Bird Watching at Hampstead Wetlands

Hampstead wetland park is a tiny park near lower Seletar reservoir, with a small pond; there are many species of birds there. One can walk around the park in 10 minutes. Some people call it the "hidden gem" of Singapore because not many people know about the neat park.

I first visited this park in January 2022, and loved it right away. 

The snag trees in the pond, plants, dense wood around it, made it a paradise for birds. Many beautiful  birds were flying around or rest on tree branches: collared kingfishers, red breasted parakeets, banded woodpeckers, and blue tailed bee eaters among others. 

A grand egret flew over without stopping at the pond. In fact I never see an egret or heron standing at the water's edge of the pond at Hampstead wetland. It could be that there were monitor lizards in the pond.

Hampstead wetlands 

The blue tailed bee eaters were most colorful of them all, and they flew around regularly. However the banded woodpecker stole the show that day in 2022. When I was busy taking pictures of birds around the pond, a banded woodpecker flew in, and started to peck a hole on the snag tree in the pond. After taking a few pictures of the woodpecker, I recorded a few seconds of it pecking at the hole.

It was really cute to see the woodpecker pecking diligently - peck, pause like it was thinking and peck again ...

A blue tailed bee eater flew into the view and perched on a lower branch of the snag tree.

There were also birds on land - a pair of Asian glossy starlings resting on top of a tree across the pond, a female olive backed sunbird building a nest on a tree on the side I stood. There were also black napped oriole, yellow vented bulbuls.

With so many birds around, there was a sizable crowd of photographers there.

Asian Glossy Staring

an olive backed Sunbirds building a nest on a tree on land

a black napped oriole

yellow vented bulbul

photographers at Hampstead woodlands 

Since then I visited the park a few more times.

The second time was about two years later (December 2023). Similar types of birds, but this time I had a powerful tele lens with me for taking more close up photos. Also there were many more blue tailed bee eaters there. I took some very good burst shoots of blue tailed bee eaters taking off or landing on their perches. 

Blue tailed bee eaters eat bees, and other insects, such as moths

One particular perch was popular, two bee eaters were resting on it: in one instance a bee eater flew to the perch and landed on it when another one was on it already. In another instance, one bee eater had prey in its beak, another seemed to beg for it! Sometime, 3 or 4 bee eaters perched on the same branch. That day there was a blue tailed bee eater crowd! I also captured the rare footage of blue tailed bee eater preening.

hot real estate !

Lucky for us that day, there were two owls on a big tree by the pond. This was the first time  we saw owls outside Sugei Bluoh in person.

Later (Oct 2024) we planed to visit Hampstead again. Somehow I decided to check Hampstead wetlands' status on Google map. To my surprise, there was a review which described the dire situation at the wetlands - " dried water body, disappearance of lily leaves and almost a couple snag trees have fallen. No birds in sight and no fishes ether". We did not visit the park that day. But I thought I need to do something. I wrote to National Park Service about the situation with screen captures of the review, and asked if they could do anything to save the wetlands. To my pleasant surprise, the park service wrote back a week later - they sent inspectors over to check the park, and explained that the dried up pond was due to natural process, and so was the fallen snag trees. They told me that the park was almost back to normal, and encouraged me to visit there again.

The third time I visited there was 3 weeks ago, the wetland was almost back to normal , the fallen snag tree was in the pond - true to the practice of letting nature takes its course, Lily flowers were blooming, birds were chirping, and a monitor lizard was swimming, turtles rested lazily on rocks, and best of all I took a perfect photo of a blue tailed bee eater.

Note -
there is a good French restaurant, 5 by Sans-Façon, nearby, where we had lunch after our first visit to Hampstead Wetlands

Around the World in Eighty Days

 I am listening to the book "Around the World in Eighty Day" by Jules Verne, published 153 years ago, in 1872 !

I was made aware of the book many years ago from posters for the titled movie. I got the impression that the adventurers travelled around the world in a giant balloon. Earlier this year in a lazy night, we got nothing planed, and stumbled on to the 2004 version movie, and watched the adventure comedy. I was surprised to see that the trip was not fully on balloon. Two parallel storylines evolved in this movie. The first was that there was a robbery at Bank of England, a jade Buddha was stolen, the other storyline was Phileas Fogg, the adventurer, who placed wager against Lord Kelvin, 20,000 pound, that he would make a trip around the world in 80 days. Fogg had a valet or servant Passepartout who travelled with him. Later on the two added another companion Monique. While the trio were trying catching trains, steamboats to complete their trip around the world in 80 days, a group of militia was chasing them to comprehend Passepartout, which was the robber at the bank of England. Many twists and suspense along the way, some totally unreasonable, they returned to London in 80 days, travelled around the world in 80 days, and Fogg won the wager. 

The 2004 "around the world in 80 days" is a lousy movie. However it made me interested in finding out what the story was in the famous book. I did a little bit research on the book, and its movie adaptions.

1956 movie poster

2004 movie

There are 5 movie adaptions of the book from 1919 to 2021 by German, American(2), Australian and French movie makers. The best of the 5 was the 1956 version, which won 5 academy awards including best pictures.

