With approximately 40% of urban ecology literature focused on birds, it is of no doubt birds hold a prominent place in urban ecology. As an urban city, Singapore houses many urban birds. As a child, the local urban bird that had the largest impression on me was the house crow (Corvus splendens). In my childlike eyes, they were large and frightening. In an attempt to curb the exploding population of the invasive house crow, the Singapore government has used culling since 1973 (Brook et al., 2003). I actually witnessed one such culling event in my estate. I remember the loud gunshot sounds and being told by my mother that they were shooting the crows.

As a young adult now, I realise that I do not notice the house crow as often as before. Instead, everywhere I look on the streets is the ubiquitous myna. However, it may not be widely known among locals that Singapore actually has two species of myna, the common myna (Acridotheres tristis) and the Javan myna (A. javanicus). As a Bachelor of Environmental Studies student, I am embarrassed to say that I only learned this fact a few months ago. Earlier, I had the misconception that Singapore had only one species of myna, which was introduced. Yet, this is not true. The Javan myna was introduced to Singapore around 1924, while the common myna is native to Singapore (Yap, 2003).

In fact, the myna we often observe all around us is the Javan myna. In the 31st Annual Bird Census conducted last year by the Bird Group of the Nature Society (Singapore), the Javan myna was found to be the most abundant. 900 Javan mynas were observed that day, making up 13.4% of all birds detected in the census (Bird Group of the NSS, 2016). On the other hand, house crow was in 11th place with 138 counts, making up approximately 2.05% (Bird Group of the NSS, 2016). Thus, it is evident that the local bird diversity is currently dominated by the Javan myna. The common myna did not even place among the top 20 abundant birds counted in the census.

Javan myna (A. javanicus) [Photograph by: Kavi Nanda]

I have always considered both the house crow and the Javan myna as pests. Not only are they not aesthetically pleasing, they are always congregating around hawker centres and pecking away at food scraps left behind on the tables. In other countries, the Javan myna is an agricultural pest, feeding on cultivated fruits and young crops. In Singapore, the main problems it causes are noise, droppings associated with communal roosts and competition with native species.

Upon learning in ENV2102 Environmental Law, Policy, Governance & Management that Singapore’s legislation (Statute 5 of the Wild Animals and Birds Act ) legalises the killing of species specified in the Schedule, I actually supported the idea of culling Javan mynas. Other than the Javan myna, five other species have been specified in the Schedule, namely the house crow, the feral pigeon (Columba livia), the purple-backed starling (Sturnus sturninus), the Philippine glossy starling (Aplonis panayensis) and the common myna.

My dislike for the species grew when I begin to observe a Javan myna on the ledge right outside my window. It kept coming back day after day, making loud calls frequently. Its calls annoyed me when I was studying and I would try to chase it away. One day, I saw it entering the electrical box (which is not completely covered) at the lift lobby with a twig. I figured the myna must be nesting in there, and that is why it keeps appearing at my window, which is right next to the lift lobby.

Just last week, I noticed this handwritten sign by a neighbour on the electrical box. Upon closer inspection, I heard chicks chirping! As I was taking the photograph below, the myna was calling from the nearby ledge, seemingly agitated by my presence and protective of its chicks. Having always thought that most Singaporeans would share my dislike for the myna, I was surprised that one of my neighbours was compassionate for it. It made me reconsider my dislike for the species.

Handwritten note by a neighbour pasted on the electrical box in the lift lobby

Human-wildlife conflict in urban areas is a prevalent issue in Singapore, with the recent uproar over the culling of local jungle fowls (refer to Lijean’s post to find out more). Being an invasive species, the Javan myna is here to stay. Taking the example of my neighbour, I may not be able to love the species but I think I can slowly learn to coexist with my feathery neighbours. Looking forward to the opportunity to see the adult myna and chicks in action!

Sources:
Bird Group of the Nature Society (Singapore) (Bird Group of the NSS). (2016). Report on the 31st Annual Bird Census. Retrieved from: https://www.nss.org.sg/report/f246e330-9ABC%202016%20report.pdf
Brook, B. W., Sodhi, N. S., Soh, M. C. K. & Lim, H. C. (2003). Abundance and Projected Control of Invasive House Crows in Singapore. The Journal of Wildlife Management, 67(4): 808-817.
Yap, C. A. M. (2003). A Study of the Changes in the Range Size of White-vented Mynas in Singapore. The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology, 51(1): 159-163.

On January 2017, in the heartlands of Bedok, a pair of crested goshawks decided to make a new home for their family. In this blog post, I would like to share a few photos taken by our local nature photographers and also discuss how this bird has managed to thrive in the urban environment.

The crested goshawk, Accipiter trivirgatus, is a resident raptor in Singapore with a range that extend from South to Southeast Asia. Growing up to 43 cm, some diagnostic features include a long crest and a buff vent. The Crested Goshawk usually resides and breeds in lowland forests and woodlands.

