The Yishun Dam sees quite a number of shorebirds throughout the July to April months. Hearing that there were lesser sand plovers and whimbrels reported at the dam, i paid the dam a visit in the evening of 9Aug2017. It was a moderate low tide of about 1.0m at about 6.15pm and there was a bit of the mudflat exposed.
An average of two counts gave a number of 65 lesser sand plovers and 1 little egret on the mudflat near the dam. There were no whimbrels though. The presence of fishermen wading about at the shore area to the left of the mudflat was enough for some of the LSPs to take flight towards the right at first and then across the bay.
Looking beyond the bay towards the eastern tip of the military training area, there is a sandbar with eastern part of Pulau Seletar in the background. This is about 1250m away (measured via Google Earth) and one can just about make out some birds on the sandbar with a scope.
At this distance, any positive ID of the smaller shorebirds is purely a guess. I'm guessing there were about 70 to 90 LSPs (it was easy to lose count due to the distance and the birds flying about in small groups) at the sandbar. I also saw 3 whimbrels with their distinctive curved bills. I could not make out any redshanks or greenshanks. There were also two great-billed herons walking about looking for food. Discounting what most likely were mynahs, the sandbar seemed to house a rather large number of shorebirds. A conservative LSPs count alone for both the mudflat and sandbar should be between at least 135 to 155.
It is possible that the mangroves and shore area closer to the western tip of Pulau Seletar may also house a good many shorebirds. It is a pity this area is difficult to access....anyone got a boat?
Given the number of fishermen at the mudflat in front of the dam that evening, it looked like the birds were mostly avoiding the mudflat and preferring instead to stay at the faraway (and pretty isolated) sandbar.
Assuming that there would have been a much lower number of fishermen in the morning, perhaps a weekday low tide visit would see more of the shorebirds on the mudflat instead of on the faraway mudflat.
Given the lack of sandbars, mudflats and mangrove areas on both the eastern and western shores of mainland Singapore, the Yishun Dam mudflat and adjacent sandbars serve a very important role in feeding these yearly avian visitors much like how the Mandai mudflat (beside the Causeway) is on the western shore.
One has to ask why the shorebirds frequent these shores? What do these shores have that other shore areas do not have?
Yishun Dam primer @ 9Aug2017 PM from SgBeachBum on Vimeo.
