The annotated budak

Damsel in no distress

This lady's no shrinking violet. Flashed by my duck, she spread her wings with lightning speed and flashed back with an outburst of electric blue. Poised by a degraded forest stream drowning in fishy invasions, her kind suffers less dire straits compared to more fussy kin that prefer life with less silt and more speed.

Nighthawk

Twilight usually brings expectations of chonking nightjars as they swoop by on long wings and the erratic whirling of small insectivorous bats. But something about this silent shadow over the path, with its shallow wingbeat and slow flight that bordered on a hover, suggested a different fowl altogether. Birder Tan Gim Cheong took a second look at the dark figure and spied a pale chin that gave the game away. A falcon-sized raptor that tackles bats on the wing and swallows them whole, the bat hawk was last recorded locally in 1951 (when progestin was invented and Perry Como ruled the charts) in the form of a female caught at Pulau Senang, perhaps by some joker who dressed up as a bat to lure the bird. This johnny-come-lately made its rounds over an expanding hourglass of airspace, looping back from the noisy glare of a nearby road to permit blind shots at its belly before vanishing over the waters to mull its moment of infamy. 

Just when you think it's safe to get in the water

Somebody's overgrown pet is prowling the shores of MacRitchie Reservoir, not too far from a cheerful corner where pintsize paddlers wobble and wet themselves in two feet of pre-drinking water. There's plenty of fish to snap at but what will it eat when it gets this big?

Blue and orange

The bulkier Halcyonids that hunt by the greener fringes of the city readily advertise their presence with harsh cackles and a conspicious flash of blue. But their tiny cousins whose fishing prowess earned the group their common name are shyer and largely silent birds. Even in the well-trodden paths of the Botanic Gardens, they escape notice thanks to their diminutive stature and preference for perches with a rich buffer of vegetation. Typically wary to a fault, the few who make the gardens their winter home have become accustomed to the quacking of ducks both fowl and unfeathered as well as the rummaging sons of unwanted turtles. On a bare branch behind a hedge, this creature of habit enjoys a rich bounty of poecilids in the shallow water by the reeds and rushes. Not every strike hits the mark, but when it does, the catch is quickly dispatched and swallowed. Busy little feet then shuffle the kingfisher along the twig as it seeks an opportune angle for another plunge into its pool of fortune.

In a quieter part of the island, the cool shade of a secluded cove offers another fisher an hour of feasting before sharpwinged nighthawks emerge to devour the fledermice. The deeper centre is murky and restless, but the water by the edge is still and clear enough to give a bird's eye view of the silvery fish that hover above the leaf litter. From a branch fenced by dense undergrowth, a rare jewel emerges to interrupt the evening's babbling with soft splashes of heraldry that prove to weak and wonderful to stir the hearts of hasty passing feet.

Hoppy bird

During the leaner months of higher latitudes, nightfalls of birds descend to the equatorial belt to partake of the monsoon bounty. Few natives are nesting during this period, so migrants and residents suffer each other in their pursuit of prey. But not all visitors hail from the treeless tundra and chilly taiga. Perhaps seeking a change of scenery, some birds hop over from the northern end of the peninsula to spend the winter in the island city. Those who survive predators and window panes pop up at urban haunts where they feed the appetites of twitchers and shutterbugs.

Most feathered visitors favour what remains of ancient lowland forest in the central reserves, but a good number make do with islands of dense greenery in the asphalt jungle, where they skulk under aromatic bushes in search of snails and hard shelled insects. Bloodsucking annelids may be another favoured item for the Malays call them burung pachat or leech birds. The etymology of 'pitta' is unclear but it's surely a better fate to be confused with Turkish bread than bear names like shag, tit and booby. Persistent groundhugging habits have probably contributed to the tribe's trademarks of a wee stump of a tail and powerful shanks that propel the bird through the leaf litter like clockwork toys. But few begrudge the loss of showy caudal plumes, for the pittas dress their plump bodies with electric shades of primary brilliance that fail to disguise dark masks and full-headed hoods. And as long as quiet retreats of uncleared woods remain in the city, there is a chance each year to stalk and savour these hoppers that boast "the brightest hues from Nature's laboratory."

Half a blue bird...

... is better than done. But in this case it's a bird that's half blue plus his 'mate' who's mostly brown. Native to northern forests, the Siberian blue robin is a perky little passerine that spends the winter in the dense undergrowth of tropical Asia. A couple, who were not necessarily conjugated but just happened to meet and hook up, were frolicking in the shrubbery by a sheltered cove one evening, taking turns with a bevy of babblers to bathe in a leafy pool of cool water. Earlier, a pair of olive-winged bulbuls had bounced in for a quick dip, as the clouds loomed and unleashed a brief shower of exasperation. It was not enough, however, to dampen the robins' spirits, for they led us on a merry round of soft 'tuks' before settling down to soak their breasts and duck their heads in for a final splash of lucidity before the still and cyan hours.