Kingfishers are a family of small to medium-sized, brightly colored birds with most species found in the tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Oceania. The family contains 114 species. All kingfishers have large heads, long, sharp, pointed bills, short legs, and stubby tails. They consume a wide range of prey usually caught by swooping down from a perch, noted for their spectacular dives into water. While kingfishers are usually thought to live near rivers and eat fish, many species live away from water and eat small invertebrates.
We had seen kingfishers quite a few times before, like
collared kingfisher at Fort Canning,
Belted kingfisher at Lake Murray,
white throated kingfisher at lower Pierce trail. But we had not seen them diving into water.
This wetland is the place at the garden that is closest to wilderness, surrounded by dense trees and bushes, with large shallow pond (i.e. wetland). There is a boardwalk on it to the south part of it, and a high pedestrian bridge over it to norther part of it.
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| Keppel Wetlands at Singapore Botanic Gard |
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| Keppel Wetlands at Sunset |
There are
many fauna here, such as fishes, frogs, butterflies, dragon flies, insects, occasionally monitor lizards, monkeys and many birds. The Keppel wetland at Singapore Botanic Gardens, is a place favored by some kingfishers, including common kingfisher, collared kingfisher, white throated kingfisher and stork billed kingfisher. We went to the place frequently and got glimpses of kingfishers in the fly a couple times but did not see them clearly.
A few times I noticed photographers congregated on the boardwalk in late afternoon, around 6pm, … aimed their big lens cameras at certain direction... a quick glance in the direction we didn't see anything and moved on. One time I struck a conversation with a photographer about what he was trying to photograph … he showed me a photo of a stork billed kingfisher in the fly...beautiful, but I did not see it with my eyes.
On November 29th, we arrived at the wetland around 6pm. There was a crowd there! This time I saw this beautiful stork billed kingfisher perched on a tree branch by the water, can you see it from the following photo? It was on a side branch of the right main branch, the blue/brown/red spot in the otherwise green and grey colors was the bird. I could see it clearly by zoom in using the lens on my camera - red beak, red claws, blue feathers, and brownish breast.
We waited for 5+ minutes there, hopping to see it flying or diving. None happened, and we started to get mosquito/bug bites, and decided to go to the pedestrian bridge. When we came back, the crowd was gone, apparently the kingfisher show was over :(.
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| Stork Billed Kingfisher at Keppel Wetland |
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| stork-billed kingfisher 1 |
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| stork billed kingfisher 2 |
Last Sunday, December 5th afternoon, we arrived at the boardwalk around 6:30pm. There was a crowd there again, we quickly spotted a tiny colorful small bird, common kingfisher, perched on the tip of a mangrove branch, looking around. This time, we decided to wait to see what the kingfisher would do, and for about 30 minutes it did not do anything except changing its posture, looking around. When we started walking away, the tiny bird started flying off its perch for short distance and back onto a different branch. It started diving after two such flights, I saw it with tiny fish in its beak one time.
During its quick actions, I just snapped away and luckily I got one good picture of the stork billed kingfisher flying out of water after a dive!!
Wow !! It was thrilling, exciting and tremendously satisfying to watch the stork billed kingfisher in action with my own eyes.
Notes:
1. In Britain, the word "kingfisher" normally refers to the common kingfisher.
2. The golden rules of bird watching really work - follow the crowd and be patient.
3. Even there are much better views of the birds in published photos, high quality videos of them in action, it is different to spot it on your own, and see it in your own eyes.
4. Discover and see elusive beautiful birds in your own eyes and enjoy the sights - that's essence of bird watching.
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| A common kingfisher |
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| a common kingfisher - zoomed in |
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| another pose |
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| full view |
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| rest on a different branch after a flight |
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| after another flight |
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| after having its first meal of the evening |
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| emerging out of water after a dive |
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| flying out of water after a dive - zoom in |
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