Sunday, 27 February 2005

Another day of observation

The day began at an unearthly time as well as we headed out for our usual observations of our avian friends. But instead, we ran into some friends from NPS. Both Graeme and Dennis were at the site before us, and they were enjoying a healthy chat and a nice breakfast when we arrived. They were very nice and even offered us a view through their spotting scope for a close-up view. We then had a lively chat about nature photography in Singapore, exchanged field notes and even discussed on the various locations in Singapore and the world which were ideal for nature photography.

We spotted Coucals, Cuckoos, Kites, Shrikes in the bushes every now and then during the conversation. With so many pairs of observant eyes, how could we miss them?

Dennis had to leave early to fetch his boy (which is his good luck charm, BTW!) for swimming lessons. We chatted more with Graeme, and decided to leave the site before noon. Graeme left for more birding elsewhere and we left for some shopping in town to get the FIRST accessory for our Jarjar.

Saturday, 26 February 2005

Sightings: BSK & Black Baza

We started the morning by waking up and leaving the house very early. We had hoped to catch a glimpse of the elusive breeding pair of BSKs. The sky didn't look very good though, it was cloudy and dark rain clouds were looming in a distance. I made many checks with Fred on whether he wanted to go ahead with the observation. The impending storm would not work well for us as we were riding! But being true nature photographers, we decided to go ahead anyway. It was more of Fred's decision, and I simply followed. Hee. :P

We set up behind a bush and were very careful not to disturb the breeding pair. Covered under camo nets and away from view, the female was undisturbed and continued her incubating. The male appeared and perched on a branch nearby. The pesky crows were soon doing what they did best, chasing BSKs. It was a hilarious sight especially when a group of crows chased the male BSK to the right of the nest. And before they knew it, the BSK suddenly did a 180 degrees turn and chased the crows back! This happened for a few times before the BSK got bored and landed on his favourite perch to preen himself.

It was at this time; we spotted 2 Black Bazas flying overhead. Their plumage was unmistakable. They were followed by another 5, then another 10... In total, we counted about 17 Bazas. It was common for them to fly by through these parts. But it was still a really interesting sight!

Then, it came. The dark gray clouds drew nearer and nearer. Fred made the call to depart, and we had to make our way back to our "noble steed". A well-rehearsed performance of lightning streaks and thunder claps soon ensued.

Thursday, 24 February 2005

Nikon D2X launch

The Nikon D2X DSLR was officially launched in Singapore at HDB Hub Convention Centre today.

Fred was invited to the launch and is happy to report that the D2X looks very promising and may be the perfect camera for portriature, landscape, macro and nature photography.

The most outstanding was the high-speed crop feature, which when activated, enables the camera to shoot at 8 frames per second but reduces the image captured to 6 mega-pixels with a crop factor of 2 times.

There is no better way to find out more information than to head down to your favourite dealer for a demo. The camera should be on sale from tomorrow onwards.

Wednesday, 23 February 2005

Revision to the iPod family

iPodThe iPod family has just taken another step in evolution with the announcement by Apple. The new family consists of:

Choosing a new MP3 player has just gotten more complicated as we're now spoilt with all these choices. :-P

Tuesday, 22 February 2005

WT-1 Firmware v.1.1

Nikon WT-1 firmware update version 1.1 adds support for Nikon D2X and D2Hs DSLR bodies.

D2H firmware update v.2.01

Nikon D2H firmware update v.2.01 has corrected the various problems encountered during the operation of the camera. Do check out Nikon KnowledgeBase for details.

Monday, 21 February 2005

iView MediaPro 2.6.3

iView MediaPro was upgraded to version 2.6.3, some of the new features are as follows:

Sunday, 20 February 2005

Sightings: BSK and a bunch of Raptors

The day began with a rather long and uncomfortable ride. Both Fred and myself were spoilt by traveling in a car, you see... *grin* We were out searching for the elusive Black-Shouldered Kite's nest and we finally found it after looking around in a few weird locations based on the tips provided by our friends.

bsk_nest.jpgWe were really surprised when we found the nest, and it was not because of the location, but rather by what we saw. 3 SUVs were parked side by side to the left of the nest and there were a number of photographers taking pictures of the nest and its residents. One of the SUVs look all too familiar, which brought to mind the series of very unfortunate events when we were ex-communicated by the owner. Ex-communicated, you say? What's that? Well, it is a situation or a process whereby a person totally cuts another person out of his social circle, communications and even out of sight.

