Soaring all over Singapore: Himalayan Vultures in the 2021/2022 season

During the 2021/2022 winter season, Singapore experienced a record breaking number of Himalayan Vulture sightings. Could they actually all have been the same few birds just flying around the area? Read on to find out!

In the winter migration season of 2021/22, our community was graced by five appearances of Himalayan Vultures Gyps himalayensis. These massive birds are rare but increasingly annual migrants to Singapore and never fail to spark huge hunts for a chance to see them perched or to witness their incredible wingspan in flight. No other species seems to unite the entire community in a truly islandwide effort as much as a flock of Himalayan Vultures slowly soaring across the island. Their size and slow flight means that regardless of where you are at the time of sighting, if they pass by your general vicinity, there is a chance you will get to see them. Here are the accepted records of Himalayan Griffons the 2021/2022 season, as per the Singapore Birds Database:Sighting 1: 8 Dec 2021Flyby of a single bird over Dairy Farm Nature Park, by Feroz and KW Seah.Most likely the same bird seen flying by over Singapore Botanic Gardens that evening, by Marcel Finlay.Sighting 2: 27 and 28 Dec 2021 (Novena flock)Five birds soaring over Novena in the evening, by Wong Weng Fai.Almost certainly the same five birds seen again the next morning at the same site and across Singapore.Sighting 3: 29 and 30 Dec 2021 (SBG flock)Five birds at Singapore Botanic Gardens (possibly the same five?), along with Singapore’s first Cinereous Vulture Aegypius monachus seen by perhaps over 300 birdwatchers across two days before taking off on the morning of the 30th.Sighting 4: 12 and 13 Jan 2022 (Punggol pair)Two birds seen soaring over Punggol by Daryl Tan, with one bird later observed being mobbed by crows at Pasir Ris by Emily Koh.The next day, one bird – likely one of the two seen the previous day – at Pasir Ris Park by multiple observers.Sighting 5: 18 to 19 Jan 2022 (Bukit Batok flock)Seven birds seen over East Coast Park by Rachit in the afternoon, last seen roosting at Bukit Batok Nature Park by Francis Yap and JJ Brinkman. All 7 birds were seen flying off the next day.A marvellous comparison of Singapore's first Cinereous Vulture Aegypius monachus (left) and a Himalayan Vulture Gyps himalayensis , 30 Dec 2021, Singapore Botanic GardensThe very unique result of all the excitement surrounding Himalayan Vulture sightings is that every aspect of their presence—how many of them, their behaviour, their flight path—is quite well tracked. Combine that with Singapore’s tiny country size and the recent massive increase in community size, we have an extremely high observer density: the movement of the birds across the island were particularly well-documented on 28th Dec 2021 (Novena flock) and 18 Dec 2022 (Bukit Batok flock). The Bukit Batok flock also allowed many who could not pop their heads out of the window during work to look for them later that evening and the next morning.Annotated flight paths of sightings 2 and 5 starting from Novena and Bukit Batok respectively, recreated based on the collective information shared by birders of Singapore through various social media groups.All sightings from this season were of immature birds, as are most records from the region. Young birds are typically known to wander around more so than adults, and in the cases for the birds that end up in Singapore, quite far off course from where they would usually be. Records show that there’s an increasing trend in their numbers arriving over the years too. Of course, we have to be careful about extrapolating too many conclusions from this: as the number of birdwatchers go up, so do the number of rare sightings, but could other factors have contributed to their increased sightings in Singapore? Climate and land use change are speculated to have increased their occurrence in the region over the past few decades. Additionally, a vulture restaurant has been set up in Phuket since 2019. Could this have allowed some birds to accumulate enough energy to make it further south than previously possible? There have been talks on introducing such a system in Singapore too—how could this potentially help or affect the birds? There are many more questions than answers for now, much of it requiring research and discussions beyond the scope of this article.Another slightly easier question that comes to mind is: were this season’s sightings of the same flock flying around, or new birds arriving each time? Those birds that were seen on two consecutive days at sites they were known to roost are quite surely the same individuals, but what can we make of the separate sightings? We could attempt to answer this question by examining some photographs taken across the sightings.Left: Himalayan Vulture over Dairy Farm Nature Park on 8 Dec 2021 at 1506h. Right: Himalayan Vulture over Singapore Botanic Gardens on 8 Dec 2021 at 1713hAll five Himalayan Vultures over Novena on 27 Dec 2021All five Himalayan Vultures together with the single Cinereous Vulture at Singapore Botanic Gardens on 29 Dec 2021Three of the five Himalayan Vultures at Singapore Botanic Gardens on 30 Dec 2021. Note the one...