Flowerpeckers

Flowerpeckers are small and usually brightly coloured birds.

Till now, I had only seen one species of flowerpecker-the scarlet backed flowerpecker. I heard it was common but do not know where I can find it.

 

Orange bellied flowerpecker-Sime Forest

Could anyone help me?

Purple heron

The purple heron belongs to the Family Ardeidae. That means that is a heron. It is a large bird, 80-90 cm tall, with a 120-150 cm wingspan, but slender for its size, weighing only 0.5-1.3 kg

I saw it twice at Bishan Park, both times it was at a field. Then, I saw it fly then perch on the canal railing once. It was then when saw its long wingspan. After all, its wingspan is about my height.

 

A picture taken of it at Bishan Park

Bird wanted shelter?

Once, at Sime Forest, I saw an unknown bird seeking shelter at the ranger station.

 

Bird at ranger station

Sorry for the bad image. The ranger station was very dark.

Why was it there? Do birds seek shelter like that?

 Please comment if you know anything about this.

Different colour of rock pigeons

I encountered a few different colours of rock pigeon. There are four different colour variations, like the usual pale grey wing with green and pink neck, the grey all over, the white all over and the one that is black all over.

 The usual one is common, but the one that is grey all over is smaller than the usual one.

The on that is black all over is quite big in size compared to the normal one.

 

The usual rock pigeon

 

The one that is grey all over

 

The one that is white all over

 

The one that is black all over

Are they of different subspecies, or different morphs, or gender, or different age, etc, but I don’t know. Anyone who knows please comment.

Sime forest trip 12.3.08

It was very cloudy, but I made the decision to go, as I was afraid Friday will rain, apparently it did not. But there were a lot of birds yesterday, or more like I noticed many more birds as the camera had a better zoom. That is the good thing about using camera zooms instead of a binoculars zoom, you can find the bird easier.

As we walked into the nature reserve, I did not see any birds. I tried to find the hooded pitta fruitlessly by doing that pit-pit whistle. Did not even work. I heard a low gaw gaw towards the water edge, but did not see a thing.

I saw an unknown bird on the way. Can’t identify it, but got quite a good picture.

 

Can anyone help me identify?

Then, I moved on to the road beside the forest, did not see any thick billed pigeons, but saw a squirrel. I am suprised on its agility.

At the ranger station, it started to rain, then, we went to the ranger station for shelter. I did some birdwatching there, with my camera in the shelter but the birds outside. Took a picture of it, but face was covered a bit.

 

If you can identify it, please comment.

I also saw an unknown tailorbird

 

Should be a tailorbird

I also saw the asian fairy bluebird.

 

At last, the rain stopped. We headed back. On the way back, I saw about six greater racket tailed drongos.

 

I saw more birds than before. I always see more birds than before and I think it is because I know where are the good birding spots.

Canon EOS 350D Digital Rebel XT

At last, my father let me use is Canon Digital SLR camera.

He uses it for his work as he take pictures of his products. My father have never let me use this camera before, but this time he allowed.

High zoom, which is much better than my normal camera, and it has more functions, ISO can go higher, to 1600, and less automated.

This is much better than Canon EOS 300D model.

It focuses very well and pictures come out clear. Usually, I use the Program mode or full manual exposure.

One more point, is that it can take many frames per second. So, that means that I can take birds flying in the sky for it has a high shutter speed and everything.

Now, to put it to the test, I went to Sime Forest to do some birding, and results are satisfactory.