And then there were four hornbills

Looking back at our last blog post, I wrote that if we were lucky, we might spot the gregarious Oriental Pied Hornbills during our monthly guided trip to Chek Jawa Boardwalk. We must have been REALLY fortunate; we saw four Oriental Pied Hornbills on one tree during our trip on 25th September, 2010. Here is proof of the sighting!

Can't see four hornbills? Scroll down and view the next photograph.

It is truly wonderful that these magnificent birds have made their home in Pulau Ubin. Their presence must not be taken for granted because it takes more than just a few trees to lure them to stay. It is the large tracts of forests with an abundance of food including fruits, small vertebrates and invertebrates to support the many hornbills found on the island. Of course, there are the man-made nesting boxes that play a big part too, thanks to the hornbill-breeding programme run by NParks and Singapore Avian Conservation Project.

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Here are the drawings made by some of the 30 visitors that we had that day:

Read more about the visitors who came to our walk in Ria's wildshores blog too: http://wildshores.blogspot.com/2010/09/triple-joy-at-chek-jawa-boardwalk.html

We had Elsa and her family including a set of triplets! There was Mr Chong and his family including the 2 young ladies, Jennifer and Jessica, who gave us this colourful drawing of the mangroves in Chek Jawa.

And then there was Seng Heng and his group of friends. Here is a picture of his group on the boardwalk, followed by a picture of their drawing.

If you're interested to visit Chek Jawa Boardwalk during one of our free guided walks, please write to nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com. We run our walks on the 4th Saturday of each month in the morning. The announcement for each walk will be posted closer to the date.

Lastly, thanks go out to our volunteer guides - Ria, Ivan, LK and Kavita, our new friend from NIE.