Pasir Ris Park - The Flight Of The Hornbills

Pasir Ris Park
East, Singapore
January 2015

It was one of those cloudy days in the beginning of the year. With the rainfall held back, it was time to venture out east to explore the mangroves from the safety of boardwalks - no muddied shoes from the rain-sodden grass.

Periophthalmodon schlosseri (Giant Mudskipper)

Quite a few of these huge mudskippers were seen around the mangroves at mid-tide today.  At almost the length of a 30 cm ruler, here's one moving away from the "swimming puddle" it created at low tide to keep some of the seawater in.

 

Anthracoceros albirostris (Oriental Pied Hornbills) - Nesting Pair

Our first sign of bird life here were two photographers with their huge lenses lying in wait at the base of some trees. 

This is how far away the nest is...

On zooming, we realize that the pair is nesting in a specially built box...

Mud lined the edges of the diamond-shaped entrance. It appeared that the female is inside, lining the nest with soft mud. She has finished the interior of the nest and is now lining the entrance of the nest to slowly seal it up...

Minutes later, the male emerges and opens his beak. Instead of food, crumbs of mud spill out. He spits them out and slowly passes these mud crumbs to the female. When he finishes, he flies off again to retrieve the mud from the nearby riverbank...

Other Sightings

The ants appear to be most active at this time - shifting food many times their weight...

It was also a good time to start planning for the next generation...

A transparent snail doing yoga-like contortions...

A Numenius minutus (Little Curlew) wanders in the thick mangrove undergrowth...

A few Ardea cinerea (Grey Herons) were circling the bridge near Downtown East. It appears that the whole flock are nesting on several trees on the bank of Sungei Api Api...

The visible gold of the Nephila pilipes (Golden Web Spider) can be viewed from below the tree...

There are not 1, but 2 grasshoppers in this photo...

The orb-weavers were well-hidden under the wooden railings. Many of their webs lasted despite the recent spate of rainy days...

Initially this looked like a bee stopping for a rest on a leaf. But then, bees do not stop on the underside of leaves to rest. And look what's grasping the bee - a Misumenops nepenthicola (White Nepenthes Crab Spider)! Such is the wonder of the macro world! You get surprise finds by zooming in on your photos on a larger screen...

  

Photographers On The Bridge

From the distance, we saw a group of about 20 photographers armed with their DSLRs on tripods on the bridge. First it was just the Halcyon capensis (Stork-Billed Kingfisher). Dashing in his bright hues, it waited by the riverside, ducking in several times for fish that swam way too fast...

Moments later, a female Alcedo atthis (Common Kingfisher) flew out from among the shrubs. It was a pleasure watching her quick darts in her elegant blue coat with the shimmering fluorescent turquoise spots.

Anthracoceros albirostris (Oriental Pied Hornbill) - Juvenile

As we left, we were surprised to see a blue-eyed boy peeking at us from among the short trees lining the boardwalk....

This cheeky boy beeped and shook his head at us in his childlike curiousity, then perched on a branch and looked straight at us with his gestures...

Ever playful, he then flew even lower (to below the boardwalk height) and started surveying the ground before finally flying off...