I joined the MAE leaders at a meeting on Thursday in my new role. This was held at Kovan but each month it moves around the branches so it will be quite interesting to have a look at them after all this time. From what transpired at the meeting there are a number of classes without students (slightly worrying for the bean counters) and I have the opportunity to give those teachers editing tasks to do. No one is to be sitting around twiddling their thumbs on my watch. If it is done well it will help clear a big backlog of work. Both of us have full teaching loads and we would rather that.
Friday we walked through Bidadari and Woodleigh Park and while we didn't see many birds we were happy to be in the verdant surrounds after plenty of rain lately. It seems most days we are getting good downpours at the moment, 'tis the wet season here after all. Nothing like Darwin's though. Speaking of Darwin, on the 26th Luke and Tahlia should have settlement on their home. Guessing it will be pushed forward to the 27th due to the public holiday.
Our Monday walk was from Tampines through Eco Green then Pasir Ris Park to the lake for lunch. Along the way we saw woodpecker, weavers busy building their intricate nests and the colourful bee-eaters. The best sighting though was of the pair of resident spotted wood-owl in Pasir Ris Park. Although these birds are huge, they are very easy to miss, there being so many trees and dense foliage. Luckily we got chatting to a local fitness enthusiast who passed us over to his friend the bird expert and we were soon escorted to their favourite perching spots. There they were. This birder turned out to be Yip Roland, he has a mighty collection of bird photos on Facebook, but Eric took these beauties. Aren't they amazing birds? 48cms
In the evening we went to Outram to book Wine Mansions for dinner on Australia Day for a few friends. We noticed that the decorations are going up in the streets for Chinese New Year already. Having done that, we moved on to Casbah in Telok Ayer for dinner where Eric really enjoyed his lamb chops.
On Tuesday we went to see Railtrack Songmaps, a multimedia presentation about relations between people and birds along the former Malaysian railway tracks at Tanglin Halt. This is a site where a survey conducted by the Nature Society of Singapore Bird Group recorded over 100 species of birds, but which faces considerable social and environmental change in the name of development. Tanglin Halt was one of the first public housing development estates in Singapore. Some of the blocks alongside the old railway line are being demolished, and it is unclear what will happen to the informal tree shrines, kampung gardens and songbird clubs that exist along the tracks. The pockets of mature trees, wetlands, long grass and thick undergrowth are also being damaged and reduced by construction in the area. We walked the old railway line in this vicinity in the morning from Buona Vista to Coldbar, then came home via Solaris at Fusionopolis having met with management to try to establish permission for the walking group to access the green spiral terrace in a few weeks time. We hadn't even walked 50m when we came across a black cobra who flared out his hood in annoyance at being disturbed. We watched in fascinated horror as it slithered into the long grass and so Eric missed capturing the hood in his lens but he got the second half. At least 2m long. Hhg! That got the heartbeat up. We were thrilled to see a number of rare birds including the stork-billed kingfisher, blue-rumped parrot and Jerdon's baza. This last is a rare visitor and we had excellent views of it both flying and perched. Unfortunately Eric's camera decided to play up just when we had it perching near us, but he did get some shots on the wing.
After researching I discovered the Equatorial Spitting Cobra, is commonly encountered in lowland, secondary, disturbed areas (that fits): where it has adapted to heavily disturbed habitats in towns. It is a highly venomous species which should be treated with caution. Large adults will stand erect, expand their hood and hiss loudly if feeling threatened.
We visited the presentation with Heather at Gillman Barracks, a former colonial military camp, now home to galleries, restaurants and the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art. The 14 buildings were constructed in 1936 to accommodate the expansion of the British infantry in Singapore, then handed to the SAF in 1971 as part of the British withdrawal. After the SAF vacated the camp in the 1990s, the buildings were used for commercial purposes until 2010 when it was re-developed and launched in 2012 as a contemporary art centre. This is the first time we have visited the centre. The Railtrack Songmaps was not that interesting to tell you the truth, but we dropped in to see the photographs of Steve Curry in a second block and that made the trip well worth while. He is probably best known for the green-eyed Afghan girl which appeared on the 1985 cover of National Geographic. His colour photographs, many taken in Asia, were stunning and we could relate to them since we had seen the same scene like the nuns in Myanmar bottom right.
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