ID Articles Science
July 29, 2023 / July 29, 2023 by raghavnarayanswamy | 1 Comment on Sand plovers in Singapore: two species or three?
Might Singapore have three species of sand plover? It might seem an odd question – we usually only mention the Lesser Sand Plovers, which are pretty common, with the rare Greater sometimes turning up. What’s the third one then?
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July 4, 2023 / August 9, 2023 by OkamotoKeitaSin | 2 Comments on Broadbills in Singapore
How many broadbills are there in Singapore? There are two ways to answer the question: there are multiple Black-and-red Broadbill individuals flying around, and there are two species currently on the Singapore Bird Checklist - Black-and-red and Green Broadbill. There actually also used to be three other species of Broadbills in Singapore historically.
May 26, 2023 / May 26, 2023 by raghavnarayanswamy | 1 Comment on Status of the Stripe-throated Bulbul in Singapore
Singapore has seen two Stripe-throated Bulbuls over the last one year or so. Here's what the Singapore Bird Records Committee had to say about their possible status in the country.
May 9, 2023 / July 29, 2023 by raghavnarayanswamy | 3 Comments on Singapore’s first wild White-crowned Hornbill
The Singapore Bird Checklist just got its 429th species! This article explores how the Records Committee's discussions led us to the conclusion the White-crowned Hornbill was likely a wild bird.
April 27, 2023 / August 2, 2023 by OkamotoKeitaSin | 1 Comment on Lesser Adjutants apparently nest building at Sungei Buloh
A recent visit to Sungei Buloh by Richard White & Goh Yew Lin yielded an interesting observation: the Lesser Adjutants were seen carrying sticks around - a behaviour typically associated with breeding. They were locally extirpated about 80 years ago, could they be making a come back?
December 10, 2022 / December 10, 2022 by OkamotoKeitaSin | 3 Comments on Singapore’s first wild Black-headed Ibis
A Black-headed Ibis was found at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve on 1 November 2022 by Art Toh. How was the bird identified? Was it wild or an escapee? In this article we share why the Singapore Bird Records Committee thinks that this is the first national record of a wild Black-headed Ibis.
November 25, 2022 by OkamotoKeitaSin | Leave a Comment
Different bird in Singapore nest at different times of the year, but did you know that their nesting seasons actually differ according to sunshine hours and feeding guild? Laura from the NUS Avian Evolution Lab shares with us her findings based on a thorough analysis of a large dataset.
November 11, 2022 / November 11, 2022 by OkamotoKeitaSin | Leave a Comment
The Singapore Bird Database was launched on 11 November 2021. Here's a review of the work that we've carried out over the past year, as well as other improvements made to the database since then!
October 21, 2022 / October 21, 2022 by raghavnarayanswamy | 1 Comment on How our migrant bar charts work
In a recent post, we covered the 'why' of our migrant bar charts – what motivated us to design a new way to present migration data? In this post, we will try to explain how our methodology works, and look at some examples of the algorithm in action.
October 16, 2022 / August 25, 2023 by raghavnarayanswamy | 1 Comment on Why we designed our migrant bar charts
I’m sure many of us have used eBird bar charts in the past, and they’ve certainly helped me in deciding where to go birding or what to look for. So why did we make our own migrant bar charts here at SBP?
October 6, 2022 / October 6, 2022 by OkamotoKeitaSin | Leave a Comment
Regardless of where you come from, you're missing out on the Singaporean experience if have you never "queued long long" for food before. And it seems that our locally found parrots know that too! Here are some intriguing observations on the feeding behaviour of three parrot species - Tanimbar Corella, Coconut Lorikeet and Blue-crowned Hanging Parrot. Article contributed by Muhammad Nasry.
August 9, 2022 / August 15, 2022 by OkamotoKeitaSin | 1 Comment on Messages from the Cinereous and Streaked Bulbuls
The Cinereous Bulbul Hemixos cinereus and Streaked Bulbul Ixos malaccensis are both uncommon to rare species in Singapore. However, once in a while, they appear in numbers all across Singapore. What can we infer from these sightings?
