I have been officially informed by Dr Geh Min, President of the Nature Society (Singapore), that at the meeting of the Executive Committee held on the 27th September 2005, the Bird Ecology Study Group or BESGroup for short, was formally accepted as an official sub-group under Article 10.4.5 of the society’s constitution.
This blog has been operating under the heading of Singapore Bird Ecology Study Group since July 2005. With immediate effect it will operate as Bird Ecology Study Group, Nature Society (Singapore).
As a sub-group of the Nature Society, we will provide exciting activities and a series of talks by professional ornithologists and birdwatchers for the benefit of members as well as anyone interested in bird ecology. We have also plans to bring out various publications that will be useful to nature lovers and birdwatchers in general. Our full programme is being formalised and announcements will be made in due course.
The BESGroup is currently being coordinated by Wee Yeow Chin, Richard Hale, Subaraj Rajathurai and Grant Pereira. We plan to replace one person each year with a new member. This safeguard is to ensure that the leadership will not stagnate, will always be vibrant and there will always be new ideas flowing into the group.
The objectives of BESGroup are as follows:
1. To encourage the study of birds and their links with all aspects of the natural environment.
2. To help fill in the information gaps, especially on the breeding behaviour of local birds.
3. To encourage the dissemination of information.
4. To encourage the publication of information collected through the internet, popular magazines and scientific journals.
At long last we can now concentrate on working in good faith with all members of the society towards our shared goals of nature appreciation and conservation. BESGroup looks forward to a cordial working relationship with all groups, especially the existing Bird Group, so that together we can offer more activities to the membership at large as well as enrich our current ecological knowledge of the local bird population.
YC Wee
Singapore
8th October 2005
5 responses
YC: Let me be the first to congratulate you on the successful launching of the NSS BESG. It is high time we include the study of bird (also other living creatures as well) behaviour to increase the body of knowledge we lack on our feathered friends. The simple act of just watching and counting birds is not good enough.
Wang Luan Keng’s talk on 07/10/05 at the Sunflower was most illuminating, especially for a non-twitcher like I.
Richard Hale posted his observations here on the 4 Common Flamebacks (woodpeckers?) doing a strange dervish dance up the trunk of a large tree at BTNR is most interesting. Any explanations forthcoming?
I guess birds like humans do exhibit similar behaviour but they do so for a purpose and not for any selfish reasons. Cheers, KF
Thanks KF. Yes, Luan’s talk was an eye opener. There are so many aspects of bird behaviour that beg to be observed – and reported and discussed!Only by disseminating information and discussions can we improve on our current knowledge. The “woodpeckers” that did the dance at Bt Timah – who knows what they are doing? But by reporting it and hopefully others will subsequently report such a phenomenon, one day we may suddenly see the light. YC