Yong Ding Li, Singapore’s up-and-coming birder, encountered a Barred Eagle Owl (Bubo sumatranus) last night (18th January 2008) and sent in this report:

“Singapore’s mysterious Barred Eagle Owl which has been recorded by a handful of birders in the past two decades decides to show up last night at the Central Catchment Forest.

“As we were walking into the forest, the first major piece of clue was the resonant double note ‘hu‘ of slightly different pitch and tone, classic Barred Eagle Owl song. The first ‘hu‘ was longer and more penetrating than the second note and was given by a perched bird at estimated less than 50 metres distance. After vocalising twice, the bird silently flew across the canopy with the beams on it, confirming its identity. Birders visiting the Central Catchment Forest should keep a lookout for this enigmatic individual.

“And as if the night wasn’t enough, two hours after the owl was sighted, at 11.55 pm, a stunning Slow Loris (Nycticebus coucang) appeared and clambered over a giant rattan to cross the canopy in full view for some 20 minutes allowing many minutes of live video footage to be captured and proving its continued existence on the mainland.”

The latest Annotated Checklist has this to say of the owl:

“Status - Very rare non-breeding visitor. Former resident, appears to be not rare in Singapore in the 1920s but it is certainly not so numerous as Ketupa (B & C, 1927). CITES II.

“Records – 1 collected on 1 Jun 1925 (RMBR). No further records until 1 was heard and seen at BTNR on Oct 1996. It was probably a stray from Johor and stayed until at least 4 Jul 1997 (OBC Bull. 25). 1, possibly the same one from BTNR was seen in NS on 28 Jan 1998 (OBC Bull. 27), 29 Jan 1998 and 15 Mar 1998 (SINAV 12-1) and again on 29 May 2001 (OBC Bull. 34).”

Image courtesy of Cheong Weng Chun.

Reference:
Wang. L.K. & Hails, C. J. (2007) An annotated checklist of birds of Singapore. Raffles Bull. Zool. Suppl. 15:1-179.

NOTE: Please note that our Nature Reserves are out of bounds at night. Prior permission from NParks is necessary to enter such areas after dark. For the information of readers, Ding Li and his collegues were there conducting research for the National University of Singapore and NUS and NParks have a memorandum of understanding on such studies.

On the morning of 26th December 2007, KC Tsang documented the Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) at the Japanese Garden in Jurong (above). The bird was spotted by Margaret Yeo who alerted Amy and KC.

The Peregrine Falcon is widely distributed throughout the world. Its habitat is extremely variable, from the hot tropics to the high Arctic; from the coast to far inland; from semi-desert to forest; and from sea level to an altitude of about 4,000 metres. It breeds in all continents except Antarctica.

The uncommon visitor and passage migrant that is seen locally during the winter months is the subspecies japonensis. Its arrival can be as early as the first week of August to late May.

It breeds in West Siberia to Kamchatka and migrates to North Africa, Sri Lanka, Indochina, Thailand, the Malay Peninsular and as far south as Sumatra.

Latest: Jimmy Tan sent in the image on the left on 9th January 2008 stating: “There was also another Peregrine Falcon there at around the same period which appeared to have pick up some oil stains. Notice that its claws were also stained.”

Input and image by KC Tsang and Jimmy Tan; top image by KC and bottom by Jimmy.

Jambu Fruit Dove (Ptilinopus jambu) is an uncommon non-breeding visitor. Apparently it visits any time of the year. Thus when a pair was sighted on 19th December 2007, news spread wide and fast. Photographers and birders flocked to the Japanese Garden in Jurong, the former to record the event and the latter to gawk at the birds.

The strikingly handsome male with a crimson face and a pink patch on the upper breast is shown above. The less striking but just as attractive female, shown below, is about to swallow the salam (Syzygium polyanthum) fruit. In the crop the flesh is stripped off and the seed sent on its way to be ejected at the other end of the bird.

This year’s arrival of the doves coincided with the fruiting of the salam tree, a common roadside tree whose fruits are a favourite with birds. A single male bird was sighted last year in another such fruiting tree nearby. The fruits of the salam obviously provide much needed sustenance to these birds after their long flight.

