sgbeachbum: whimbrel

Showing posts with label whimbrel. Show all posts

Saturday, October 6, 2018

Whimbrel flypast @ Kingfisher pod-SBWR-22Sep2018

It was already 6.40pm and close to closing time for Singapore's Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve. I had noticed the flock of whimbrels as they landed at the sandbar near Eagle Point. With the tide rising, it was only a matter of time before the sandbar would be covered with water and the birds would have to fly towards and into the reserve's controlled ponds for a safe roost on dry land.

Luckily, the birds flew off at 6.50pm just when it was getting dark. They took just about a minute to traverse the about 1 kilometer of their flight path from the sandbar to just past Kingfisher Pod as they went behind the trees. This means they were flying at about 60km/hr just above sea level with a zero wind factor. That's fast! It's not obvious until about the end of the clip that the birds were flying in a V formation.

The whimbrels and some of the other shorebirds such as the common greenshanks and pacific golden plovers prefer to fly out to feed at the rich mudflats near the Singapore-Malaysia causeway at the mouth of the Sungei Pang Sua, Mandai Besar and Mandai Kecil estuaries. This is one of Singapore's last remaining northern mangrove mudflats. Although all three are short rivers and the mudflat is not wide, the area provides for sufficient food for a variety of these long-distance migratory shorebirds.

Some of the shorebirds do also alternate visiting sites such as Sungei Danga and Sungei Sekudai across the Johor Straits roughly opposite of Sungei Buloh. Johorean birders have documented redshanks with Singapore green over white flags at Sungei Danga roosts.

Let's hope that the entire ecosystem triangle (taking into account future upriver and shoreline developments) is sufficiently protected for future generations of shorebirds.*

[UPDATE 7 Oct 2018 : It's been announced that the Mandai mangrove and mudflats will have the protection as a park managed by the National Parks Board. This is indeed fabulous news. Click these links for more info :

https://www.nparks.gov.sg/news/2018/10/mandai-mangrove-and-mudflat-will-be-conserved-as-a-nature-park

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/environment/mandai-mangrove-and-mudflat-to-open-as-nature-park-in-2022

https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/mandai-mangrove-and-mudflats-be-singapores-newest-nature-park

Thursday, February 11, 2016

whimlews @ Semakau South - 08Feb2016

I was expecting to see some waders within the mangrove inlet at Semakau South but there was only 1 common redshank and 1 whimlew (that is what you get when you cannot tell a whimbrel from a eurasian or far eastern curlew).

I had initially thought this was a curlew due to the length of its decurved bill. However, it has the distinctive dark crown stripes on top of its head which seems to be indicative of a whimbrel. There also seemed to be a dark eye stripe which whimbrels usually have.

It was all alone within the mangrove inlet walking along the sandbank during the low tide. It soon got dive bombed by a collared kingfisher and it took off flying behind a group of mangrove trees but it soon reappeared to land further along the outgoing stream. I was thinking that it was possible that this was the same curlew i had seen a week earlier on 24Jan2016 at the Northern Semakau shore. (Now, I'm not sure whether that earlier ID was correct if this was indeed the same bird). The bird soon flew off and disappeared beyond the coastal forest.

lone 'whimlew' @ semakau south - 08Feb2016 from SgBeachBum on Vimeo.

I thought that it would be the last whimlew i would see that afternoon but i soon spotted two more out on the intertidal sandy mudflats. These two kept somewhat close to each other as they moved along the shallow pools looking for crabs and shrimp. So are these eurasian curlews or whimbrels?

a pair of 'whimlews' @ semakau south - 08Feb2016 from SgBeachBum on Vimeo.

Here are some links to help you sort out or confuse you further in the quest to tell the curlews apart from the whimbrels :-
Here are some weblinks which try to distinguish between the two birds :
http://www.planetofbirds.com/the-slender-billed-curlew-last-seen-in-the-previous-century
http://www.bto.org/about-birds/bird-id/bto-bird-id-curlew-and-whimbrel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt8ZK8fI3W8
https://photographyandbirds.wordpress.com/identifying-waders/
http://hubpages.com/animals/whimbrelvscurlew
http://www.nemesisbird.com/birding/bird-sightings/whimbrel-and-long-billed-curlew-comparison-cibola-nwr-az/
http://singaporebirds.blogspot.sg/2012/06/sandpipers-and-allies.html
https://www.theguardian.com/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2011/sep/18/4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOXpHnZIq8o

