Jurong Bird Park

We headed out to Jurong Bird Park in time to catch the first free shuttle from the Jurong East MRT station. We ended up spending the morning there, catching the hawk show and seeing most of the enclosures and aviaries. Jurong Bird Park is only going to exist for a few days more as everything is moving to become the Bird Paradise and will be adjacent to the rest of the Mandai Wildlife Reserve parks.

Looks like the sign!

The first birds we saw as we entered were actually these cute little penguins.

As we walked into the park, we came across flamingos! These are the same kind that can be found in Florida.

The Breeding & Research Centre has windows where you can see what’s going on. We didn’t see any chicks or eggs but we saw some older birds that are getting ready to be introduced into the general population. We also saw them making food for the birds, lots of real meat!

We saw that people were sitting down in the Hawk Arena so we decided to do the same, though we weren’t sure when the show was going to begin. While waiting, we saw these black birds. They are Javan Myna! There were two adults feeding their one hungry child.

Unfortunately, we don’t exactly remember all the birds that we saw! This is maybe a White-Bellied Sea-Eagle?

We know this one! A Turkey Vulture! It is a bit funny seeing a bird that you often need to scare away from the trash at home on garbage day in a raptor show!

Next up, an owl! It has a bit of a visual similarity to the Great Horned Owls of the US but is definitely some other species.

This particular bird prefers to hunt on the ground. The presenter demonstrated putting food items on the ground and under leaves. These big birds behave much like the little songbirds that we see at home when they’re flipping over leaves to look for food! He also demonstrated the bird’s ability “jump” up and catch things in the air.

We didn’t get too many photos of this bird. It was demonstrating catching things thrown up in the air and just moved too quickly for me to photograph at such close range. This may have been a kite, perhaps a Brahminy Kite?

The next bird was a Himalayan Griffon Vulture. They don’t belong here in Singapore. This one was found here having wandered off course and was brought back to health by the park.

The final segment included a number of different vultures. Just two photos here though that looked good!

After the show, we continued walking through the park. We saw some more flamingos, though these were not as pink as the ones we saw before.

We then passed by some pelicans that were preening their feathers with their super long bills and otherwise just lounging around. These may have been Dalmatian Pelicans.

Some sort of dove…

The next section of the park that we walked through was the Parrot Paradise. So, lots of different parrots! Many of the birds were in wire enclosures, making photography difficult. It is possible to shoot through fine mesh but thicker materials can be tougher to do without having a visual impact, particularly if the enclosure isn’t something that the lens can be put directly against.

There were also kookaburras with the parrots. They aren’t parrots though, they’re in the kingfisher family.

We then proceeded to a huge aviary with a waterfall flowing down from above! There was a very diverse set of birds.

We even saw a monkey atop the aviary! There are monkeys in the remaining natural areas of Singapore and yesterday we actually saw a sign saying what to do if you encounter one!

Continuing on, more birds…

Hello there! Its not a peacock, its a pigeon! A Victoria Crowned Pigeon, named after Queen Victoria. So fancy!

This is probably a Black-Faced Spoonbill?

This funny looking bird is a Shoebill, because its bill is like a shoe! It was previously placed in the stork family but is now considered to be in its own separate family. eBird describes it as being “utterly unique.”

A few more crowned pigeons to end our visit!


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