Normally found in forests, this fruit eating dove congregate in the crowns of small trees making up the lower to middle storey. Their appearance in a park thus allowed photographers excellent opportunities to get their perfect shots.

Input by YC, Meng and Melinda Chan; images by Meng.

The Chestnut-winged Cuckoo (Clamator coromandus) is one of the more beautiful among the many cuckoos. The adult is a sight to behold and will no doubt excite the most hardener birders. What more is its impact on birders new to the scene.

The adult has a back of metallic glossy black, a white nape, chestnut wings, black tail, rufous throat, white belly and dark vent. Not forgetting the presence of the fabulous dark black crest.

In April 2007 the cuckoo actually came knocking on the window pane of Richard Hale’s apartment at Dairy Farm Road. It was in fact confronting its reflection on the window pane (1, 2).

Well, in mid-November 2007, Meng and Melinda Chan scoured the Dairy Farm area looking for this cuckoo. They had the good fortune to spot one taking a well-earned rest high up on a branch of a tree. The bird was extremely shy, hiding high among the foliage of the tree crown. They even succeeded in bringing home a few portrait shots of this beautiful bird (top).

At one point a Black-naped Oriole (Oriolus chinensis) appeared nearby, landing on a higher nearby branch. The cuckoo nervously looked up and immediately flew higher up the tree.

The Chestnut-winged Cuckoo breeds in the Indian subcontinent, Sri Lanka, South China, Indochina to SW Thailand. It migrates south to parts of Asia and Southeast Asia during winter, reaching Singapore as an uncommon winter visitor and passage migrant. If you work hard enough, you can still catch a glimpse of this beautiful bird as it arrives as early as 30th September to leave as late as 28th April.

Like many cuckoos, the Chestnut-winged is a brood-parasite, laying its eggs mainly in the nests of laughingthrushes (Garrulax spp.).

On 23rd March 2007 Pamela Lim experienced a private “raptor watch” of mainly Oriental Honey- buzzards (Pernis ptilorhyncus) and Black Bazas (Aviceda leuphotes) right outside her bedroom window (left). In the three years she stayed in her present apartment in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, she had never seen such spectacular display. She has uploaded a video of the encounter HERE.

“Something great happened this morning during my quiet time at my bedroom window… I thought I saw a swarm of bees… I almost leapt out of my bedroom window in excitement when I realised those bees were actually raptors…!

“I witnessed a total of four groups/flocks before I dashed away to church and with each flock, they circled eye level and moved from right to left and up the hot air column until they looked really like bees before they soared off…

“…swirling round and round…”

The Oriental Honey-buzzards, together with lesser numbers of Black Baza, Chinese Goshawk (Accipiter soloensis), Greyfaced Buzzard (Butastur indicus) and Japanese Sparrowhawk (Accipiter gularis) regularly move south from Siberia from late August, and Japan from mid-September to escape the cold winter there.

Each spring, these birds do a return migration, flying from Sumatra north-east across the Straits of Malacca to the west coast of Malaysia. They presumably return to Japan, western China and southern Siberia to breed.

Tanjung Tuan in Port Dickson is the site in Malaysia to view these returning raptors, as this is the shortest distance over the sea from Pulau Rapat in north-western Sumatra where the birds come from.

The migratory flocks that Pamela witnessed must have been among these returning birds. An earlier study showed that more than 70% of the raptors were Oriental Honey-buzzards, arriving first, from below eye-level to a maximum height of 30 metres. They were seen in flapping flight over the sea, to eventually take advantage of the rising hot air to gain altitude. Black Bazas and Chinese Goshawks arrived in gliding flight in flocks at a height of about 30 metres.

Reference:
DeCandido, R., Allen, D. & Bildstein, K.L. (2006). Spring migration of Oriental Honey-buzzards Pernis ptilorhyncus and other raptors at Tanjung Tuan, Malaysia, 2000–2001. Forktail 22:156-160.