Blue Magpie sighted at Mt Faber

When we posted an account of a Blue Magpie (Urocissa erythrorhyncha) eating a Red-whiskered Bulbul (Pycnonotus jocosus) photographed in Hongkong, John Lynn wrote that he sighted a Blue Magpie in Singapore earlier:

“I’ve photographed the Blue Magpie gone feral in the Mt Faber area some time back. Once I saw six in a flight. Hope they don’t breed and give our local bulbuls a hard time.

“…but only managed to capture this one picture. I was on the spur of Mt Faber looking across to Telok Blangar Park when I saw the BM flying across the tree line at TB Park and took this one long shot.

“There’s a bird shop in the TB estate below and I sometimes wonder if people buy and let the birds go.”

R Subaraj, our bird specialist, has this to say: “As for the Blue Magpie, there are many records of this species over the past decade and a half. Flocks of 5-6 birds have been seen at Mount Faber and Sungei Buloh but the species has never bred and should still be regarded as a mere escapee…..not feral, which is a term we use for locally breeding introductions.”