Comfort Birding

Living on a high-rise with a tall tree in front of your window, birding can be a joy sometimes. That's how I am able to enjoy birding while inside the room. All I have to do is leave a small gap on the curtains, to allow me a view of the branches, then hide and wait. Sometimes, I don't even need to wait. I just need to keep listening to bird calls while doing some other stuffs. If I hear something, I take a peek and see if a bird is there. :)

Olive-backed sunbird (male)

Olive-backed sunbird (immature)

Olive-backed sunbird (female)

Scarlet-backed flowerpecker (male) -
on a parasitic mistletoe growing on a branch of the same tree

Scarlet-backed flowerpecker (female) 

Black-naped oriole

Spotted dove

Yellow-vented bulbul

Javan myna

Oriental white-eye

These bird pictures were all taken from the same tree.

MacRitchie Nature Trail 2013-06-02

Together with my friend, we meet up at Khatib MRT early in the morning to visit the MacRitchie Nature trail. Across the street opposite the station, we took bus 852 bound for Bukit Batok Interchange. Less than 30 minutes later, we get off at St. Theresa stop and proceed to the park.

We walked a few kilometers stopping here and there to listen and look for some birds. Unfortunately, the bird count was relatively poor. When we reached the Treetop walk, we decided to just continue along the trail instead of going back to where we came from at Marymount road. We're already at 4.6Km from the entrance. If we go back, we need to walk another 4.6Km, so we just decided to take the 10.2Km route to Bukit Timah which is only 5.6Km ahead.

View from the treetop walk

At one point after the Treetop walk, we could hear many sunbirds calling and we stopped in-front of a flowering tree. Here we were able to photograph a Crimson sunbird, which is the best bird of the day.

When we reached the end of the trail, we were expecting to reach the Bukit Timah Nature reserve. But we probably took a wrong turn earlier and didn't see the other trail. In the end, we just decided to call it a day and took bus 157 to get to the MRT station.

The marker at the end of the trail

 
We had lunch at Toa Payoh community center, then took the MRT to Novena. My friend wanted to visit the church there, so I accompanied him. After the short visit, we took the MRT home.

Here are the other pictures I was able to capture.

Squirrel gnawing on the bark 

Giant ant, about an inch long