For about two weeks recently, Kennie Pan was at the Singapore Botanic Gardens keeping watch on a pair of Stork-billed Kingfisher (Halcyon capensis) around the Symphony Lake. Normally, the kingfisher came out between 7 am and 12 noon, perching on a branch of its favourite tree, keeping watch on the water below.

“Out of the total 10 days I went there, the last day was a lifer for me. Both the female and the male came out and fished at the same area, but on different branches. This made me suspect that it’s juvenile was hungry. It’s dive for fishes was 50% success (left top). The fishes at the lake are so used to being fished that they will submerge even when disturbed by the shadow of a sparrow flying above.

“The bird finally swopped down from it’s favourite perch and caught the fish (left bottom). Flying back, it thrashed the the fish against the branch every 5-20 seconds to subdue it before flying back to its nest to feed it’s young.”

I sent the image to Dr Khoo Hong Woo, a retired fish expert once attached to the National University of Singapore and received the following reply;

“I think its an armoured catffish, probably thrown away by an aquarium owner… the prominent pectoral spines (catfish) and the armoured ridges on its body point to this species. Not a native catfish I think, one of those armoured catfish quite popular with aquarists. I checked with two altenative possibilities. Could be a flathead fish (Platycephalus sp.) or the dragonet (Callionmymid sp.). (features not clear hence these alternatives).”

This post is a cooperative effort between www.naturepixels.org and BESG to bring the study of bird behaviour through photography to a wider audience.

“Came across a White-bellied Sea-eagle (Haliaeetus leucogaster) snatching a frog from the surface of a pond at Bt Panjang area on 10th June 2008,” wrote Eddy Lee Kam Pang (above). This is a sequence to his encounter two months earlier with a sea-eagle catching a rat in a monsoon drain.

“This was my first time seeing such an action. A frog is surely not a regular prey item for this bird. Its usual diet consists mostly fishes, though I had seen this bird taking a rat previously in the same area.

“Was there a shortage of food source such as fish that drived this bird into hunting something else or was it purely by chance that the eagle spotted its easy target, need to be seen.

“The frog must had taken great risk swimming in the pond as there were other aquatc predators around, predators such as the Toman fish and Water Monitors formed part of the residents in the area as well.

“Whatever it was, we can safely add one more prey item to the eagle’s food source list.”

And as far as catching a rat is concerned, there was also a May 2006 post detailing the sea-eagle catching the rodent in the sea off the coast in Changi.

Adrian Lim a.k.a. wmw998 photographed a Golden Babbler (Stachyris chrysaea) in Peninsular Malaysia catching a phasmid (below). The bird had the stick insect’s head tightly clamped in its bill and bashed it against the branch. It then held the anterior end of the insect against the branch with its right foot and manipulated the other end with its bill in an effort to eat it.

Very little is known of what food this babbler takes, besides ants, caterpillars and the occasional berries. Stick insect is thus a new food record.

For the family Picathartidae, the food is dominated by insects and forest-floor invertebrates. These include beetles, termites, and ants. Other foods include earthworms, millipedes and centipedes. Small frogs and lizards are also taken, mostly to feed the young.

The Golden Babbler is a resident forest species in Peninsular Malaysia. It forages among the leaves of the lower and middle levels of the forest.

Reference:
Collar, N. J. & Robson, C. (2007). Family Timaliidae (Babblers). Pp. 70-291 in: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A. & Sargatal, J. eds. Handbook of the birds of the world. Vol. 12. Picathartes to Tits and Chikadees. Barcelona: Lynx Editions.

This post is a cooperative effort between www.naturepixels.org and BESG to bring the study of bird behaviour through photography to a wider audience.

On 2nd June 2008, Johnny Wee was witness to a Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea) at the Chinese Garden in Jurong catching a fish.

The heron was in the shallow water when it sighted a fish nearby. With a swift move, it caught the fish and flew off to dry land. There, it took about 15 minutes to manipulate the tilapia before it could swallow it head-first.

After swallowing the fish, it went to the water edge to drink - a total of five times before it was satisfied. The fish was flattish and broad. Was it a little too wide for the heron to swallow comfortably, so that it needed water for “lubrication”?

As with kingfishers, owls and bee-eaters, the indigestible parts are eventually regurgitated in the form of a pellet.

A White-throated Kingfisher (Halcyon smyrnensis) was photographed by Joseph Yao swallowing a lizard nearly as long as itself. This, of course includes the lizard’s long tail.

The lizard was caught and brought back to the kingfisher’s perch where it was subdued by bashing it against the wooden billboard. The lizard was then grabbed by the head and with one flick of the bird’s head, was swallowed head-first.

The entire process of swallowing lasted only 90 seconds when only the end portion of the tail was still projecting out of the bill.

The food of this kingfisher includes insects, crustaceans, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and small mammals. In the above case, the lizard, from head to tail was slightly longer than the bird itself. It has not been observed how long the end of the tail disappeared into the bird but there have been cases where it may take some time for the head end to be digested before the tail end completely disappears into the bird.

All images by Joseph Yao.

This post is a cooperative effort between www.naturepixels.org and BESG to bring the study of bird behaviour through photography to a wider audience.