Birds of Singapore
by the Bird Society of Singapore
The Bird Society of Singapore announces its new council leadership for 2025, with Movin Nyanasengeran taking over as President. The outgoing Founding President, Keita Sin, reflects on the society's origins and shares a personal story about a childhood playground that shaped his connection to the natural world.
Earlier this year, the Bird Society of Singapore held its Annual General Meeting. Two new members joined the Executive Committee, and another joined the Council. The new Council composition is now live on our About Us page, with the following new appointments: Movin Nyanasengeran as President Raghav Narayanswamy as Vice-President Collin Chua as ExCo Member Sng Chen Xi as Social Media Chair Sandra Chia as Welfare Chair Keita Sin is stepping down after two years as BirdSoc SG’s Founding President. He had the following words to share as he passes the role to Movin. Back in 2021, some of our founding members wrote personal bios to accompany the announcement of our Society’s launch. Movin wrote about an adventure to Taman Negara that the two of us did together in 2017 – a crazy trip I will never ever forget (we dipped SO MANY birds) – and Raghav fondly recounted his story as a young birdwatcher. Meanwhile, I wrote a dry, politically correct paragraph that read like a “Typical Presidential Announcement”. You know, the sort of boring sentences that will be in one of those beautifully decorated emails which you delete without ever reading. Truth be told, the initial draft that I wrote for my bio two years ago actually looked like this: There used to be a playground in front of my grandparents’ house. Nothing grand. A 44m x 11m sand pit with two horizontal bars and one slide. It was named “Acorn Square” though there never was any. I liked that place. There were stray cats. There were pebbles of different shapes and sizes. There were roly-polies that I could annoy. I have fond memories of playing catch with my grandfather and running up the tiny slide like a king, but the playground disappeared 13 years ago when it was converted into a housing unit. I’ve since been to all other playgrounds in the neighbourhood and there are still others in the district which I hope to visit one day, but I know there are many that I will never get a chance to. They’ll be gone before I’ll ever get to visit, I’m sure, and I’m also no longer at an age where I can monkey around at playgrounds in broad daylight without getting side-eyed. I picked up birdwatching 9 years ago. This hobby has brought me joy, satisfaction, and countless experiences that I would otherwise never have had. Simultaneously, this obsession, now both my paid and unpaid responsibility, has brought me great pain. I read of birds vanishing from places I’ve never even heard of before. I’ve literally watched a primary rainforest getting chopped down right before my eyes. I’ve witnessed poaching and there was nothing I could do. What’s worse, my story is not unique; these are tales that many naturalists around the world can share and empathise with. I cannot help but feel like a powerless child watching his favourite playgrounds evaporate one by one, and sometimes wonder if I would have been happier had I never been mystified by the wonders of nature. Despite these thoughts, I know I can be optimistic about the programs that the Bird Society of Singapore will lead. Our resources have made tremendous improvements to the local birdwatching community. Our works have propelled science. Our efforts contribute to conservation. The effects of our works will reach far into the future, and though our Society’s mission might be centralised in Singapore, I know that our impacts will extend far beyond. Our committed team in the Bird Society of Singapore will continue expanding upon the work we’ve done so far, and at the same time inspire future generations of scientists, conservationists, and community leaders. I know I’m not alone in this mission to protect the playgrounds that I treasure. We can make a difference as a Society. I deleted the draft and decided to take what I felt was the “professional” way forward. I’ve never felt comfortable sharing my personal experiences online, even though these stories likely have no importance to readers. I was worried that we were going to be seen as just some group that was formed to rival another in the nation because of workplace bullying that some of us experienced, even though that was not our intention at all. And most importantly, I was uncertain whether I could properly execute the leadership responsibilities in a brand-new Society to deliver the ideas that we were selling. I preferred presenting a cleanly crafted bio. Things are slightly different today. I still continue to feel uneasy talking about myself publicly – this will probably be the first and last time I am doing so in my Society capacity – but I feel less worried about being judged because I know that there are many people around who truly have faith in our expertise. The support that I’ve received both from members and non-members alike over the past two years has been tremendous, evident from the attendance at our events and our Database submissions among other markers. For this, I am deeply thankful, and continue to look forward to the Society’s future work as well as...