“I was at the Singapore Botanical Gardens this afternoon (10th February 2008) and saw a rather interesting event. About five to eight Blue-tailed bee-eaters (Merops philippinus) suddenly came flying in and started to circle the lake. Then the bee-eaters started to fly really near to the surface and took “mini dives” into the water. This went on for about a minute and the group suddenly took off.

“Is this weird behaviour due to the bee-eaters heating up in the hot sun and trying to cool themselves off?

“Attach are some photos I managed to snap. Quite blurry. Bee-eaters were flying very fast and my camera shutter speed is only that fast… Regards, Meibao”

The Blue-tailed Bee-eater is a common passage migrant and winter visitor, arriving in great numbers towards the end of September. It feeds mainly on insects, particularly hymenopteran insects like bees, wasps and ants. It also takes dragonflies, bugs, beetles, flies and termites.

It has also been reported that this bee-eater often splash-dives into open waters, sometimes to bathe and other times to take small fish and insects. Fry (1984) first recorded the bird taking the small, surface feeding mosquito fish (Gambusia affinis) when a vertebra of the fish was detected in a pellet regurgitated by the a Blue-tailed Bee-eater.

The mosquito fish is native to southern United States and Mexico. It is now found throughout the world, used mainly to control mosquito larvae in freshwater ponds and lakes.

References:
1. Fry, C.H. (1984). The Bee-eaters. T. & A.D. Poyser, Calton.
2. Fry, C.H. (2001). Family Meropidae (Bee-eaters). Pp. 286-341 in: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A. & Sargatal, J. eds. (2001). Handbook of the birds of the world. Vol. 6. Mousebirds to Hornbills. Barcelona: Lynx Editions.
3. Lim, K.P. Kelvin & Ng, Peter K.L. (1990). A guide to the freshwater fishes of Singapore. Singapore Science Centre.

“The Rail-babbler (Eupetes macrocerus) is one of the most cryptic and enigmatic of the birds in the Sundaic rainforest. It occurs on the Malay Peninsula as well as in parts of Sumatra and northern Borneo. The habitat is lowland rainforest, mainly primary forest but also adjacent mature logged forest with a closed canopy.

“But what kind of bird is it? The name indicates some relationship to the rails, Rallidae, but that is obviously coincidental for this Passerine. For many years it was included in Timaliidae with the babblers, a diverse family with 309 species worldwide. However, anyone who has ever seen a Rail-babblers (or a Malaysian Rail-Babblers as it was known then) would agree that there was something wrong with this, it simply didn’t belong. The morphology doesn’t match. And nor does the ecology, a Rail-babbler can fly, but it rarely does, it prefers to walk. It walks with its fairly long legs and long tail across the forest floor cluttered with leaves and saplings, it hates to be out in the open and trots quickly across clear patches; when it reaches a fallen log it jumps up and walks across it. Even when captured and released it will immediately jump down onto the forest floor and run off (Wells, 2007).

“In 1998 I was in the Arfak Mountains in West Papua, the Indonesian part of New Guinea to photograph birds. There I came across a Chestnut-backed Jewel-babbler on the forest floor, and it struck me immediately how much this Australasian bird resembled ‘our’ Rail-babbler in built and behaviour. Craig Robson’s A Field Guide to the Birds of South-east Asia came out in 2000 and put the Rail-babbler in the crow family, Corvidae, this taxonomy didn’t make sense and was never generally accepted outside the Oriental region. David Wells (The Birds of the Thai-Malay Peninsula Volume Two, 2007) put Rail-babbler in its own family, Eupetidae, which quite possibly is the best solution. Then Handbook of the Birds of the World Volume 12, arriving in Asia this year, finally placed Rail-babbler with the family jewel-babblers and allies, now named Eupetidae after the Rail-babbler, the only species occurring in South-east Asia, the other 17 all in New Guinea or Australia. The Rail-babbler has found a suitable family at last.

“This is the picture illustrating the Rail-babbler in the book (above). I hired R Subaraj to guide me into the Panti Forest Reserve in Johor. Subaraj managed to call the bird forward by imitating its long, wailing whistle and on the third morning we finally saw it well enough to get a picture.”

Earlier, Richard Hale read the report and sent this query: “…but surely the article means the Rail Babbler has never heard of the Wallace Line? Or are there others in Borneo?”

To this, Morten Strange replies: “…no there are no other jewel-babblers on Borneo, or in Wallacea for that matter, the Rail-babbler’s nearest relatives are on New Guinea.

“This way, the Rail-babbler appears to be one of those birds that we have in South-east Asia that is the sole representative of its family in this sub region, from an otherwise exclusive Australasian family. The other examples that come to mind are of course Golden-bellied Gerygone (Our ‘Flyeater’ of the Acanthizidae family, one species in SE Asia, 62 in Australasia) and Mangrove Whistler (Pachycephalidae, one species in SE Asia, 55 in Australasia). But you may ask then, why does the Flyeater not occur on Borneo when it is in SE Asia plus Sulawesi and Lesser Sundas (across the Wallace Line in the Wallacea subregion) ..????.

“Getting back to the Rail-babbler, I did shorten the whole story a bit to get to the conclusion quickly. If you read the opening chapter for Eupetidae in HBW you will see that they consider that it might be best placed in its own family (as Wells does). However, they also point out a number of associations with logrunners and with the African groups rock-jumbers (under Timaliidae) and the small family picathartes, also restricted to Africa, which biogeographically appears even more bizarre. I jump straight to the conclusion that they end up putting it with the jewel-babblers and allies, in fact the Rail-babbler has previously been placed in the same genus as the four Ptilorrhoa jewel-babblers on New Guinea, and although it no longer is, I mention anecdotally that the similarities are striking.

