A visit to Fort Canning Park holds
with the recent trend of visiting gun placements in search of birds. I did not
hold out much hope for the city park in the middle of the day, but even that
faint enthusiasm waned when I discovered that the principle attraction of the
site, a reservoir, was fenced off at the top of the slope and worse still, was
a covered reservoir.
I had resisted the lure of Singapore’s Botanic Gardens in favour of a new site so that I could count the birds on my 10,000 Birds YearList, but was ruing my decision.
I was about to call it a day when I
stumbled across a hot spot on a raised lawn surrounded by trees (Google Earth
ref; ). An Asian Brown Flycatcher first caught my attention, followed quickly
by an Arctic Warbler. A dark bird laying along a branch, swaying slightly,
turned out to be a Long-tailed Nightjar.
Bouyed by this, I continued around
the reservoir on the upper path. Plain-backed Sunbirds and Yellow-vented
Bulbuls were seen here and a Red Junglefowl flew across the path ahead of me. It
looked like a wild bird so I have decided to count it and will argue it out
with eBird when they question me about it. The circular walk around the park
was about a kilometre and actually produced a reasonable amount of birds in the
end. A White-bellied Sea-Eagle flew over as did a Brahminy Kite. Spotted Doves
were seen on the lawns and another Asian Brown Flycatcher was seen hawking for
insects from the top of the slope at the southern end.
Bird list for Fort Canning; 16
Brahminy Kite 1, White-bellied
Sea-Eagle 1, White-breasted Waterhen 1, Spotted Dove 4, Large-tailed Nightjar
1, German’s Swiftlet 10, Black-naped Oriole 1, Pacific Swallow 2, Yellow-vented
Bulbul 5, Arctic Warbler 1, Asian Brown Flycatcher 2, Asian Glossy Starling 1,
Javan Myna 20, Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker 1, Plain-throated Sunbird 3,
Olive-backed Sunbird 2.
Fort Canning Park is situated close to downtown Singapore
and many buses pass along the road in front of the National Museum. The nearest
MRT station is Dauby Ghaut.
Visit the dedicated Oriental Page for more posts from Singapore, including; Singapore Botanic Gardens, Sungei Buloh and Paser Ris
Birding, Birdwatching Singapore.
It's always a pleasant surprise when a slow start picks up to some activity. This was another place I wondered about visiting so will keep it in mind too. Great to pick up the Nightjar, and a nice shot of it roosting.
ReplyDeleteOn the Junglefowl topic, yesterday I ha a male and five females in a harem and a separate female with five chicks
ReplyDelete