Pulau Ubin

I am sorry about the live updates. I was too concentrated on the bird life that I could not updaye the blog.

So today I went to Pulau Ubin off the cost of Singapore. Pulau Ubin is 2nd largest island ,not counting the mainland, with an area of 1020 hectares. Pulau Ubin used to be 5 smaller islands separated by tidal rivers. Prawn farmers built bunds and hence united the islands. There are two other islands on the south on Pulau Ubin called Pulau Ketam (Crab Island) and Pulau Sekudu (Frog Island) .

So I woke up at 5:45 and got ready by 6:15. The original plan was to leave by 6:30, but we were delayed and left at 7:00. We reached by 7:20 to Changi Jetty. By 7:30 12 people had arrived to go to Pulau Ubin, including us, and we started on the boat.

Heading Out | ISO500 | 35mm | f8 | 1/320sec

Viewing From The Outsides | ISO500 | 35mm | f8 | 1/1000sec

I was using the 35mm on the boat taking pictures of the landscape. We reached Pulau Ubin at 7:45 and were intermediately were welcomed by 4 hornbills and starlings. I goy some pictures here:

Hornbill | ISO500 | 180mm | f8 | 1/800sec

Hornbill | ISO500 | 195mm | f8 | 1/1250sec

Hornbill | ISO500 | 300mm | f8 | 1/400sec

Starling | ISO500 | 300mm | f5.6 | 1/250sec

I should have over exposed the hornbills as the hornbills were dark.

After the amazing start we headed towards the Penkan Qarry. As we were walking we came across a bulbul like bird which I could not get a picture, and we could not identify. Imdeiatley at the penkan query we were greeted by a herons and a stork-billed kingfisher. The pictures below are the best pictures . We stayed there for about half an hour and we saw a stork billed kingfisher, grey herons, yellow vented bulbuls, Ashy tailor birds, blue throated bee-eaters, common mynas. javan mynas and sunbirds.

Blue Throated Kingfisher

Stork Billed Kingfisher

Pekan Qarry

Ashy Tailor Bird

At 8:30 we headed towards Ubin query. Our original plan was to go to the Ketam Quarry after Ubin Quarry, but we decided not to as it was getting warmer. We reached a bridgde where we decided to take a pitstop to try and see if we could see any birds. We could not see much other then swallows and fish jumping out of water. There were actualy 2 fishermen fishing with live prawn. They kept the prawns in their bike baskets and aerated it. We decided to have coconut juice. For $4 we got big freshly picked coconuts.

View from the bridge

At 9:20 we reached Merbah Hut. On our way we saw an olive winged bulbul. I only took 5 pictures before they took off. I only got one good picture as I was actually not ready to take the picture. So after about 5 mins we started heading to the view point of the ubin quarry, We decided to go back to the town after going here as it was already getting warm. We had come for the birds and around midday the birds start going in. I underestimated the trail to the viewing point. The trial was very steep and tiring. The view was average at the top. On the way down we saw another blue throated bee eater but I could not get a good picture .

Olive Winged Sunbird

View of Ubin Querry

We headed back to the Pekan Quarry where we saw two more hornbill, a kite, withe bellied sea eagle and hill mynas. All the birds except the hornbill were too far for my 300mm zoom. The hornbill I decided to frame it between the trees. On the way back I had seen a flying lizard for the first time.