About

“You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world,
but when you’re finished,
you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird…
So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing - that’s what counts.
I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.”
~Nobel Laureate Richard P. Feynman (1918-1988)

The above quotation has been adopted as the guiding principal of the Bird Ecology Study Group, a new bird group of the Nature Society (Singapore) since September 2005. BESGroup is committed to knowing something about that bird, not just its name.



OBJECTIVES:

Our objectives 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 via the internet, popular magazines and scientific journals.

The group is looking into and documenting all issues of bird ecology, especially the inter-dependency of birds and plants (fruits, nectar, insects, pollination, seed dispersal, nesting sites and materials, etc). We also hope to study breeding behaviour - from nest to eggs to fledglings. Hopefully, a central database, freely available to members, can be set up in due course.



BESG BLOG

Wherever possible, observations will be posted in our blog within a few days to a week or so. This is to ensure that all observations are freely shared within the shortest possible time. So far, we have more than 600 posts and a total hits of more than 200,000. We are posting almost daily now as members as well as non-members are regularly sending in their observations as well as generously sharing their images. All contributors, whether of articles and/or images, are always fully acknowledged.



TALKS & WALKS
We are developing a series of talks under the broad heading of “Why Do Birds Do What They Do?” This series will explore aspects of bird migration, diet, habitat selection, flight, mating systems, vocalisation, evolution, etc. Field trips to emphasise the ecological aspects of birding are being planned.



COORDINATORS
BESGroup is coordinated by Wee Yeow Chin, Richard Hale, Subaraj Rajathurai and Grant Pereira. Each year we plan to replace one of the above with a new member. This is to ensure that the leadership will not stagnate, will always be vibrant and there will always be new ideas flowing into the group.



HOW TO JOIN
Members interested in working closely with BESGroup or wishing to be kept informed of activities can send a message through this website’s contact form. We run a YahooGroups BESGroup loop and a discussion board that anyone can register with.