In July last year, while hiking our usual forest trail in MacRitchie, we encountered a magical bird of Singapore - an adult male of the Crimson Sunbird species, Aethopyga siparaja. He posed for us for exactly 1 minute in a shrub of tapioca plants, while delicately sipping nectar from the tapioca blossoms.
Resplendent in his scarlet red, black & grey feathers, speckled with white, some even declare that he's the national bird of Singapore. Indeed, it was fortuitous that we spotted him just a month before our National Day.
Yesterday, after lengthening our route to a grand total of 15 km over 4 hours, we were rewarded towards the end by another sighting of Mr Sunbird.
For this, full credit must go to my wife, Theresa. Just as every marksman is well-served by an eagle-eyed spotter, on numerous outdoor adventures, her keen eyesight & woman's intuition have pointed my camera in the right direction. On occasions, she has even taken over the camera, freezing her own breathless moments of beauty like this yellow Oriole & pretty Honolulu blooms in & around our garden-in-the-sky.Anyway, after hiking the same trail almost every Sunday since climbing Mt Kinabalu together in 2010, we're grown to appreciate the simple joys of Nature. Rain or shine, my trusty Panasonic camera is always with me, for just such moments that take our breath away.
