Tuesday, April 06, 2010

The Wild Gems Within The Mandai Orchid Gardens

The land lease for the Mandai Orchid Garden will expire in January next year. Not only will the oldest orchid will close, the land will be part of a site to be developed as a nature-themed attraction in Mandai. It will be a sad day if we lost this garden not only for the variety of orchids it contains. The garden is also home to some rare birds such as the Little Spiderhunter. These birds are only seen in secondary forests in Singapore. Did you know that they have become locally extinct within the Singapore Botanic Gardens?
Besides, the Little Spiderhunter, there are also the ever delightful sunbirds, such as the Crimson, Olive-backed, Plain-throated and Brown-throated.
Hence, many of us have been making trips to the garden to photograph these birds as they may be soon hard to find.
The best place to go to enjoy these birds is the Water Garden as they zip around the Torch Ginger blooms. Not only are there birds but there are also cute little lizards that may decide to entertain you while you wait for the fast moving birds to settle on the blooms.
When I last visited on April 1, a Brown-throated Sunbird was seen in an altercation with self in the car park. This bird did not like its own image in the side-view mirror of a parked van and was furiously fighting with itself.
If you do get a chance drop by the Mandai Orchid Gardens before their lease runs out.

1 comment:

Shi Ern said...

As you said, the garden will be closed. What a sad thing. I hope to keep it alive by a virtual tour here: http://bit.ly/OrchidGardenMandai So now, even if its gone, people can see it online as it lives on the internet forever.