Wildlife at Jurong Lake Gardens

Jurong Lake Gardens is one park at Singapore I see wildlife consistently, birds and otters in particular.

It did not disappoint the last time we visited the Gardens a few weeks ago.

Right out of north exit of the North carpark, we spotted a group of otters roaming near lake shore. Shortly a large otter caught a fish, and got onto a boat cushion, with a juvenile otter closely followed behind. The large otter, supposedly a parent, gave away the fish to the small one. The juvenile otter, with fish in its mouth, running around to evade other otters. Quite a show! We lingered for a while to enjoy the show. 

Later we saw another otter having a fish by itself. After it finished the fish, it made calls and some otter pubs coming out bushes to follow the otter. So it was a mom otter hiding from its pups to enjoy the fish and had some alone time :)!

This is  the second time we see otter eating live fish at Jurong Lake Garden. The last time the show was in the lake.  It is interesting to note that Singapore is home to two species of otters – the Smooth-coated Otter and the Asian Small-Clawed Otter.  The former is named for its velvety smooth coat, is the largest otter species in Southeast Asia. The latter is the smallest otter species in the world. What we saw both time was the smooth coated otter.

After the otter shows, we saw a Asian Openbill Stork, and then a pair of the storks on the fence of a viewing platform, while taking pictures, a few more came to join them. While continuing toward the south side of the park, we saw a few more storks on top of some flowering trees. We did not see storks before at the Gardens. According to Google search results, this influx of the Storks is due to natural bird migration, not artificial introduction.

Asian Openbill Storks at Jurong Lake Gardens

A stork rest on top of a tree

Walking south, we chose to walk on a less travelled trail by the lake, we spotted a yellow vented bulbul resting on the ground, partially exposing its yellow vent. We saw a group of photographers aiming their big lens at a pile of withered fallen leaves, on a trail 100ft away. I instantly knew that they were taking pictures of night jars hatching on the ground. We saw this about a year ago at Botanic Garden. We walked over in a hurry anyway, and sank our shoes into "swamp" like area (due to heavy rains a couple days before) between the two trails. Indeed it was a nightjar, and additionally two chicks. They camouflaged so well in the withered fallen leaves, I did not see them at first glances.  

the mom nightjar with two chicks

can you see the 3 birds? double click on the photo to enlarge it for better view

To avoid disturbing the nightjars and the photographers, we walked on the trail in reverse direction to take a detour. Lucky we were, there were 3 photographers aiming into a few tall trees. One photographer told me he was taking photos of a Robin feeding a chick. The parents left to fetch bugs. It was Magpie Robins. We waited for a few minutes, finally the parent birds came back:

One flew into trees, making calls, the other landed on a concrete, with a bug in its beak. It struck the bug against the ground repeatedly before carrying it to the cavity on a tree, where the chick was, fed the baby, looked around, and looked into the cavity(hole), before taking off.

This was the first time we saw Magpie Robin feeding baby bird. 

caught an insect

struck the bug against the ground

checking on the chick

dove in to feed the baby

check again

flying away

Walking into the Grassland at the Garden, I spotted a lizard running across the trail in front of us, and snapped of photo of it. After the Grassland, it was almost 1pm, we turned around, had a late lunch at Fusion Spoon, went home.

During the nearly 5 hour time at the Gardens, we also saw Collared Kingfishers, Sunbirds, Waterhens ...

It was a beautiful day, we had great time there

edge of the grassland

the Lone tree - a sculpture

A lizard ran into shade from the Grassland

Notes

We went to the Jurong Lake Gardens many times. I wrote two blogs about the visits before - 1) Flora and Fauna at Jurong Lake Gardens in 2021, and 2) Singing in the rain in 2024, we saw many birds we did not this time -

Brown throated sunbird

Lineated Barbet

Blue throated bee eater

Black napped oriole 

White Bellied Fish Eagle (overhead in the Sky)

Red-wattled lapwing

Herons

Egrets