Friday, June 30, 2006

More singapore stuff

Long tailed macaque

i'm being realy thick and cant find this in the book, was really quite common, a babbler sp of some sort?


Orange bellied flowerpecker

quite a different days birding today, took it very slow around singapore country club and lower pierce reservoir, then on to sungei buloh again.
didnt see many new species but i was more than hapy with grey headed fish eagle, smyrna kingfisher, oriental magpie robin and crimson sunbird along with a few other less exciting things. Also had brilliant views of dollarbird, emerald dove and collared kingfisher.
Had a rather strange encounter witha monkey today, i walked close past one that was picking its nose so i laughed out loud, the thing that gave me a 'what the hell are you looking at' look, so i laughed again, this time the monkey stood up and gave what can only be described as a 'come on then you cheeky bastard' look, so i scowled at it and it ran away.
Monitor lizards have been interesting too, most have ben only about 1metre long, but as i walking aorund sungei buloh, a monstorus individual that must have been over 2metre long charged across the track just in front of me, ialmost shat myself, anyway, all good practice for the crocs in oz, much bigger and much more likely to attack, bring it on!

have taken plenty of photos ,some of whic hwill hopefully turn out quite good, the computers in the hostel dont have an any image editing software so i cant downsize the files enough for web use, hopefully i'll get them online once i'm in oz.

Anyway, i'm absolutely sytarving so i got to go off and geyt something for mthe street stalls, very tasty food and cheap too.

ta ta for now

joe

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Singapore

Well, i've just finished a day exploring singapore properly, hot yet again, 33 degrees apparently. started off by going to Bukit Timah, the highest point in singapore and a jungle too, slap bang in the centre of the city. In world terms (or even south east asian terms) it is pretty poor in size and biodiverstiy. However it was a good introduction to asian wildlife. The most obvious were the monkeys everywhere around the visitor centre. I think i read once that they are (long tailed)? macaques. On entering the jungle, the noise from insects was almost deafening, especially from the cicadas. i was quite surprised to see the place swarming with locasl doing the ir morning exercise, marching up to the top of the hill and back down again. Some of them were eve ncarrying weights, i did ask a couple if they wanted to swap their weights for my camera and tripod but they all said no and looked at me like i was some kind of nutter, cant thin kwhy.
Birds seen within 100m of the visitor centre included Greater Racket tailed drongos, common flameback and chestnut bellied malkoha. Goodies see nnear the summit were a confiding family of orange bellied flowerpeckers, grey rumped treeswift and a flyover White bellied Sea eagle. Back down by the visitor centre, banded woodpecker and black naped orioles showed well. Despite being a small site and right in the middle of the city, the whole 'jungle experience' was pretty awesome. The humidoit ywas pretty bad, but there was a slightly cooling breeze at the summit. Insects were everywhere, with ,some pretty impressive butterlies, like the ones you see in places like the eden project, there were some massive trees as well, with butress roots bigger than me. One of the highlights was a huge monitor lizard down by the visitor centre feeding within metres of me and the macaques.
Aftre leaving Bukit Timah, i headed onto Sungei Buloh nature reserve, a wetland site on the straits of Johor. This was fairly dissapointing, mainly because i was there i nthe afternoon, there were several schhol groups creating merry hell, and reserve staff were planting black mangrove in many areas. The tide was hifgh too so there were no waders about. The most interesting birds were copper throated sunbird, pink necked green pigeon, emerald dove, little green pigeon, Dollarbird, Striated Heron, and collared kingfisher.
Tommorow i will try Sungei Buloh in the morning, when it is at its best according to the reserve staff, then in the afternoon i will either return to Bukit Timah or take the ferry over to Palau Ubin island, which is supposed to be a reflection of 'the old' singapore, and is mainly a prawn fishing area.

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Hot n' Humid

Just arrived in Singapore, first impressions are that its bloody hot, not much else t osay about it at the moment cos it was dark by the time i got out the airport so havnt been able to see much and i'm too knackered to do much looking around. Cant wait til tommorrow tho so i ca nget out and do some birding. Am hoping to visit Bukit Timah, a Rainforest Reserve right in the middle of the city.

joe

Monday, June 26, 2006

Photographing dross and fishing in Sussex

This is the first post just so i can work out how to use it before i go off on holiday.
Heres a few random photos from a week ago fishing with a mate down in Sussex.
Of course, i even managed to squeeze a bit of birding in as well. The med gull has a green colour ring 3KKO.

















Me with a not very impressive sized Sea Bass


















Mediterranean Gull














Sandwich Tern