Backyard Birding Forum

Hello:

Back home in Singapore this week and next week.  and thought i'd take a few pics.

here ones of two common mynahs.  they are just all over the place, and quite fearless.

here's the interesting bit.  even though they are called common mynahs, and they really are all over the place.  however, they are not native to Singapore.  like the starling and grackle (sp?), they are extremely aggressive, adaptable and clever have displaced many of the local birds.

in fact, i was at the zoo yesterday, and many of the rhinos had open sores on their backs.  the sign next to the exhibit says that these sores are caused by crows and mynahs.  i reckoned that while it is normal for the rhinos to have birds clean teh parasites off teh rhinos' back, these local birds are not properly adapted to do the job properly without doing any harm to the rhinos' sensitive skin.

storks at the zoo, which butts up against a nature reserve/reservior.

 

some sort of a water bird wandering about at the Singapore Botanic Gardens.

The little waterfowl you posted is a White-breasted Water Hen. Here is a link with some info about this species.

http://www.naturia.per.sg/buloh/birds/Amaurornis_phoenicurus.htm

And I remember those dog-gone mynahs! They would always wait around my house (in Spore) at feeding time for my German Shepherd, and flock to her bowl to eat her dinner! So I had to sit next to that damn mutt, coax her to eat and keep those thieving bastards at bay.

I don't know if you know of this, Gil, but by the Ang Mo Kio library, pest-control used to come by with rifles to shoot these buggers. There had to be 100s of them, screaming up in the Angsana trees.

didn't know about them shooting the mynahs, but they sure did a number on crows.

You know, these little Mynahs are very popular with soft bill enthusiasts! I was at the parrot store a while back, and saw a few of these little rascals going for close to $1000!

I told my husband these little street urchins are like, EVERWHERE in Singapore! Ha.

I actually had one for a while. It was a baby and crashed into my neighbour's kitchen. Got a call, went there, and came back with the little one. I named it Tuxedo Sam, and it would hang out on my shoulder. If I did something he didn't like, he would nipped at my ear. One time he missed and jabbed my eyeball. So I went around looking like a zombie, cos the white in my eye turned a dark red.