In this urban ecology special, our feathered friends managed to nest successfully in the urban environment in a tall tree adjacent to a HDB right in Bedok North.

Photograph by: GaoJian LiuJia (facebook)

In order to nest successfully, a few conditions have to be met. One of them is an appropriate nest site. Thanks to our nation-wide urban greenery plan, we see many tall trees in our city, thereby providing refuge and shelter to build a nest. This, along with the many shrubs in the vicinity, ensures that nesting materials can be obtained conveniently and easily.

Another condition is a convenient food source for both parents and the chicks. Our urban biodiversity is very much made up of ‘pest’ species like crows, Javan mynas and pigeons. Would these pest birds be an ideal diet for our goshawks?

Photograph by: Adrian Tan (facebook)

From the photographs taken by our nature photographers above and many more on the Internet, it can be seen that the main diet of these goshawks are Javan mynas and fruit bats. These animals are very common in our urban landscape, possibly increasing hunting success.

Photograph by: Tony Chua (facebook)

With such an abundance of food , little threat of predation on both eggs and chicks (the domestic cats couldn’t climb up such a high tree) and nest defence by the parents, the two chicks successfully fledged and were taught to preen and hunt by their parents.

As the juveniles were learning to fly for the first time, there were many occasions when they fell to the ground. This caused quite an excitement among the goshawks’ human neighbours as they were able to witness this important moment of a fledging’s life. Many members of the general public would have never seen a crested goshawk before, and to see their life-cycle first hand was indeed a delight! From the photograph below we see the goshawk’s neighbours of all ages curiously fascinated by its presence and yet keeping a distance from it (possibly instructed by our nature photographers). However, with the crowd swarming a single bird, would the young goshawk be heavily stressed out?

Photograph by: Jeremiah Loei (facebook)

Hopefully, this successful nesting in the heartlands reminded many Singaporeans that we do have wildlife thriving in our tiny island. In the case of the goshawks, it shows that wildlife can indeed coexist with people in the urban environment, and breed successfully due to the year-round abundance of prey and low predation risk. I also hope that this nesting event raises awareness about conserving the wildlife we have in Singapore and help us appreciate the existence of natural landscapes even in our heavily urbanised environment.

*edit*

A recent study by Lin et al. (2015) also found increased breeding success by crested goshawks in the urban environment in Taiwan. Similar to our local goshawks, factors that improve breeding performance include lower predation, high food supply and shelter from inclement weather. They even found that the urban environment advances the goshawks’ breeding schedule, coincidently avoiding the rainy season. The crested goshawk could be adapting fantastically to the new urban environment globally.

You can read the paper here: http://web.ntnu.edu.tw/~treehopper/lib/publications_lib_pdf/accipiter_et_al_2015.pdf

I just wanted to use this space to express my genuine sadness to see this semester come to an end. I’ve been teaching this course for 3 years now (though this is my first time coordinating it), and I have never had such buy-in to the blog before. To have this durable record of such diverse and informed pieces of writing by my students – well, it’s hard to express how gratifying this is. I will consider myself fortunate if I have a group that is even half as engaged as this one was. And by the way, it’s worth noting that a large fraction of my students were 3rd year students. My deepest thanks for making this website so wonderful !

I came across this post while scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed today, and was pleasantly surprised to learn of a new book that was released just last month!

“Unseen City: The Majesty of Pigeons, the Discreet Charm of Snails & Other Wonders of the Urban Wilderness.” – the title says it all, doesn’t it? Urban synanthropes, urban adapters, they’re all here! Check out the trailer below!

This is definitely going into my to-read list! 🙂

Gone birding in a park before? How about in a cemetery?! It all started out with Song Lin’s idea of surveying abandoned places in Singapore for our group’s urban ecology project, and after streamlining the idea into something more practical for us to complete within the time frame of this module, our group decided to compare avian diversity in 2 parks and 2 cemeteries (well, not exactly abandoned) in Singapore. The 2 parks and cemeteries are Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park, Tampines Eco Green (TEG), Lim Chu Kang Chinese cemetery and Lim Chu Kang Christian cemetery?

So why exactly did we choose parks and cemeteries? Both parks and cemeteries only occur in an urban landscape, with cemeteries receiving fewer visitors than park. Also, there is a gap in knowledge of avian diversity of both areas, especially on the diversity in both the cemeteries. As such, we identified 3 main objectives: 1) To investigate into the diversity of local
parks and cemeteries 2) Investigate if human disturbance affects diversity and to 3) Promote parks and cemeteries as pockets of diversity within the city.

 

 

Here are some key findings of our study that we hope to share:

1. Christian cemetery has significantly higher abundance
2. Chinese cemetery and Tampines Eco Green has significantly lower proportion of non-native bird abundance
   • For Chinese cemetery, this result is likely because it is connected to the Western Catchment
   • TEG was specifically designed for birds, and a lower proportion of non-native bird abundance could be because the non-native urban bird species are not able to exploit this habitat
   • Also, for TEG, our results show that proximity to buildup area does not affect proportion of non-native birds
3. No significant difference in bird diversity (Shannon-Weiner Index) among the 4 locations
4. No significant difference in richness (No. Of species) among the 4 locations
   • Similar diversity, but different assemblage (identity matters!)

