 4-6 seconds. Each time he would deliver 10-50 fruits, depending on size. With smaller fruits like figs, more could be stored in the male’s gullet. It took some skill to regurgitate the fruits and channel them to the end of the beak, then skillfully transfer them to the tip of the female’s beak that was stuck out of the entrance of the cavity. A number of times the transfer failed and the male had to do it again. Sometimes he had to re-swallow the fruits and regurgitate them again for proper positioning.

Most of the time the food transfer was successful, if not the first time, then a second or even a third try.

During the period when the cavity was being actively sealed (17-24 February), the food delivered was mainly fruits. After this period there were more non-fruits. It was not easy to identify the animal food that was regurgitated and passed on to the female.

Images by Chan Yoke Meng.

On morning of 6th May 2007, KC Tsang and Amy came across a poacher’s trap while out strolling at Changi Point (left). “…and at about 0800 hrs came across this poacher’s trap. It has an Oriental White-eye (Zosterops palpebrosus) inside to act as a decoy, and the trap has two compartments in which to trap the unwitting bird. It was suspended about twenty feet above ground from a branch of the tree.

“The trap is located at the bottom left hand corner of the Changi Beach Club, if you are facing the sea from the club house. Below the trap is a Hill Myna (Gracula religiosa) in a cage.

“So what can anyone do about this?”

Oriental White-eyes are still a popular cage bird among the Chinese and the Malays. The latter call the bird mata putih, meanging white eye. Does this attempt at trapping the bird indicates that there is a well-organised syndicate at large as suggested earlier? The bird is getting common and actively breeding (1,2,3). Trapping it should be strongly discouragerd.

As in our earlier posts on Straw-headed Bulbul (Pycnonotus zeylanicus) (1, 2), the public should contact the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) during office hours as follows :

AVA Wildlife Regulatory Branch: Ms Lye Fong Keng (6325 7349); Mr Gerald Neo (6325 7290); or Ms Yvonne Low (6325 7626).

However, Fang Sher Chyet has written: “The problem with AVA is that they are not working on Sat and Sun, and most of these poachers are active during the weekends. I have e-mailed them poacher activities at Jalan Halus with poacher’s photo and traps (above), but I did not hear from them even after follow-up e-mails. Till today, I still see poachers (sometimes 4 or 5) at Jalan Halus.”

Images by KC (top) and FSC (bottom two).

The Chestnut-winged Babbler (Stachyris erythroptera) is an uncommon resident of the forest. The bird is nationally vulnerable due to its small, localised population.

KC Tsang reported seeing the male babbler in an unusual courtship ritual on 22nd April 2007. He observed that whenever the bird calls or sings, he displays “a white/bluish skin patch on both sides of the puffed up throat. Unlike that of the Olive-backed Sunbird (Cinnyris jugularis) that has two orange/yellow tuffs of feathers extended out from its shoulders in the mating dance.

“I am quite sure this kind of display by this bird had not been observed/recorded before…”

Yes, KC is right, this type of courtship ritual has not been reported or recorded for the Chestnut-winged Babbler.

*However, there is a paragraph in Birds of Borneo by Smythies, B. E. (1999), [Kota Kinabalu: Natural History Pub. (Borneo) Sdn. Bhd. & The Sabah Society. 4th ed, revised by G. W. H. Davison] on the Rail Babbler (Eupetes macrocerus) that states:

“In Sumatra KS Bishop observed one displaying in response to imitations of its voice. It approached to within 4m, hopped on to a fallen tree and after a few minutes turned head-on and slowly bowed, tipping its bill to the ground whilst at the same time broadly expanding its chest to exhibit an almost iridescent halo of brilliant blue and deep chestnut-red. This continued for several seconds with the bird slowly bowing and expanding its breast, then raising its head once again, before it scuttled away (KD Bishop, in litt.).”

It is gratifying to see that birders are now paying more attention to bird behaviour than before.

Images by KC.