• 1919: A German silent adventure comedy film
• 1956: An adaptation starring David Niven
• 1988: An Australian animated adaptation
• 2004: An adaptation starring Jackie Chan and Steve Coogan
• 2021: A French animated adaptation

After watching the 2004 version movie, I found an audio version of the original book, my first impression was that the writing was dry, plain, and kind of boring. Getting deeper into the story line, the style of writing actually fit the main character Phileas Fogg, an eccentric, emotionless, solitary English gentleman. The story in the book was quite different from the 2004 movie: the book did have the two parallel storylines - robber and chasing the robber,  and travel around the world in 80 days. Each story line was very different from the movie. On the robber side - the servant was an honest and earnest Frenchman, Fogg was the suspect. There was no Chinese militia, and no travel into China, but Hongkong, which was British colony at the time. But there was a detective trying to comprehend Fogg. On the adventure side, there was no balloon involved at all, the woman on the journey was a Indian women Aouda that Fogg and his servant rescued from a religious sacrifice  ceremony. 

In a way it is interesting to read/listen to a 150 year old book, it allowed me to look into the world 150 years ago: there have been a lot changes from then to now, for example we can travel around the world in two days by commercial airplane instead of 80 days; but we won't see herds of Bisons* which took 3 hours to cross a railroad and blocked the train that carried Fogg and group. But there are a lot in life that have not changed: as human being our morale changed little  - empathy is appreciated, loyalty is cherished, and love is universal**. I don't feel the people and life described in the book any different from people nowadays. 

 Notes

*The railroad in the book in continental US might be fictious but the fact that there were millions of Bisons during 1870s is true.

** Aouda, the Indian women, fell in love with Fogg for his earnest caring, quiet demeanor, and generosity. Fogg fell in love as well, for her beauty, tenderness, and care. They got married at the end of the adventure. 

*** travelling around the world without enjoying the trip, see sceneries, visit cities, ...travel for the sake of travelling is nuts! that's actually what the servant said to Fogg the adventurer. 

Capture A Perfect Photo of a Blue Tailed Bee Eater

Blue tailed bee eaters, like other bee-eaters, is a colorful, slender bird. It is predominantly green; its face has a narrow blue patch with a black eye stripe, and a yellow and brown throat; the tail is blue and the beak is black. It is widely distributed across South and Southeast Asia. 

I took some good bee eater photos, especially blue tailed bee eaters. But almost all of the photos were stationary, a bee eater perched on a bare branch. 

A perfect bee eater photo would be the bird has a bee or other insect in its beak with wings expanded. 

Two weeks ago I went to Hampstead wetland park for the sole purpose of bird watching.

A blue tailed bee eater

Hampstead wetland

There were quite a few birds there, blue tailed bee eaters come and go - resting on the snag tree in the middle of the pond. Great for taking bird pictures.

A bee easter or two would rest on the snag tree, and take off to catch bugs. I took a few good stationary pictures. Then I decided to try to take a prefect photo of the blue tailed bee eaters. 

the blue tail

red-brownish throat

Initially I tried to take a picture of the bird taking off with wings expanded. It is extremely hard to take such photo on a single shoot. I changed the exposure setting to continuous shooting. But my timing of its take off was not good enough.

I then changed to try to capture a bee eater's return to the snag tree, aiming my lens at its favorite perch. I got some good shoots, but not good enough.

After a couple more tries without success, I stopped taking pictures and analyzed the situation. I concluded that it was too late to push the shutter button when the bird appeared in the viewfinder.  So I decided to push the shutter button before the bird reached its perch,  a few yards away from its perch, outside of my camera's view. 

In so doing, I found out that the bird fly to its perch from below, land on the perch, balance itself upon landing by flapping its wings, before getting the hold of the perch

I finally got the perfect picture the blue tailed bee eater: a bee in its beak with wings expanded. 

my perfect photo of a blue tailed bee eater

a bee in its beak

 

The Heaven for Sunbirds

It was sunny, breezy, and cool last Sunday morning at Symphony lake. The parakeet flowers were blooming, so were banana flowers.

parakeet flowers 

A sweet smooth bird call reached my ears, I looked around, a magpie robin was singing on top of a small light post. Just then another magpie robin flew in to land on the post. The singing bird tried to deter the incoming bird by running toward the newcomer, and then back to its old spot keep making calls!

Just then an olive backed sunbird landed on the flower right in front me started drinking nectar from it. This is a regular scene for us, nothing special, we kept walking. 

A red bird came into view - a crimson sunbird landed on another flower plant. It circled around the stem, and moved up and down drinking the nectar as well. It did not fly away when we got closer, but kind of posed for us to take pictures! This time I noticed the thin double black strips on its bright red throat for the first time. That's something new.

olive back sunbird

crimson sunbird

Away from the flowers, one olive backed sunbird landed on a big leaf full of morning dews, started to roll in it, rubbing itself against the dews on leaf. Nearby a female olive backed sunbird flew to a flower petal from below, seemed to drinking the dews on the leaf, not the nectar.

A juvenile olive backed sunbird (per coloration on its neck) was resting on big flower petal, looking around.  

flying to the petal from below, drinking water?

this olive backed sunbird might be a juvenile based on the coloration at throat 

As these were not amazing enough, a female olive backed sunbird landed on a pink banana flower, started to drink nectar. Shortly later, a male olive backed sunbird landed on the same flower. The female quickly scuttled to hide under one petal! After a while, it flew away!

Another pair of sunbirds appeared in the view, might be the same pair as those on the banana flower?

It is mating season. I saw a sunbird building a nest nearby a couple days ago. There must be several bird nests around there. 

In all that time, the sunbirds kept foraging,  kept making calls, the chorus of bird songs kept going.

The flower field is a heaven for the sunbirds!