May 17, 2022 / May 20, 2022 by OkamotoKeitaSin | 2 Comments on 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!
December 25, 2021 / August 19, 2023 by yipjenwei | 2 Comments on First occurrence of an Ashy-headed Green Pigeon in Singapore
Written by Yip Jen Wei with input from the Singapore Birds Records Committee Editing by Keita Sin, Dillen Ng, Raghav Narayanswamy, Sandra Chia, & Geraldine Lee In October 2021 a series of national firsts made landfall in Singapore in quick succession, the first of which was a male Ashy-headed Green Pigeon Treron phayrei. But unlike […]
November 11, 2021 / August 31, 2022 by OkamotoKeitaSin | 3 Comments on Singapore Birds Database: A Digital Museum of Local Bird Information
~Record keeping with the future in mind~ By Sin Yong Chee Keita & Dillen Ng Summary The Singapore Birds Database contains an easy-to-use search interface that allows you to look up information on locally rare bird species More than 1000 records across over 160 species are now freely available to the public You can contribute […]
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October 15, 2021 / September 15, 2023 by raghavnarayanswamy | Leave a Comment
By Raghav Narayanswamy For much of my first few years of birding in Singapore, I wondered how the data from earlier eras in local ornithology could be made available for more to benefit; if early dates and late dates, major hotspots, past trends in the local avifauna, among other useful information, could be compiled in […]
October 6, 2021 / August 31, 2022 by movin92 | Leave a Comment
Extinction is an evocative word, with some of the world’s most iconic birds such as the Dodo Raphus cucullatus and the Passenger Pigeon Ectopistes migratorius having achieved infamy for the dubious distinction of belonging to this category. Though the term often implies a sense of permanent loss, there are scenarios where extinction is not forever. […]
September 2, 2021 / December 3, 2021 by OkamotoKeitaSin | 1 Comment on An Indonesian Archipelago Wishlist: Birds to Look Out For
The recent sighting of the Javan Plover Charadrius javanicus at a reclaimed site northeast of Singapore island was exciting yet unsurprising. Exciting because it was a first for Singapore and continental Southeast Asia that caught everyone off guard (then again, none of us are really prepared for megas!) and unsurprising because this is a species […]
August 13, 2021 / December 3, 2021 by OkamotoKeitaSin | Leave a Comment
By Goh Cheng TengEdited by Keita Sin & Lester Tan The Malaysian Plover Charadrius peronii is a small shorebird that inhabits coastal sandy areas and rocky shores. It is the only resident breeding plover in Singapore island and can be reliably found along the man-made seawall at Marina East. They are classified globally as Near […]
September 18, 2020 / August 19, 2023 by Dillen Ng | 1 Comment on Rufous Barn Swallows in Singapore?
TLDR; There are several records of Barn Swallows with rufous underparts in Singapore Relationships between the different Barn Swallow subspecies are still being explored – we are uncertain of which subspecies the rufous birds seen in Singapore belong to In the meantime, please share your sightings if you come across any of these rarer migrants! […]
September 5, 2018 / August 4, 2023 by Francis Yap | 1 Comment on First breeding record of the Barred Eagle-Owl in Singapore Island
The Barred Eagle-Owl (Bubo sumatranus) is a relatively small eagle-owl that is found from southern Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and southwards to Indonesia. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland rainforests. It has also been reported in secondary growth, abandoned orchards, oil palm plantations and wooded gardens, showing its adaptability towards human encroachments. […]
March 1, 2016 / August 31, 2022 by Francis Yap | 2 Comments on Local extinctions of Singapore birds
There is an interesting paper recently published in the prestigious journal Conservation Biology by members of two National University of Singapore (NUS) labs titled “A robust non-parametric method for quantifying undetected extinctions” that came to our attention. In it, they presented a novel method of estimating undetected extinction, i.e. the type of extinction events that […]
