Singapore has no small number of rare bird species, but few are quite as rare and as beautiful as the Mangrove Pitta (Pitta megarhyncha), a colourful little bird that is found specifically in mangrove habitats in Singapore.
Mangrove Pitta (Pitta megarhyncha)
Spotting such a scarce and exquisite bird therefore tends to generate an incredible amount of excitement among bird enthusiasts and photographers alike, all of whom want the chance to observe and photograph the bird in its natural habitat. This level of excitement, however, leads some people to do things that may end up being detrimental to the livelihood of the bird in general and although I’ve heard many stories of such incidents happening, today was my first time witnessing this appalling behaviour in the flesh.
Mangrove Pitta (Pitta megarhyncha)
In this instance, the mangrove pitta was reportedly spotted somewhere in the East and the appearance of the pitta near the boardwalk sparked off a flurry of activity among the 10-odd bird photographers present with their unfeasibly large and expensive camera setups. With everyone focused on capturing a clear shot of the bird, things were remarkably calm and civilised, at least until one birder began making squeaking noises (known as ‘pishing’) to try to draw the bird closer to where the cameras were. As I found out to my surprise during my LSM2251 Ecology module, although pishing does have the effect of luring birds closer, doing so disrupts the natural behaviour of the birds and is therefore not recommended as a birding practice as it places unnecessary stress on the bird. In this case, with the pitta already so close to the cacophony of clicking cameras, pishing the pitta was entirely unnecessary and unwarranted since the bird was largely in plain view, albeit not directly facing the cameras, and that alone should be no reason for having to resort to disrupting the natural behaviour of the bird. In spite of this, however, not one of the birders present said a word and most of us were too engrossed with photographing the bird.
Mangrove Pitta (Pitta megarhyncha)
The last straw came, however, when the pitta finally flew off deeper into the mangrove, whereupon several of the birders present took the opportunity to leap off the boardwalk and onto the sandy mangrove substrate to chase after the bird. In addition to that, our erstwhile pisher whipped out his iPhone and began playing back a recording of the mangrove pitta’s call in an attempt to draw the bird out of the dense mangrove forest and out into the open. Like pishing, call playback also has the effect of luring out birds, though in this case it’s mainly due to the fact that birds tend to be territorial and playing back the call of another individual of the same species fools the bird into thinking another individual is present and is contesting its territory. This, too, has the unwanted side effect of placing the bird under unnecessary amounts of stress and duress since defending one’s territory is quite a taxing task for the bird and may lead to birds abandoning their territories if they lose the challenge. Indeed, if the bird happens to be nesting, playing back the call of another individual may sometimes lead to birds abandoning their nests and aborting their breeding cycles if the bird thinks the playback is a more dominant or aggressive individual. This is particularly problematic for slow-breeding species like the pittas and using call playbacks to draw pittas out may have the opposite effect of chasing the bird away from the site. All this, of course, on top of the fact that members of the public are generally not supposed to stray off the boardwalk in the mangrove areas for fear that their trampling may accidentally damage the mangrove trees or negatively affect the mangrove fauna.
Having seen and heard enough, I decided to approach the man behind these highly disruptive activities and his birding companion (see below) and very politely told them that they ought not to be using recorded calls and pishing to draw out the birds, whereupon the man simply paid no attention to what I said and his companion claimed to not have pished or played back any calls at all, an excuse which I found to be completely preposterous since he was clearly a party complicit in his friend’s needlessly disruptive actions.
Badly Behaved Birder (centre) and his companion (left)
Badly Behaved Birder
Badly Behaved Birder using his iPhone to playback pitta calls
Badly Behaving Birder's Companion
Badly Behaving Birder's Companion
Another couple who came along much later and tried the same tactic of using call playbacks to lure the pitta out were much more receptive and when informed of the disruptive effects of call playbacks, claimed that they were unaware of the potential detrimental effects of playbacks and that they were simply following what other birders were doing (I have a very low res video of them which I’ll upload later).
At the end of the day, what this whole episode demonstrates is the dangers of over-enthusiasm and the problem of the o’erweening sense of self-entitlement that some birders and bird photographers possess toward their subjects. Having sunk tens of thousands of dollars into amassing ever longer lenses most certainly does not give one the right to disturb nature for one’s own selfish purposes and, as birders, we all have a responsibility toward treating our subjects with respect to ensure that their lives and the environments they live in are not unnecessarily impacted by human disturbance. More than that, however, it would appear that the root causes of this behaviour is sometimes selfish but also sometimes unintentional and may stem from imitating the practices of others. As such, it is just as important for us as birders to inform and educate, and maybe even sometimes admonish, those who would exhibit such errant behaviour in the hopes that misconceptions and unintentional disturbances can be minimised. All this, so that we may preserve and protect the birds we profess to love so very much.
