Friday, January 06, 2012

Hornbill

Look what I shot (with camera of course) today. Isn’t this a hornbill? What an irony. In 2008, I spent 1 week in Sarawak, the Land of Hornbills, and did not spot a single hornbill. The same week I got back to Singapore, I went for my walking exercise at Bukit Timah Hill and I saw 2 huge and noisy hornbills. And now this fellow comes visiting. Right in front of my house. What a thrill! Made my day!


7 comments:

JollyGreenP said...

Wow! wonderful pictures Chun See. I think your wife has done something that attracts the birds to the plants in her garden.

John

Brian and Tess said...

Spent a week in Sarawak back in 2009 and never saw one either - good photo but I hope you are not going to turn into what in the UK are called 'Twitchers' - keen bird spotters who travel over the whole country in large numbers when rare sightings are made

Lam Chun See said...

Thanks John. But how come credit goes to the wife and not ....?

Haha. Anyway, this tree is not in our garden but outside our house, across the road. It is actually the same tree that attracted the woodpecker - didn't I blog about that? Never mind, you can see some photos of it at my Facebook album here.

This is an interesting tree. A few months ago, it suddenly shed most of its leaves, revealing a huge nest. I was curious as to what kind of a nest that was until a couple of weeks ago, when the owners 'shifted' house to a neighbouring tree. Turns out to be a crows' nest. I will post more photos and full story later. My wife said she actually saw the crows transferring the twigs of the nest from one tree to another. Amazing.

Lam Chun See said...

Brian. I think there is little danger of me turning into a 'Twicher'. Or attracting a swarm of such twitchers to our house; unless this tree has a sort of unusual 'face' on it. Then it might attract superstitious gamblers who will come to seek lucky lottery numbers.

Sporeans, in general, tend to respond (or rather over-react) to newspaper reports, For example, nobody, except for people like me and Peter, were interested in the railway tracks before. But after the newspaper reports about the closing of the KTM railway lines, everybody rushed to the place. Likewise, now everybody is interested in the Bukt Brown cemetery.

Lam Chun See said...

YG left this comment at my Facebook page.

"i have to sarawak quite a number of times. the only hornbills i have seen are either stone ones or metal ones (sculptures). in s'pore, i have seen hornbills at upper seletar reservoir, bukit timah area, changi point and pulau ubin. but the place which really reminds me of hornbills is pangkor island. you see them everywhere."

PS - I think regular readers and Foyers will recognize immediately that the above is an authentic YG entry - from the absence of Upper case letters. LOL.

Tim said...

Glad to see that Singapore still attracts exotic species. I love to watch birds. Even the common ones. I don't consider myself a twitcher because I don't make notes about what I see ... it's just the fun of seeing them and trying to identify the species.

Now when it comes to trains .... I have to confess to a severe addiction.

Icemoon said...

Where is Tim's latest article on the railway? I clicked and was prompted page not found...