Bidadari Park

Not exactly a park. Just a patch of forest land that is soon going to go the way of the dodo bird. So thought before it disappear forever, to go down there and try to take a shot at the birds that abound there. And I wasn't disappeared. Could hear many different type of bird call. But Uncle's eyes not so good and has to rely on friends and other photographers who were there to spot them.

One thing I long realised is that a 70-200 lens is not enough to take photos of little birds perched high up in the trees or far away. So while other photographers with the tokong lens captured beautiful close up, all I managed to do was get many blur blur shots of little birds. Fortunately, some cropping helped and I didn't go away empty handed though the quality could be better. Oh well....

White Throated Kingfisher

Spotted Flycatcher, I think

Rusty Breasted Cuckoo

Hodgson's Hawk Cuckoo

Jurong Eco Garden

Been meaning to drop by the Jurong Eco Garden but never had the time until recently. Not very easy to find place set within NTU itself and with small teeny weeny signboard. To get there, it is easier to look for Thow Kwang Pottery, the last remaining kiln in Singapore. The Jurong Eco Garden is just next to it.

Disappointingly, the garden is another cultivated park. Perhaps there used to be a big forest patch there but most of these are gone now replaced by neat cultured landscaping, bridges and proper footpaths. Great for those looking for a stroll in the park but not great if you are looking for the great nature. And without the big trees, the place was hot hot hot!

About the only "natural and wild" portion left was a 1 km Nature trail but sadly that will also have to go in due course. There was a sign at the trail head that stated that the nature trail will only be opened till year 2019.

Nothing much to see there but still did managed to spot a fair number of critters.

A few different butterflies flitting around but despite our "request" for them to pose for my camera, none of the butterflies took heed except this one

At least the dragonflies were more co-operative

There were also a number of lizards on the trees

And I could hear the sound of parakeets and koel but they were nowhere in sight. Still I did managed to spot some birds

And these group of swifts or swallows flying over the pond. Too bad my camera skill and setup was not good enough to take a close up shot of them

Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve Extension

When the Nparks announced the opening of the extension, I was fairly excited. So one afternoon I went there only to discover that it was the former Kranji Trail which I had visited before and which sadly is now "sanitised to become the new Sungei Buloh Extension. The former nice trail has been partially replaced with a concrete path and there are now more beautiful viewing structures but somehow it seems more like a park now than a nature reserve.

Board Walk with shelters

Rope walk including one that goes partially into a pond

Nice looking shelter. There are a number of them all over

Didn't spot many birds. Some of the things we spotted in the short time that we were there

Common Nerita snails

My first hornbill photo

Mud crab

Tree climbing crab

Mudskipper

Of course the monitor lizard

Golden Orb spider

 Waterhen

A slug

Birds & Butterflies of Scotland

Beside the birds in the zoo and bird parks, we saw many wild birds on top of the countless sea gulls and ducks. Here are some of those that I managed to take a picture of.

A magpie. They are supposed to be pretty common but I only saw them in a few places.

 Another of the more commonly sighted bird which unfortunately like in Singapore has outlive its welcome

 And this is the famous Robin!

This was spotted in London all over the place outside the London Tower but I believe it is native to the whole of UK. I think it is a thrush. Somebody correct me if I am wrong.

And my one and only photograph of a butterfly - spotted right on top of Cow's Head Summit. This is a Red Admiral butterfly.

Edinburgh Zoo, Scotland

Our last main stop before we move over to London was to the Edinburgh Zoo. It seems we must make a pit stop at a zoo in every major place that we visit. There are quite of marine park and zoo in Scotland but Edinburgh is one of the bigger and better zoo in UK so we felt obliged to drop in.

Edinburgh Zoo is one of the few zoo in the world to have the Panda bear. But it is more famous for its Penguin Parade where the Penguin goes on a real march through the zoo, Unfortunately we were there at the wrong time so did not get to witness this spectacular sight.

But we did managed to catch the feeding of several of the animals like the Oriental Short Clawed Otter gobbling down the mouse.

And the Asiatic lion running away with a piece of meat.

We also saw up close the Amur Leopard

The very rare Scottish wild cat

And surprise surprise surprise the Koala bear. This is the first time I seen one outside of Australia.

And another import from another country, the Stellar Sea Eagle.

And last but not least, this beautiful snake aptly named Taiwan Beauty Snake.

But overall I was disappointed with the layout of the zoo. It was a bit messy and most of the primates were kept behind glass enclosures. Maybe it is to protect them from the cold but the view of them were spoilt by the glass which were badly scratched. The variety of animals were not as great as I had hopped as compared to say Ueno Zoo or the Shanghai Zoo. 

Loch Lomond, Scotland

The most famous place in Scotland is probable Loch Ness, home of the mythical Lock Ness Monster. Naturally that was on our must visit list until all the locals we spoke to told us not to waste our time travelling there. So in the end, instead of Loch Ness, we ended up at Loch Lomond.

Loch Lomond is the largest lake in mainland Britian - i.e. England and Scotland and is about 71 sq km in surface area. Certainly it was big cause we could see that it stretches on and on and even when we were driving up to the highlands, we keep passing signs pointing to Loch Lomond.

We decided that the earliest way to explore it is to take one of the short cruise. There are different cruises available including sunset dinner cruise but we had only time for short cruise. What we saw on this little cruises were beautiful houses along the river banks. Most of them have been converted to hotels and it seems celebrities from all over the world flock here to stay and escape from the crowd.

 

There was even an island which is Scotland's first naturist island! Unfortunately we didn't get to land there to take in the "sights" although I am sure with the bitter cold wind, there won't be any brave soul baring all on the other.

Anyway, there are plenty of other kind of birds, the real kind that is. Seagull, ducks are in abundance flying all over the place.

But what really got M excited was the first sighting of black berries! And there were plenty of them growing wild all over the places. 

 

At Balloch, the part of Loch Lomond that we were at, there was a small Bird of Prey Centre and naturally we had to go in and see and we got up close to many beautiful owls and eagles. More photos will be posted up on my Facebook Check it out there..

We also discovered an automated toilet.

Visitor has to put in the correct fee and the door will open.....and the toilet cleans by itself. How about that!

From Loch Lomond, we moved on to our first castle......