A surprising Nature trip in Singapore: Bishan Park

Sunday 26 November 2006

My ardent visitors would have realised that a lot of my travels take place in Singapore; the Singapore famed for Changi Airport, Esplanade, Night Safari and all other man-made hardware (like the soon-to-be integrated resort or its less shiny alias 'casino') the government loves to construct when it has some grand plan ahead for the country. Parks are also part of the gameplan...we all know that plants are always a thorny issue... so pretty yet so hard for it to grow heathily and nicely in a manicured way or at least look civilised.

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  I hesitated in going for the NSS Bishan Park Nature Park (at the junction of Ang Mo Kio Ave 1 and Upper Thomson Road) walk ... what else is there to learn or even see in a typically highly manicured lawn? (I wish I could afford this kind of high maintenance.)
  
  Anyway I went, since I had already told the enthusiastic Mdm Soh (whom I think will follow my footsteps in joining NSS because of going to Semakau...). Can always pop over to Peirce Reservoir, which I did to look at the (> 40!!) longtailed parakeets which seem to be inexhaustible, flocking out of a single, though big, palm tree... the now-ubiquitous glossy starlings and the nice fig fruits decorating the trunks of some lucky trees....
  
  According to the newsletter, the fig trees in the park sometimes draw wildlife out of the woods, especially when they are in fruit. Not sure whether the pink-neck green pigeons were, but they were certainly an attractive pair. See picture in next few blog entries (something wrong with this post, can't upload pictures) and you'll see the nicest breast on a male... drawing a lot of oohs and aahs from the predominantly female crowd here ..... so rufous... probably the alluring trait which attracted his lady friend (on his right). The sighting also drw our attention to a pretty, white raptor hovering above.... a more graceful and 'feminine' version of the sea eagle.
  
  Other sightings:
• yellow bittern hidden among the shrubs in the biggest lotus pond I've seen in Singapore.
• white-throated kingfisher, rather emaciated, but keeps dipping itself playfully in the drain water.
• streaked heron (? can anyone advise through tagboard? not in either in of bird books & the Google search throws up so many different looking birds)
  
  But nothing can beat the presence of the Paradise Tree Snake, my 2nd favourite snake in the Colubridae family after the oriental whipsnake, much vaunted for its flying (actually gliding) prowess. This guy was rather hapless though, attacked by a few ants on its back (where is a snake's back, by the way?). Its beautiful pattern also provoked the trigger-happy photographers into a frenzy, including yours truly.

Luckily some huys helped the snakie out by swiping the red ants off and the fellow actually posed for us for a while, before scaring us by suddenly hitting the ground... and of course we automatically gave way for it to migrate to another tree....