Serendipity

17 September 2006, Sunday

Serendipity - discovered the beauty of this word when the bus took a wrong turn and me away from Springleaf, where Dr Ho was supposed to show NSS members the beauty of our forest birds.... but fortunately, one thing led to another.... abandoned idea of finding my way there when I saw this dark brown bird with white on top of chest. It looks like kingfisher but the beak is too short... the backlight was terrible and I couldn't see the colours nor features clearly.

Chasing it led me to Sembawang Park, an oasis of calm near the sea where people just laze around in their tents or fish.... perfect picture of the life I want to lead, away from the madding crowd.... Saw a white-throated kingfisher perched on a lamppost. My sight followed it as it flew away, and as it land on a lone stick poking out of the vast expanse of land, I caught sight of this beautiful (as opposed to cute, which is the usual way I describe birds I like) with what looks like an almost irisdiscent purple on its back plummage and pink in front.... strange colours... I moved gingerly in front of it and when it flew down to the field and up onto a wire, it 'turned' into cream-beige body with dark flanks mirroring its crown, though interrupted by a strand of white.... I quickly turned to my book and found that it's a long-tailed shrike (lifer for me) and followed it as far as I could.

.... but having lost it, I decided to be adventurous and wondered into a wooded lane which led me to a lokang.... with lotsa birds singing, a water hen, a group of 7 pink-necked green pigeons roasting (sic) on a bare tree. Such is the tranquility there these fat (extra fat here) birds can sleep without cover but the main thing about this place is it's.....

Kingfisher Land!! Anywhere I turned, I saw kingfishers.... kf on the railing, kf on the tip of the bare trees, kf on their favourite hangout on branches overlooking the waters... even the very brief appearance of a baby croc-like feature with yellow stripes against very black body failed to distract me from admiring the beauty of kf - some were as close as 2m away. I realised why I like them so much. Despite being slightly deformed-looking with an oversized beak and head, it has very sharp features and strikingly beautiful colours, so much so that there's no need for bino to spot them. A white body would rep a white-collared kf, while a small white blot surrounded by a dark silhouette is the ubiquitous white-throated kf. When I can finally afford a scope, I will return to this place again to capture their beauty :)

Anyway, I got a very good look at one very fine specimen - very handsome collared kf with its sharply coloured brown back.... looks amazingly like the Australian kookaburra (same family). Maybe it's why I like them so much..... mum always sings the song about them....

"Kookaburra sits on the old gum tree-eee
Merry, merry king of the bush is he-ee...
Laugh, kookaburra, laugh
kookaburra, gay your life must be..."

Nice ditty... composed at a more innocent era where gay is not a dirrtyyyy word...