Songbirds

This is a regular scene at the bird singing area just past the market and all around Singapore. Bird singing area is a place where men take their birds to be by other birds to learn their songs. Keeping song birds is a favorite past time among men. These parks are built by the government to allow the men folk to indulge in their favorite past time.

Songbird rearing is a popular pastime in Singapore and bird-singing competitions are big business with a lot of prize money to be had. Prized songbirds may sell for thousands of dollars.

I watched for a while as bird owners carefully chose where to place their birds. The beautiful cages are different for each species, designed to take into consideration certain characteristics of the bird.

This was where they filmed some of the scenes from Hallmark's movie Cages, which was filmed entirely in Singapore. Cages is a heart warming story about a single mother and her blind son, who are forced to stay with her estranged father.

The birds at the park this morning were mostly Zebra Doves. These birds are popular with bird-singing enthusiasts and wild Zebra Doves are often heavily trapped for sale as caged birds. There was a pair wondering in the area and there were men with traps too. Nevertheless, they are still common and not considered at risk in Singapore.