Wake Up Call

One good thing about living a 10-minute walk away from a nature reserve is that you are close to nature. Last Friday, I was woken up at 10 minutes to eight by loud screeching. My first thought was that they were monkeys but I don't live that near to the forest. So I stuck my head out for a look. I saw 2 black birds with thick beaks. This is the second time I've seen them in my 5 years of living here. Unfortunately, my point and shoot camera only managed to capture this blur shot. The birds are simply too far away for my 3x zoom.


You can hear the screeching of the hornbills in the video below.



From my search, the closest match I found described these as Oriental Pied Hornbills, spotted nesting at Changi by the Bird Ecology Study Group (Singapore) last Wednesday.

With the constant development in Singapore, it's always good to know that there is a diversity of fauna here. Still, there is a need to protect the nature areas we have left to allow these animals to continue to breed here.