Birding at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve

Exams are coming! For a change from all the studying, my parents and I decided to take a drive to Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve for a walk. We heard that this was one of the last few places in Singapore where you could see shorebirds without trekking through swamps and forests. 

Some of the birds we spotted were..

                                         Cattle Egret                                                   

                                         Little Egret

                                          Little Heron

                                          Grey Heron

                                         Egrets in flight formation

                                         Common Redshank

                                         Marsh Sandpiper

   White Breasted Waterhen (walking around everywhere!)

There were lots of pretty Kingfishers who posed for pics, called out loudly and fished for us to see.. 

                                          Collared Kingfisher

                                          White-throated Kingfisher

                                          Storkbilled Kingfisher 

And birds up on the trees.. 

                                          Olive-backed Sunbird

                                          Eastern Broadbilled Dollarbird

                                          Pink necked green pigeon

                                          Rufous tailed Tailorbird

There were cute little Pacific Swallows flying everywhere! We were lucky to catch them taking a break..

 It was still not enough for us, so Dad drove us around Kranji to look for more birds.

And I was rewarded with my all-time fav....raptors up in the air on display!!

                                          Black-winged kite hovering in the air (cool!)

                                          Brahminy kite (what a beaut!)

                                          Baya Weaver Birds' Nest



A definite *STAR* lifer! (contribution by "M")

Last Sunday, we made a trip up to Desaru in Malaysia. It was epic in a way I never expected. For one, it was our first family cycling trip outside of Singapore and everyone's longest distance ever covered on 2 wheels. Pacific swallows and white-bellied sea eagles dotted the coast but our star bird took the cake. The loud, characteristic calls and majestic birds (at least 30 of them) sitting in the coconut trees were simply amazing!


The great Oriental pied Hornbill

Wish I brought a proper camera!

Visit to Vermont and the Berkshires

We drove to Vermont for mum's race and stopped by the Birds of Vermont Museum on the way home.

I met Bob Spear himself! He carved all the beautiful birds in the museum.

I drew one of my favourite birds for the Art Contest - the Great Horned Owl.

                                                  And I won!! Yay!!

Here are some links to the website:
Birds of Vermont Museum Annual Art Contest
Click here to see my drawing! (4th from top and 4th from left)
And click here for the 2009 results

We also stopped by the Berkshires to stretch our legs and bird watch, of course.

Eastern Phoebe

Hairy woodpecker

White-throated sparrow

Red finch

Mountain Blue Bird

Song Sparrow

Little Song Birds

Warblers are difficult to see....even harder to identify..... but most of all, difficult to photograph.
They are tiny and hop all over the place.

Here are some warblers my dad finally managed to get pics of (after a really long time!)

Yellow-rumped warbler

Yellow-rumped warbler at plum island, MA

Black-throated green warbler (Habitat, Belmont, MA)

Now you can see the black throat!

Spring is the time the warblers come out to play. We saw more...but they were just too frisky to be photographed!

West Coast Birds of North America

There were so many amazing birds on our trip to California. And so very different! I had to look them all up in the Field Guides we borrowed from the library.

Black skimmer

Black skimmers in action. Cool!

Common Tern

Elegant Tern

Foster's Tern

Heerman gull

Killdeers (so cute! They are getting endangered in the East)

Least Sandpipers

Long-billed Curlew

Marbled Godwit

Willet

Sanderlings

Double-crested Cormorants

Pelagic Cormorant

Clark's grebes

Pied-billed Grebe (so teeny!)

Snowy Egret

Surf Scoter

 If I've named them wrongly, please let me know!