The number of Singapore birdwatchers may be small, but they make up for it with their passion
Lydia Vasko Straits Times 5 Apr 13;
Junior college science teacher Yong Ding Li started birdwatching more than 15 years ago, has seen about 2,000 species and says his heart still skips a beat at the sight of a new bird.
Says Mr Yong, 29: "It is a feeling that is hard to describe. I enjoy the sense of discovery, of seeing something I have never seen before. I am so amazed by the variety of birds that exist. That keeps me going on and on."
While he goes on birdwatching trips four times a year to countries such as Japan, India and Spain, he has also spotted rare, endangered birds here - such as the masked finfoot he saw at Upper Seletar Reservoir in 2009.
Like Mr Yong, you need not go far to spot some spectacular birds.
From a white-throated kingfisher perched by a storm drain in Toa Payoh to a common goldenback woodpecker along Singapore's park connector network, chances are there are avian beauties in your own backyard. And groups and electronic guides here can help you suss them out.
Last week, the Singapore Land Authority launched its interactive birding map, Birder's Corner, on the Nature Society (Singapore) website.
The free software allows users to upload photos, videos or text about birds they have spotted directly on a map of Singapore to pinpoint its location for others or ask for help identifying them.
Members of the public had previously e-mailed information about bird sightings to the Nature Society (Singapore) Bird Group for dissemination on Web forums and Facebook.
Though only three posts have been made on the new birding map so far, one was a sighting of a rare bird, a green imperial pigeon, which sent dozens of birders to its location in Changi Village.
The website also hosts a map of birdwatching hotspots in Singapore which provides information about the different habitats, their locations and the birds you can see there.
"Birdwatchers like to take notes of the places they've been to," says Mr Yong of the value of such tech-based help for the hobby.
"They pay great attention to the sense of the space, the details of the bird. It gets etched in the memory, especially when you see something rare. You can remember what happened five or 10 years later."
Perhaps, then, a birding digital tool in hand is worth two analogue ones in a bush. A free iPhone app called Birds Of Singapore launched by the Nature Society (Singapore) Bird Group in May last year has been downloaded more than 3,000 times from the Apple App store so far - a sign that the short attention span of the digital age is not incompatible with the stillness and persistence required for birdwatching.
Aimed at getting more young people interested in birding, the app lets you access 554 images of about 375 species of birds found here and recordings of 100 bird calls.
These include the oriental pied hornbill. Thought to be extinct in Singapore for 140 years, a pair of these exotic black-and-white birds with distinctive yellow, horn-topped beaks appeared in Pulau Ubin in 1994.
Then, there is the crimson sunbird, voted Singapore's unofficial national bird by members of the public in a Nature Society (Singapore) poll in 2002.
Birders also stay in touch through online forums on Facebook and the Nature Society (Singapore) website, where they post bird sightings and related questions about bird behaviour and identification, for example.
There is a small but connected community of fewer than 500 birders here.
Most are members of of the Nature Society (Singapore), which started in 1986 as a continuation of the Malayan Nature Society, active in the 1970s.
The 200-member group organises about two birdwatching trips a month to parks and reserves around Singapore.
These trips are open to members of the public, novices and expert birders alike. It also conducts four bird census each year to keep track of the numbers and species of the general bird population here, as well as a parrot and raptor count to monitor their population numbers.
Joining such tours - sign up via the Nature Society (Singapore) website - allows new birders to learn enthusiasts' tricks, such as how to identify bird calls and the trademark features of different species.
Nature Society (Singapore) Bird Group's immediate past chairman, retired businessman Alan Owyong, 66, says the field has come a long way.
"I started in the early 1980s with a guide book that had black-and-white illustrations and lots of text," recalls the avid birder who picked up the hobby with his then teenage daughter, as part of a school project she had been working on.
"Today, we have the latest technology and digital cameras to capture rare birds for identification. The mobile phone provides instant alerts, which is very important if you want to see some of the rarer species," he adds.
The 26-year-old birdwatching club also holds annual birdwatching competitions. Its Bird Race, a 24-hour bird-a-thon which sees groups of birders racing to spot as many species of birds as they can within 24 hours, will celebrate its 30th anniversary in October this year.
From about 10 participants in its inaugural year, the event on Oct 19 and 20 is set to attract roughly 50 people this year.
Last year, the group also ran its first Big Year: a year-long contest, in which birders try to spot as many bird species they can between Jan 1 and Dec 31 last year.
Fifteen participants traipsed around the island, from Pulau Ubin to Sungei Buloh, in order to see as many resident and migratory birds as possible.
Birders reported their sightings based on an honour system. They had to see the bird and not just hear it for the sighting to count.
The top prize eventually went to Mr Lim Kim Seng, 53, an outdoor education lecturer at a polytechnic here. He spotted 265 birds, a Singapore record. On winning top prize, the part-time nature guide and outdoor education lecturer at Republic Polytechnic says: "I felt relief that it's over. It is so tiring chasing birds almost every day. But it helped that we shared information about our bird sightings. It made it much more fun and more fulfilling."
There is no Big Year this year, however: Participants are still worn out by last year's competition, according to Mr Owyong.
"Doing a Big Year is very demanding," he says, adding that it will probably resume next year. "This year, we needed time to rest."
Seen as a kind of peaceful conquest - unlike the trophy-taking damage wrought by game hunters or specimen-staking, curio cabinet-filling of Victorian flora and fauna collectors - birdwatching typically requires some degree of study and preparation.
Enthusiasts spend hours studying bird species in bird guides and listening to recordings of their calls before they go out into the field.
Most birders go birding at least once a month. Devotees take one or two birding trips overseas every year.
"You have to be ready to drop everything and go when you hear about a bird sighting, miss work and family time to see the birds because they may be there for only a short time," explains Mr Owyong of the hobby's subtle kick.
"You might not see them for another, say, 27 years."
Marketing and commercial manager Tan Ju Lin, 41, who has been a committed birder for more than 10 years, says birdwatching is "something you often do unconsciously, daily".
A bird flies by while you are engaged in a mundane activity and you cannot help but look, she adds.
Similarly, Mr Owyong keeps a pair of binoculars in his car so that he can train them on birds wherever he goes.
"The young generation come, learn from people like me and then they will teach the next generation. It's a cycle," he says, of attracting younger people to birdwatching in an age of information and sensory overload.
"In the end, if only 10 per cent of those app downloads turn out to be birdwatchers, it will be enough."
