Birdwatching taking flight among more young Singaporeans

SINGAPORE – On Sunday mornings, 15-year-old Kaeden Sim gets togged up in a bucket hat, polo T-shirt and trekking pants and, with a camera in hand, sets off in search of Singapore’s elusive winged residents.

One of his regular haunts is the Henderson Waves pedestrian bridge in Telok Blangah Hill Park. The forested area in the Southern Ridges is a haven for birdwatching enthusiasts, who can spot birds like the crested honey buzzard and Japanese sparrowhawk in the skies overhead.

Kaeden, a Secondary 3 student from Nan Hua High School, is the youngest member of the Bird Society of Singapore, a volunteer group that aims to promote conservation and research on Singapore’s birds. 

He and other members of the group often lead free birdwatching sessions at Henderson Waves, where they help eagle-eyed enthusiasts spot birds like the brahminy kite and grey-faced buzzard.

Kaeden, who hopes to major in biology or zoology in university, is among the growing number of young birdwatchers in Singapore.

The

Nature Society Singapore’s (NSS) annual Singapore Bird Race

has seen an uptick in the number of youth participants – from 40 in 2022 to 75 in 2023, said Mr Tan Gim Cheong, chairman of the Bird Race organising committee.

This year’s race, a two-day event taking place on Nov 9 and 10, has drawn 100 young people in both the primary and youth categories.

Kaeden, whose team emerged first in the “marathon” category at the 2023 race, was bitten by the birdwatching bug when he was 11, when he tagged along with his mother on a guided bird walk in Pasir Ris Park and saw a spotted wood owl for the first time.

He said: “It flew over our heads, and it was so wonderful to me. I didn’t know Singapore had such a unique species – I didn’t even know Singapore had owls.”

Since then, he has been on a quest to find out more about the birds found in Singapore.

Kaeden said: “I was so surprised to find that Singapore has such a wide range of biodiversity as we are such a small city. I didn’t know that in these small pockets of forest, there’s so much wildlife.”

One highlight of Kaeden’s birdwatching adventures, however, did not involve a feathered friend.

Instead, it was the day he got the chance to take National Development Minister Desmond Lee

on a guided bird walk around Jurong Lake Gardens in 2023

– an experience he found inspirational. 

Bird expert Frank Rheindt, who leads the Avian Evolution Lab at the National University of Singapore, said he welcomes the growing interest in birdwatching among Singapore’s youth.

Birdwatching, he added, offers a gateway to the natural world and builds awareness of the existing environmental crisis.

Professor Rheindt said: “Birdwatchers are attuned to the environment around them and perceive these frightening changes with much greater clarity than many other people.

“Even young birdwatchers already notice the plummeting numbers of migrant birds that reach us every winter. Some species would arrive in their thousands a few decades ago, then in their hundreds in the years before Covid-19, but only in their dozens since then.”

He added that one key factor that has led more Singaporeans to birdwatching is the improvement in technology.

For instance, the rise of online citizen science platforms like

eBird

and

iNaturalist

allows birdwatchers to upload photographs of bird sightings, together with information like where the bird was seen. 

Social media platforms also provide an avenue for the dissemination of the latest birdwatching news.

For instance, the

Bird Sightings

Facebook group – which shares wild bird sightings in Singapore and Malaysia – has more than 25,000 members. The

Singapore Birders

group, which is managed by the NSS Bird Group, has about 4,200 members.

Prof Rheindt, who started birdwatching in 1987, said: “One to two decades ago, the Singaporean birdwatchers scene was much lonelier. Much of that is related to the fact that people had more difficulty exchanging news about exciting sightings and records.”

The growing availability of affordable birdwatching equipment, such as binoculars and camera gear, has helped, too. 

Prof Rheindt said a decent pair of binoculars these days is sold for about $150 to $200.

In the past, he said, binoculars “simply weren’t as good, and the passable ones would cost you thousands”, while modern cameras of the kind that people have today did not yet exist.

Sec 4 student Lim Qian Xun, 16, said birdwatching offers a much-needed respite from preparing for her O levels.

Qian Xun, a student at Nan Hua High School, first began birdwatching with her parents during the Covid-19 pandemic, and one of her favourite birdwatching spots is the Jelutong Tower in MacRitchie Reservoir Park, which she visits at the crack of dawn.

“You know the saying ‘the early bird gets the worm’? For us, it’s the early human gets the bird.”