Bird Tale 02

Welcome to Bird Discovery Centre, the latest addition of Jurong Bird Park.



There are quite a lot of props and exhibits in this centre. As my knowledge of birds is limited, so the station I manned was much simpler. This is an Egg Lume which can gauge the extent of embryo development and air space increase during incubation.  The method is called egg candling.

The method uses a bright light source behind the egg to show details through the shell, and is so called because the original sources of light used were candles.

For uncooked egg, one can see the light shining through the egg. If there is embryo or fertilisation, you can spot it.


Once it is cooked, no light can be see through the egg. The solidifying matter is also the reason why cooked eggs can be spinned but raw eggs cannot.


Guess the birds whose eggs it belong to? Black egg = Emu, the white smaller one = Rhea, the biggest egg of course is the ostrich and the lovely green mango lookalike is the Cassowary's egg.


The next topic is feathers! Mainly 3 types (though there are more specifics): Down feather, Body feather and flight feather. For fletchings, they only have down feather which is soft and keep you warm. It can also be used to make pillow.


This is a lovely 1 metre feather from Great Argus pheasant. It is said that the longest can grow up to 2 metre. Woah!


Can you see the sail feather of this male mandarin duck. I find it very lovely that this feather only appears during mating season. Oh and Dr. Squawk says that actually only mandarin duck and king penguin mate for live (referring to birds in JBP only).


This is a Citron Crested Cockatoo. Her name is Nga Nga (Forgive me if I spelt wrongly).


Caught sight of her raised orange crest.. coolz. She has a habit of peeling of the bark though.. wonder why.


Haha excited to see her food that she raised her crest again. And the way she uses her claw to eat, really lovable.

After I'm done duty, a CA volunteered to be my tour guide to guide me around JBP. We picked a few places (those I did not managed to go previously). Missed the fake thunderstorm at Southeast Asian Birds Aviary during noontime though haha.. but I guess it is ok. The Jungle Jewels reminded me of Zoo's Biodome with a rainforest feel.



This is a Scarlet Ibis, who mainly lives near coastal mangroves, swamps and estuaries. Thus when you find them in the JBP, you can actually find that area with a musky smell.  Oh and if you can see the tag on the leg, that means the bird is a JBP's bird.  A tip taught by my tour guide of the day.. (I learnt alot from her that day especially on what were the interesting/uncommon behaviours which only the regulars will know... somehow like if I catch the baby sloth on its own, I will point to the tourist that is uncommon too haha!)



And this is great artist Picaso, the Yellow Crested Cockatoo, in the process of painting one of its greats artwork.



Ta-da! An artwork for SGD10 including postcard and notebook etc. Interested? Picaso has a portfolio for you to choose from too.



Caught sight of the peacock too.. Oh there is a peacock (male), peahen (female).. and if you don't know the gender, you can always term them as a peafowl. But seriously it is very easy to differentiate the gender...



Just by their beautiful tail feathers... so many eyes!

My last stop was to visit the owls (World of Darkness), the place I saw a month ago but had no chance to visit. And with it, I can finally say that I did visit most parts of JBP. Of course, like the zoo, I believed every time you visit nature, you will see something different.. but for now, I'm happy with my visit.