“How it happened I don’t know, but we ended up with this peculiar rainforest bird right at our doorstep that is so enigmatic and unique, so I thought that it was worth mentioning.”

Note: The Rail-babbler does not occur in Singapore, but in the nearby state of Johor in Malaysia.

My garden has been planted by birds - not totally, but partly. The birds brought the seeds and dropped them haphazardly. In most instances I allowed the plants to develop to maturity if they are not in the way of things. I had a trumpet tree (Cecropia peltata) growing for some months (top left). It was a male tree, a New World species that has become a weed in this part of the world. It grew too tall and threatened to invade my neighbour’s air space. As it was not a spectacular bird tree, I chopped it down.

I still have the umbrella tree (Schefflera actinophylla), native to New Guinea and Australia (above centre). It twice flowered, but each time the trunk broke before the flowers could form fruits. So I have yet to be given an opportunity to document the birds that are attracted to the flowers and fruits, except the Banded Woodpecker (Picus miniaceus) that came for the ants.

The two noni trees (Morinda citrifolia) by the gate are constantly flowering and fruiting (above right). They are popular with sunbirds and flowerpeckers that visit for the nectar in the flowers. The mistletoes (Dendrophthoe pentandra, Macrosolen cochinchinensis) that grow from the branches attract these delightful birds when they are in flowers and fruits. At least three species of birds are attracted to the fruits.

The white-stemmed button vine (Cissus hastata), a prolific scrambler, is growing all over the trees and palms. It is fruiting profusely, providing food for birds (top left).

Seedlings of sendudok or melastome (Melastome malabathricum) (above centre) litter the ground and I have transplanted a few and they are fruiting, attracting Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker (Dicaeum cruentatum).

The colourful seedlings of mahang (Macaranga javanica) regularly appear (above right). Two have grown tall, taking over the space of the trumpet tree. I am hoping these will flower soon and look forward to observing the birds that are attracted to them. Then if they grow too tall, they also have to give way to others.

There are a few more plants brought in by the birds, but they have to wait their turn, as I do not have enough space for them all. The wild cinnamon (Cinnamomum iners) (top left) is waiting to fill the garden. Then there is the salam (Syzygium polyanthum) (top centre) and what looks like a wild brinjal (Solanum sp.) (top right). The first two are great bird trees, I am not sure of the third shrub.

A garden planted by birds is guaranteed to attract birds.

The sighting of the purported Himalayan Swiftlet (Aerodramus brevirostris) together with a clear image of the bird shot from below by KC Tsang as evidence, has been reported earlier (left top).

I took the liberty of sending KC’s image to Dr David R Wells, author of “The Birds of the Thai-Malay Peninsular” and he kindly sent this reply:

“Good to hear from you, and thanks for the photo. The experts may indeed be sitting on the fence, but I do have to say that identification of the Peninsula’s grey (Aerodramus) swiftlets, from a still shot, particularly one taken from below, is hit and miss. THUS FAR, no-one has come up with a way of being certain. What I will admit is that the tail-fork is deeper, more conspicuous than I would have expected in a White-nest and certainly more so than in a Black-nest – leaving HS as the best bet.

“Seen in life, flocks of swiftlets with uniformly conspicuous tail-fork (such as shown) and rather stiff wing-beat I have tended to assume were HS, and passage movements of such birds have been noted over the S end of the Peninsula, including Singapore.

“Beautiful picture, nonetheless, and one of these days it could contribute to working out something more useful by way of ID characters.”

Black-nest (A. maximus) and White-nest (A. fuciphagus) are both common residents, the latter is also known as Edible-nest.

KC managed to get an image of the bird from above some time later (left bottom) and again I sent the image to Dr Wells. His response:

“Presumably not the same individual as before as tail-fork less pronounced (or it appears so; photos can be deceptive). All I will say is that any bird with a rump this pale relative to the rest of the upperparts, as far south as Singapore, could hardly be a White-nest. Given that Black-nests have the squarest tail of the three, the odds are in favour of Himalayan. BUT, this ID is still only statistical.”

In the absence of a live or dead specimen (or possibly more than one) in hand, the above images could be considered those of the Himalayan Swiftlet - all things considered.

Images by KC Tsang and comments by Dr David R Wells

References:
1. Robson, C. (2005). Birds of South-east Asia. London: New Holland.
2. Wang. L.K. & Hails, C. J. (2007) An annotated checklist of birds of Singapore. Raffles Bull. Zool. Suppl. 15:1-179.
3. Wells, D.R. (1999). The birds of the Thai-Malay Peninsular. Vol. I, Non-passerines. Academic Press, London.

In early January, Daniel Koh came across a dead Little Heron (Butorides striatus) dangling at the end of a fishing line that got entangled on a branch of a casuarina (Casuarina equisetifolia) tree in Punggol Park.

The dead Little Heron apparently swallowed a fish still attached to a hook at the end of a fishing line. An angler must have carelessly disposed his line with a bait fish still attached to the hook and the bird must have swallowed the fish and subsequently the line got entangled onto the branch. Stuck to the hook and dangling on the line, the poor bird slowly died from starvation.

The pond in the park is a designated fishing area and anglers are always there. This is an example of what can happen if fishing lines are indiscriminately disposed of.

Image by Daniel Koh and Chan Yoke Meng.