The Singapore Botanic Garden after Rains

Walking in the garden, I saw evidence of last night's rains at the Botanic Garden: light fog hoovered over the pound and lingered in the forest, shimmering water droplets on leaves and flower petals, forming a mythical ambiance. The quietness was broken only when tiny birds popped out of their hiding places and chirped brightly in the trees.

A pair of Swans on the pond

Purple Simpoh

The budding Bamboo Orchid

Aquatic Ginger

Asian Brown Flycatcher

A scarlet backed flowerpecker

A juvenile male olive backed Sunbird 

As I was immersed in the serenity, light wind started to blow, drizzles started to fall, foreshadowing a coming downpour. I rushed home just before the heavy rain. However, the Sun was shining in the East, and a rainbow appeared over Western Sky ... a sight to enjoy from the comfort of my dining room.

A routine walk at the Garden turned into an amazing experience, Nature had offered a gentle reminder of its boundless wonders. All I need to do is pause, observe, and appreciate the remarkable moments that unfold before my eyes and engage my my senses.

Banana Does not Grow on a Tree

Do you know that Bananas do not grow on a tree? 

They grow on large treelike herbaceous flowering banana plants. 

Do you know that Banana's skin is not yellow when bananas are still on the plant?

Banana skin turns yellow* only when banana is ripe. 

And a banana is botanically a berry**! 

The first time I saw bananas on a banana plant was at the botanic garden, The teardrop-shaped blossom with layers of purplish outer leaves banana flower was at the end of a banana bunch. This banana flower is the male banana flower, which produces pollen to fertilize female banana flowers which become bananas when pollenated.

The banana flower is a sex organ - literally and figuratively.

Banana plant can bare fruit, i.e. bananas, only once in its life time!

That's not what I saw at Singapore Botanic Garden. I saw bananas growing on the same banana plant season after season. Checking online, the exact definition for banana plant bears banana only once in its life time is not what I thought. Here is the precise description

A banana plant's main stalk (pseudostem) only bears fruit once in its lifetime. After the fruit is harvested, that stalk dies and is cut down, but the plant continues to produce new fruit from "suckers" that grow from the base. This allows for a continuous cycle of fruit production from a single banana "plant" or stool, but it happens on different, younger stalks. 

Sometimes I see bananas only near the base of banana bunch; other times I see small bananas on the whole bunch stem. The difference is likely due to the specific variety of banana and the conditions under which it grew, not pollination, because modern bananas are seedless and do not require pollination.

The more I learn about bananas, the more I know what I did not know.

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Note

* Bananas can have other colors, such as red.

**Two Fruit classifications (from Google Search)

Classifications by development from the flower: 

1. Simple fruits: Develop from a single ovary of one flower. Examples: Peach, tomato, apple.
2. Aggregate fruits: Develop from multiple ovaries of a single flower. Examples: Raspberry, blackberry.
3. Multiple fruits: Develop from the fused ovaries of multiple flowers in a single inflorescence. Examples: Pineapple, fig, mulberry.
4. Accessory fruits: Incorporate other flower parts besides the ovary. Examples: Apple, strawberry. 

Classification by structure and texture: 

Fleshy fruits: Have a soft, fleshy pericarp (fruit wall) when ripe.

1. Berries: Entire pericarp is fleshy with multiple seeds (e.g., grapes, tomatoes).
2. Drupes: Have a single, hard, stony seed inside a fleshy fruit (e.g., peach, cherry).
3. Pomes: Fleshy part develops from a floral tube, with a cartilaginous core containing the seeds (e.g., apple, pear).

Dry fruits: The pericarp is dry when ripe.

1. Legumes: Dehisce (split open) along two seams (e.g., peas, beans).
2. Nuts: Have a hard shell and a single seed.
3. Capsules: Open at maturity to release multiple seeds (e.g., poppy)

 

Scarlet-Backed Flowerpeckers

The scarlet-backed flowerpecker is a species of passerine bird in the flowerpecker family Dicaeidae. Sexually dimorphic, the male has navy blue upperparts with a bright red streak down its back from its crown to its tail coverts, while the female and juvenile are predominantly olive green. It is found in subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and occasionally gardens in a number of countries throughout South and East Asia.

The first time I saw this bird was when we visited the Hive, the famed building at Nanyang Technology University.  At top floor of the Hive, I heard incessant bird chirpings, and spotted this tiny bird with red head, yellow throat, grey belly and dark feathers.

We encountered this tiny bird again when we visited the Woodland Botanic Garden in July. 

We heard the bird chirping first and then spotted in a flowering  tree.  A male scarlet-backed flowerpecker was pecking flowers, flapping its wings like a humming bird. 

I suspect that we saw the female scarlet-backed flowerpecker as well but might miss-identify it as Olive-backed sunbird.

female scarlet-backed flowerpecker - from Wikipedia

Bird Couples

Many birds are rarely seen paired outside of mating seasons. 

Pacific swallows are such birds. They fly up and down solo tirelessly, and when they rest, they typically perch somewhere solo as well.

So it was my first time to see a pair of pacific swallows rest on a pole at Colugo deck, Riffle Range Nature reserve. They flew away in their separate way, and came back to the pole, perching apart on the small tip of the pole, or side by side, looking around. One time it seemed they were quarrelling !

Pacific Swallows

Yellow vented bulbuls are another solitude birds. I saw a pair of yellow vented bulbuls resting together two times before. It was so cute to see them "talking" or just perched there looking around.

a pair of yellow vented bulbuls

another pair of yellow vented bulbul

Herons are solitude water birds. I saw first time a pair of great billed herons flying and resting together during our kayaking to Sungei Khatib Bongsu.

a pair of great billed herons

I also see paired hornbills, but more frequently family of hornbills.

male hornbill (left) has black patch under its eyes, female (right) has brownish patch

It is hard to tell the sex of stork-billed kingfishers. The male and female have little difference, except that the female's beak is "heavier". This can be compared only when they perch side by side or near each other  - which is rare.

I spotted paired fantails a couple times. Once the couple were feeding their chicks, and another times it was during courtship.

The only time I saw male and female olive backed sunbird together, the female seemed to be scared of the male. When the male approached a flower that female was at, the female hided from the male.

the female olive back sunbird hided under the flow petal

the female olive backed sunbird was in high alter when a male approached

White Bellied Sea Eagles typically forage solo, but live at a nest as a family. 

Not sure if these were an eagle couple, or two juvenile eagles playing 

My most common sightings of bird couples are Swans, Black Swans - elegant, graceful. They are love birds, stay together all the time.