Monday, March 17, 2014

Singapore March 2014, Sungei Buloh

After a tip from my friend Lars Buckx, we also visited Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve in Singapore. This site is somewhat further away from the city centre than the other sites we´ve visited, but still rather easily accessible by public transport. Take the Nort-South MRT Line (the red one) to Kranji. Here you have to take the SMRT 925 bus (1.10 SGD). When visiting the reserve on a Sunday (like we did) this bus stops directly in front of the entrance of the reserve. When visiting on another day, you have to get out at the next stop and walk 15 minutes to the entrance. We really liked this park, even though it pissed down on us for most of time we were here. However expect the reserve to be very busy, which makes the recording of sounds close to impossible.

Our main interest in the reserve were the waders and shore birds, but of course we looked at other birds as well. The best time to observe shore birds in the reserve is probably September - November, but we still managed to see some species like Whimbrel, Common Greenshank, Common Redshank, Marsh Sandpiper, Common Sandpiper, Pacific Golden Plover and best of all: Chinese Egret. Again some other migrants were also observed: Asian Brown Flycatcher, Pale-legged Leaf Warbler, Blue-tailed Bee-eater and (again!) a female Von Schrenk´s Bittern. Besides these birds we observed the more common resident birds of Singapore that can be seen in most other parks too. We also saw some non-avian highlights like loads of Water Monitors, Long-tailed Macaques and two Saltwater Crocodiles!
A Chinese Egret (Egretta eulophotes) together with two Little Egrets (Egretta garzetta)
Whimbrel (Numenius phaeopus) together with two Pacific Golden Plovers (Pluvialis fulva)
Saltwater Crocodile (Crocodylus porosus) with Common Greenshanks (Tringa nebularia) in the background

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