 

With these results in hand, our group went on to create our deliverable, titled: Aviantures!

The aim of Aviantures is for our target audience (University students) to learn about our findings in a fun and interactive way. It is also to introduce the birds found in our parks and cemeteries as well as to learn about extent of human disturbance and impacts of urbanisation on bird diversity. It is a fun, engaging and competitive board game that we hope everyone will enjoy and learn something from this process. Here are some pictures of our game!

 

Our group really enjoyed the process of surveying and making the game, and we hoped that all of you enjoyed our presentation too!

*Food for thought: We wanted to bring up the implications of developing Jurong area as the next industrial hub in our presentation, but did not have enough time. Renee has nicely summarised some of the information in her blog post here which you can read about and think about the possible implications for the avian biodiversity in the cemeteries.*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The issues we’ve been discussing in class are in the news!! (ok it’s not exactly news, more like a commentary… but still!)

I just thought it’d be interesting to share, because of the suggestion in the last few paragraphs. Can we create an “urban food chain” in which javan mynas are the prey, and we humans are the predator? Not the most appealing solution at first glance, but it got me wondering whether it might actually work…

Aside from being unappealing to the general public (why eat mynas when you can afford all this other more appealing food?), the main issue I can think of is probably a health issue, if the mynas have been rooting through our garbage (but wouldn’t that just be incentive for us not to expose our trash?). I suppose there might be other issues that I haven’t considered, but it really did get me thinking about whether the creation of “urban food chains” (involving humans) is possible, and whether that might alleviate the pest problem.

What do you guys think? I’d really like to hear some thoughts about this interesting proposal

Have you ever taken notice of the birds singing in the morning as you leave your house for the 8am urban ecology lectures?

Dawn chorus is a phenomenon in which many birds have a peak in their singing activity during the dawn hours. Some researchers hypothesize that dawn chorus may play a role in territorial defense and mate selection. Others hypothesize that this phenomenon occurs because dawn is when microclimatic conditions are optimal for the propagation of sound over longer distances without being attenuation or disruption.

Though I have been staying in Raffles Hall over the past four years,  I realized it recently as I leave my room early in the morning for the 8am lectures there is actually a substantial dawn chorus in Raffles Hall. Raffles hall is found opposite Yusoff Ishak House, in the centre of NUS. Accordingly to my block residental fellow, Professor Yap, whom is also a nature lover, Raffles Hall is home to quite a diversity of plants, which may be a reason why it is also frequently visited by a diversity of birds.

Photo of Raffles Hall

So I  woke up earlier one morning before urban ecology lecture to record down the dawn chorus of Raffles Hall.  If you have never notice the dawn chorus in your neighborhood before, here is a 16 minutes sound recording of the dawn chorus in Raffles Hall for your appreciation.

Note: Try clicking along the recording at different timings to hear different species of birds singing. Some birds start singing earlier while others start singing later.

References cited:

Catchpole, C. K., & Slater, P. J. B. (2008). Bird Song: Biological Themes and Variations: Cambridge University Press.

Hi everyone,

After sharing the incident of how I was attacked by sparrows during my time in United States, I thought it would be interesting to find out if any research have been done to understand if human subsidization have caused birds to behave more aggressively in cities.

Though I did not find any papers or articles of people being attacked by birds for food, I found an interesting paper titled  “Attacks on Humans by Australian Magpies: Management of an Extreme Suburban Human Wildlife Conflict ”

The authors found in their survey that approximately 80% of the 749 people reported to have been attacked by Australian Magpies (Cracticus tibicen) in their lives. Australian Magpie, similar to blue jay, is widely distributed throughout Australia. They also found that higher percentage of males in their survey were attacked by Australian Magpies. The magpies often attack the head of their victims and incidents have been reported that some humans have even been blinded by these attacks. Advertisements with preventive measures had been put up to increase the awareness of the pedestrians walking in the open areas. Most researchers hypothesize that these birds might be view walking pedestrians as invaders of their territories.

Warning advertisement: From: http://www.wildliferescue.net.au/help/living-with-magpies/

Though it is unrelated to the question that was brought up during the discussion, “If we put in more measures in canteens to reduce human subsidization, will Javan Mynas become more aggressive and attack humans over food ?”, It is still an interesting idea to ponder about since I have been attacked by sparrows over my sandwich before and this literature highlighted the problems that may arise if birds do start attacking humans frequently.

References cited:

Jones, D. N., & Thomas, L. K., 1999. Attacks on humans by Australian magpies: Management of an extreme suburban human-wildlife conflict.Wildlife Society Bulletin (1973-2006), 27(2), 473-478.