On June 6, I went to Sungei Buloh to see waterfowls and other wildlife at low tide. I was glad I went. I saw Sunbirds, Kingfishers, Egrets, Herons, Painted Storks, ...and monitor lizard, green crested lizard, crocodiles - 4 of them...I hiked 8+ km, in 3 hours, stayed at one spot for almost an hour.
What made this solo outing special at the Wetland were the interactions I had with other nature lovers.
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| my trail at Sungei Buloh |
At 2 mile marker (see my trail map), I saw two men, standing there with their big lens, on tripods, pointing at a tall plant. I looked at the direction, and saw nothing. I turned to the older man, who was closer to me, before I asked my question, he volunteered to tell me that there was a Sunbird nest in the midsection of the plant, and patiently guided me to locate the well-camouflaged bird nest. The nest was empty. He told me that the female bird was incubating, it just left for food, and it would come back in a few minutes.
Indeed a female bird flew to the nest, perching on the opening for a few seconds to check, then entered, turned around and just sat there.
My first reaction was that it was olive backed Sunbird. The old man told me it was copper throated sunbird. The male has copper colored throat. It was around, but the guy did not have a picture of it. He showed me the photo of the male bird from internet. He then gave me a lesson on the bird. The female had not laid eggs yet, that's why it came and go. The male won't come to the nest until the female laid eggs, and stayed in the nest to brood. When the eggs were laid, the male would come to the nest to feed the female.
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| empty nest |
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| the female copper throated sunbird returned to the nest |
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| the female copper throated sunbird about to enter the nest |
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| the female copper throated sunbird stayed in the nest |
One time I was told the male copper throated sunbird was around up on branches of a big tree nearby. I did not see it. While waiting for the bird to come or to go, the younger of the two announced that he saw something beautiful, a green crested Lizard came to visit.
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| Green Crested Lizard |
After some time, I saw the bird's pattern: it would stay in the nest for about 5 minutes and then exited the nest, flying downward, and got away. when it returned, it would first perched on branches of bushes, checking the nest first before flying to the nest's opening and enter. But I missed the opportunities to take pictures of the bird fly-in or fly-out. It had been quite some time, I decided that I would move on once I took pictures of the bird fly-in or fly out. My patience finally paid off, I got the bird fly-in on burst shooting. By then I stayed there for about 50 minutes!
When I arrived at the bridge to the kingfisher pod, I saw a juvenile crocodile crawling/swiming in the tidal river. It was interesting to watch, it was very active, moved around, and seemingly biting something in the air! Three ladies came by, and looked into the river, they did not see anything, so one of them asked me what I was looking at, I told her that there was a juvenile down there. She finally saw it and told her friends excitedly about it.
When I was leaving, she thanked me profusely.
As I walked onto the viewing platform on Buloh Besar River, a guy with a binocular in his hand, told me that there was big crocodile on the river bank, under trees. It was a big one, with mouth wide open. I thanked him when I spotted it.
There was another crocodile swimming in the middle of the shallow river.
The interactions with other nature lovers made me not feel lonely on this solo outing.
Note -
Of course we interacted with nature lovers, bird watchers in particular, sharing information, and excitements happened many times before. It will be my next Blog - Sharing the Joy of bird watching
