Jurong Bird Park!

Yes, I'm badly behind time with my posts and I'm chasing up to current events, including the Jacky Cheung concert... soon soon, I'm catching up.

Anyway.

Friday 6 July 07

JBP!

We set off after lunch in a 7-seater maxi-cab. It's steep, but comfy and worth the money for long distances, e.g. Bishan to JBP, cos it's flat rate per trip no matter how far you travel.

Arrived there in half an hour. If we had went by mert+bus, we would have taken almost 2 hours.

Next time you go there, do look up when you're buying tix cos there's something really nice but easy to miss.

Stained Glass Art on roof of ticketing area.

We went on ahead, and first to come was the penguins. Didn't take many pix, cos it's difficult with the thick glass wall and with them swimming around.

Some stationary penguins.

By the way, Surf's Up is a really fun movie to watch. Makes you wanna take up surfing. And I especially like Chicken Joe, who's really relaxed about things.. had a really good laugh watching it 2 nights before my in-laws arrived.

Waiting for the monorail ride.

First stop: Lori Loft

A nice large sanctuary, with loris flying around freely. For a S$2 donation, you get a small cup of bird feed, and can get up close with the birds. We took quite a few pix, cos they were really friendly, occassionally even posing for pix.

The whole bunch of us.
Background: Tingting and I
Foreground: 3rd Aunt, Mum, and 2
beautifully-blue-eyed German kids.

A fearless Lori and I

The same fearless Lori & 3rd uncle

Posing Lori

Posing red Lori

Another Posing Lori

After that was Toucan & Hornbill Haven. They're known to be pretty violent, thus they're all caged up and we can't take good pix. Luckily, there was one which was standing close to the edge of the cage. Toucans & Hornbills are quite large birds, growing to wingspans as large as 2m.

Great Pied Hornbill.

Next stop: Waterfall Sanctuary

The next location is an even larger sanctuary than Lori Loft, with the famous tallest man-made waterfall, Jurong Falls. It's a pity that we didn't climb up to take more pix, cos 3rd aunt is easily tired and we had lots more other things to see. But reputedly, the view on the observation decks above is really good.

Crested Guinea Fowl.
Close relatives of the turkey.

Jurong Falls.

Swan Lake.
Prob the most artistic pic I've taken to date.

A black swan spreading it's wings, looking towards the group of white swans in the blackground. Just the right clarity and obscurity for foreground and background. Just wish the water could be less muddy.

Pelican Cove.

Next Stop: Flightless Birds.

Emus and many different sub-species of ostriches, from all over the world. Many violent ones, which are kept in isolation from the majority which roam freely.

Everyone xcept me getting to know the Ostrich better.

Everyone took pix of Mr. Ostrich who was very close to us, but it had to be me who took it shitting. check out the funky thingy near his butt area. I didn't know until Tingting told me about it. I zoomed in at the pic I already took, and I was like, wtf mate.

He's 3m tall by the way.

The rest of the ostriches.

Next Stop: Birds of Prey Show

After the Flightless Birds section, we headed off to the Birds of Prey show. It was really nice, with many breeds of eagles showing off their hunting skills, in the water, in the air, etc.etc.

A teenage Australian volunteer holding up a Vulture. She was very near to us, and apparently she was quite scared while holding up the bird.

Another Pt of View.

Wondering why the mike is there? cos this species of owl have a very unique shriek, which is different from other species of owls. Can't remember the name of the species.

Nice pic of a Brahminy Kite.

Brahminy Kites are solitary hunters but in the show we were shown 10 of them hunting together. One test of it's stealth, was the host of the show pretending to be a waiter, carrying a plate with a piece of meat in the centre. He would duck when the audience shouts, and 9 out of 10 times the Kites are faster than human reaction to their swooping in. Really cool bird.

The same owl as before, which was shrieking into the mike. I'll bet that no one can win a staring competition with this guy. Anyway, owls have been reputed to be able to turn their heads a full circle, but it's not true.

They can turn a maximum of 270 degrees (that's 135 left and right) which is still a lot. Such a trait was evolved out of having eyeballs that cannot turn. The eyes are yet another evolved trait out of having to hunt in the night. Their eyes have become super-light-sensitive tubes connected by nerves, thus they can't turn. However, these eyes can spot small running rodents in the night, even from a distance of a hundred metres away.

A dried-up Flamingo Lake.

Apparently not very well-kept, with dung all over the place and 80% of the water gone. Which makes me wonder who would wanna eat in the posh cafe in the background, looking at such a scene.

The sistas, with the other sistas.

Tingting and Zefang thought they had very beautiful saris, and asked me to get them to take a photo together. And I did.

Next Stop: Parrot Paradise

An area with large cages housing Parrots and Parakeets from all edges of the world. Didn't take many pics, cos the cages made the pics look not very nice.

Tingting, unable to resist the opportunity to act cute in a treehole.

A literally 花吃 parrot.

Next stop: South-east Asian Birds Aviary

A natural habitat display, with most of the birds roaming freely, and the violent ones caged up.
Took quite a few pix.

Pair of Pelicans.

A poor lost duckling.

He's far from his kind, stranded in a corner. And those innocent eyes just makes him look more pitiful. Tried to help, but he's too afraid of us, and we had to leave him where we found him.

Nice pic of duckies and rapids.

Now it's a nice realisation that my cam can take such an effect of rapids, which I thought could only be done with SLRs. Anyway the pic is a square image cos it's combined from 2 shots top and bottom.

Nice pic of a female Mandarin Duck.

Mr. Photogenic Parrot lifting his claws in the pic on the right to say hi. By the way, he can respond to words. Chinese and English greetings alike!

Next stop: The World of Darkness

Basically it's just a fancy name for a nocturnal aviary. Almost complete darkness, such that there's a buffer zone, where you're recommended to stay for a minute before and after entry, to get used to the sudden change in lighting.

Snowy Arctic Owl

My fave pic of the day.

Fave cos this was taken in almost absolute darkness, with night-shot activated. Of course, for night shots, the exposure time is much longer (near 1 second) and I don't have a tripod. Thus, to take this shot and the next few, I placed my camera against the glass panel, jacked up the camera using different fingers to get different angles, and stopped breathing before I clicked.

Passers-by must have thought I was crazy, with my convulated body positions.

Also, this species of owl is the star of the "O RLY?" (pronounced "oh really?") internet phenomenon, but hasn't really caught on here as not many people know about it. My Hawaiian friend back in Taiwan was the one who first told me about this craze.

You can view the archive of many hilarious O RLY owls here.

Or, to know more about the craze, the wikipedia page is here.

Oh yes this is also the same species as Harry Potter's owl, Hedwig.

Fish Owl which looks really blur.
Like he has no clue what's going on. Lol.

The Great Grey Owl.
He's huge at 1.5m tall or somewhere there.

Final stop: African Wetlands.

Before we left the park, I took some pix at the small open-air African Wetlands display near the entrance, which houses many species of birds but in small numbers.

A pair of White-faced Tree Ducks.

Pair of Great White Pelicans.

Lone Duck.

Shoe-billed Stork.
Can't see the shoe-bill clearly from this angle.

Saddle-billed Stork.

The beautiful Blue Crane.

As always, took a group photo of everyone before we left the place.

The whole bunch of us.

They thought the Indian girl was so cute, they couldn't resist hugging her. So I requested, and everyone took a nice pic together.

And it was back home to rest after a great trip. ^_^