Was walking by the Esplanade Waterfront just before the Esplanade Bridge on 17May2012 at about 6pm when i noticed a small bird flying up to a tree. This would not normally pique my interest...as there are many many small tiny sparrows all over Singapore...but a sparrow this was not...it started hopping UP the long trunk of the palm tree without using its wings. Sparrows do not hop UP tree trunks...they fly. I then realised that there were more such birds on the trunks of the adjacent palm trees. I counted five in total.
I quickly checked the
NSS Bird Guide on my mobilephone. The bird which most closely resembled these birds was the Sunda Pygmy Woodpecker. I was also able to play the birdcall audio file recording of the Sunda Pygmy Woodpecker and a few moments later I heard a similar chip coming from a tree behind me. Double confirmation! Through the pictures in the App and via the birdcall recording in the App as well!
Later, I went home and consulted
Robson's Field Guide to the Birds of SE Asia. Unfortunately, this one showed both the Sunda Pygmy as well as the Grey-Capped Pygmy Woodpeckers as closely resembling each other. As I did not have any photo of the esplanade birds, it was difficult to conclusively ID the birds.
I went back the next day at 6.30pm with a more capable camera&lens combination and managed to spot the birds again.
The clips seen here capture three of the birds on the palm tree trunks at the small little patch of green just between the Esplanade Bridge and the Esplanade Theatre building. The birds seemed to be foraging on the trunks probably for ants or termites or other insects. The first bird's dinner was interrupted by another pygmy woody flying to the same trunk and it seemed to be intimidated by the newcomer as it quickly moved lower around the trunk being chased by the newcomer until the first bird flew off to another adjacent tree.
The birds had a distinct sub-mustachial stripe which seems to point (according to the Robson's guide) towards them being the Sunda Pygmy instead of the Grey-Capped Pygmy woodies (which are thought to be extinct in Singapore).
Read more about these birds here :
Visit these links for more info on the NSS Bird Guide App :