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_curlewhttp://www.oiseaux-birds.com/card-eurasian-curlew.htmlhttp://eol.org/pages/1049389/detailshttp://www.birdlife.org/datazone/species/factsheet/22693190http://www.birdfieldguide.co.uk/Curlew.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whimbrelhttp://www.oiseaux-birds.com/card-whimbrel.htmlhttp://www.birdlife.org/datazone/species/factsheet/22693178http://www.birdfieldguide.co.uk/Whimbrel.html

And a recent earlier clip showing a eurasian curlew amongst a bunch of whimbrels at the SBWR :

http://sgbeachbum.blogspot.sg/2015/09/eurasian-curlew-swallows-stone-sbwr.html

More about SBWR :
https://www.nparks.gov.sg/sbwr
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sungei_Buloh_Wetland_Reserve

And Pulau Semakau :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulau_Semakau
http://www.wildsingapore.com/places/semakau.htm

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

lone whimlew @ Semakau North - 24Jan2016

It was a very windy day and there were 4 grey herons, a great-billed heron, one common sandpiper, two white-bellied sea eagles and a brahminy kite at the shore at Pulau Semakau facing Pulau Bukom. However, there was also another visitor...with a long downward curled bill. This was too long for a whimbrel or was it not?

lone whimlew @ Pulau Semakau - 24Jan2016 from SgBeachBum on Vimeo.

This bird seemed to have a longer bill than what a whimbrel would have. However, this BTO clip mentions that the bill length itself is not a good feature to base an ID on as the 'bill length in both species varies with sex and age'.

It also looked bigger than a whimbrel although it was difficult to give the bird a proper sense of scale as there were no other whimbrels (or other birds) near it on the shore. Some parts of the clip show it to have a rather long neck....longer than what i think a whimbrel would normally have. Its head however had the dark crown stripes which Whimbrels have on top of their heads and also a dark eye stripe. These are more indicative that the bird was a Whimbrel.

Sadly, i was not able to listen to the calls made by this bird as it was quiet during the period of observation.

I'll just call it a "whimlew" until i can get a confirmation from a more experienced birder.

Update 1 : the weight of initial opinion was that this bird is an eurasian curlew. However, some others have commented that this was a whimbrel.

Update 2 : after more consideration, due to the prescence of the dark crown stripes on its head, this bird should be a whimbrel.

Here are some weblinks which try to distinguish between the two birds :
http://www.planetofbirds.com/the-slender-billed-curlew-last-seen-in-the-previous-century
http://www.bto.org/about-birds/bird-id/bto-bird-id-curlew-and-whimbrel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt8ZK8fI3W8
https://photographyandbirds.wordpress.com/identifying-waders/
http://hubpages.com/animals/whimbrelvscurlew
http://www.nemesisbird.com/birding/bird-sightings/whimbrel-and-long-billed-curlew-comparison-cibola-nwr-az/
http://singaporebirds.blogspot.sg/2012/06/sandpipers-and-allies.html
https://www.theguardian.com/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2011/sep/18/4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOXpHnZIq8o

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_curlew
http://www.oiseaux-birds.com/card-eurasian-curlew.html
http://eol.org/pages/1049389/details
http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/species/factsheet/22693190
http://www.birdfieldguide.co.uk/Curlew.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whimbrel
http://www.oiseaux-birds.com/card-whimbrel.html
http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/species/factsheet/22693178
http://www.birdfieldguide.co.uk/Whimbrel.html

And a recent earlier clip showing a eurasian curlew amongst a bunch of whimbrels at the SBWR :

http://sgbeachbum.blogspot.sg/2015/09/eurasian-curlew-swallows-stone-sbwr.html

Thursday, February 16, 2012

whimbrel at rest @ pasir ris - Feb2012

Visited the Pasir Ris mangroves in early February and came across this wader sitting across from the mangrove viewing platform near the Heronry. It was quietly sitting on a branch amongst overhanging leaves. It was a little finicky in that it was keeping a lookout for any sudden concerns....a predatory raptor maybe? It was a high tide at that time and so the mudflats all around the mangrove would have been covered. Not much for a wader to do but to sit out the tide.

The wailing in the background was coming from some party function at a park shelter some distance away. The volume control knob must have broken off as it was rather loud. Perhaps the whimbrel was instead annoyed by the loud music instead.That would not have been surprising. Perhaps the park managers need to exercise some volume control over such sound intensive activities. The Pasir Ris mangroves are after all one of the last remaining mangrove patches on mainland Singapore's Northern coastline.