‘Almost 10 hours of waiting’: Tiny songbird makes first appearance in Singapore

SINGAPORE – To the untrained eye, a songbird with a buttery yellow belly, not the fanciest of birds, could easily have gone unnoticed when it showed up at Dairy Farm Nature Park recently.

But no rare visitor goes undocumented for Singapore’s bird photography community.

So when the yellow-bellied warbler was first spotted by a novice birder on Sept 23 and posted on social media, more than 30 photographers showed up at the park the next day to verify the finding – the bird was the first of its kind to be recorded in the wild in Singapore.

Among the enthusiasts was Dylan Lee, who said he waited for almost 10 hours in total for the appearance of the doe-eyed bird, which is slightly bigger than a tennis ball.

His trip in the morning was fruitless. His second attempt in the afternoon extended until the evening, and proved to be the charm.

At 6.46pm, someone alerted the flock of photographers to movement in a tree, recalled Lee, who works in the construction industry. This set off the entire group clicking their shutters despite the poor lighting.

Said Lee: “It is very rare for it to be sighted in Singapore. Naturally, all bird enthusiasts would love to have a shot of this mega lifer.”

In the lingo of nature enthusiasts, a lifer refers to a species that a person has seen for the first time.

Bird scientists confirmed the sighting as a first for the species in Singapore.

The bird’s presence here is highly unusual given its typical habitats, they added.

Bird Society of Singapore president Movin Nyanasengeran noted that there are no records of the species near Singapore in the public database eBird, nor have there been observations of it in the Riau Archipelago south of the Republic.

“It could have arrived in Singapore either as a wild bird that dispersed here or as an escapee from the cage-bird trade,” said Movin.

He added that he has never seen the bird anywhere below the lower slopes of mountains, except in Java. However, the specimen spotted at Dairy Farm Nature Park is not the Javan subspecies, based on its features.

Conservation biologist Yong Ding Li pointed out that the closest parts of the species’ natural distribution to Singapore are the lower foothills of Peninsular Malaysia, from Negeri Sembilan northwards, and the hills of western Sumatra.

He believes the bird spotted in Singapore has a captive origin, given its regular appearance in the Indonesian wild bird trade.

The species is known for its lovely song, he added.

The keeping of caged songbirds is thought to have started here in the 1950s, and it is common in South-east Asia for them to be featured in bird singing competitions.

Yong noted that the bird is not known to migrate, making its occurrence in Singapore “quite bizarre”.

Both Yong and Movin believe the insect-eating bird could survive at the park, as the clusters of bamboo at Dairy Farm resemble its preferred habitat.

Said Movin: “Although there’s a chance that it could get eaten too, if it’s not used to the park.”

He noted that if the species is released in larger numbers, it could establish a permanent presence, as many birds from the pet trade have already done.

One example is the black-crested bulbul, a species typically associated with hills that was once found in Dairy Farm Nature Park and Bukit Timah Nature Reserve.

However, this uncommon resident has not been seen at these sites in recent years.

When present in large numbers, the introduction of foreign species can threaten the survival of native wildlife by competing for resources and upsetting the balance of local ecosystems.