Well, I say good riddance too! And I would add a few vulgar words together with it, if it wasn't for Fred. Why? Because Fred being Mr Nice guy that he is (who refuses to listen to me when I told him not to do certain things), readily gave up his time and willingly helped a FRIEND with all of his silly projects that were used to "kill 3 birds with 1 stone" and listened to the tons of gossips and crude remarks about a significant few.

WHICH coincidentally, that group of significant few were also among the photographers we met today. Talk about an ironic twist of fate. I guess these people will find out for themselves like we did, about how human relationships can be cheapened and used. Hopefully it'll not be too late for them.

Anyway, back to our observation. We counted a total of 3 adult BSKs near the nest, a group of Black Bazas and a lone Kestrel. We hoped that the BSK will be able to breed successfully at this location and decided to leave after a while as we felt that it was rather intrusive with that amount of crowd present. And we had our brunch (Ampang Yong Tau Fu) at our favourite Yong Tau Fu store along Mandai road and it was yummy! As usual and as always. Hee hee. We should be gourmets if we had a chance! Right, dear? But alas, we never could beat the ability and tongue of one of our close friends. THE gourmet, we call him. ;D

wbse_couple.jpgWe finished off the day with sightings of a pair of courting White-Bellied Sea Eagle ( We suspect that they were courting as they were making A LOT of noise, believe me when I say ALOT, my favourite band is Linkin Park. :P And the pair were caught mimicking each other moves when soaring in the skies above), a Juv WBSE being disturbed and harassed by a fierce and persistent Kestrel and a lonesome but fish-catching expert Brahminy Kite.

Friday, 18 February 2005

Toast Titanium 6.0.9

Roxio has updated Toast Titanium to version 6.0.9, do check out this page for more details.

Wednesday, 16 February 2005

Nikon announced D2Hs

Nikon has just announced an upgraded professional camera, the D2Hs at PMA. The new camera feature 4.1 megapixels LBCAST image sensor, 8 fps for a continuous burst of up to 40 RAW images, 3D-Color Matrix Metering II and many other improved features. Do check out Nikon's website for details.

Monday, 14 February 2005

The Dry Spell

Do you remember we were complaining about the frequent rainy days that had been a major headache for us earlier this year? Guess what, the dry spell is here. Now, we all know that the weather has been really hot and sunny recently, so much so that grass in many open fields around the island had caught fire in result from the extreme heat.

dry_day.jpg

It is a real pity to see all those beautiful green grass being scorched until golden brown or worst being burned to ashes at the blink of an eye. We hope Mother Nature will withhold her fury and bless all the flora and fauna with fair weather in the coming days.

Sunday, 13 February 2005

Just like the good old times

We met up with Clifford, Cannis and Andrew this evening and had a great time. It was just like the good old days where we hung out and chitchat on everything under the sun. Too bad Clifford and Cannis will be heading back to Hong Kong tomorrow; they were here to visit their relatives during CNY. Well, as the saying goes, there is always a tomorrow. Till then guys..... :-P

Thursday, 10 February 2005

Mac OS X Update 10.3.8

&Apple released Mac OS X 10.3.8 Update today, the Key updates include:

The update can be obtained via Software Update under System Preferences, click here to find out more about the update.

Wednesday, 09 February 2005

At last ... a proper phone

nokia9330.jpgFinally, a handphone without a Digital camera has arrived! The Nokia 9300 is now on sale.

A tri-band smartphone, armed with Bluetooth, a full QWERTY keyboard, a 128 x 128 pixels, a 640 x 200 pixels wide color screen, 80MB built-in memory plus MultiMediaCard and more.

This should be the ideal phone, and we're really tempted to get one. The thing is; we're worried that it may not work with our Macs through iSync. We shall see.... :-P

Tuesday, 08 February 2005

Nikon Capture 4.2

Nikon has released Nikon Capture 4.2 updater which adds support for the upcoming D2X DSLR. Other improvements are as follows:

Do check out Nikon's Knowledge Database for more details.

Monday, 07 February 2005

祝你新年快樂！

我兩願祝大家：新年快樂，萬事如意，心想事成，恭喜發財！

Saturday, 05 February 2005

A little contribution

cover_01.jpgJust want to share a little joy. :-) Fred had always wanted to contribute his images or photography service to charity, nature or religious related events.

He was really glad and honoured when one of his image was selected as the cover for a bi-monthly newsletter of Christ Methodist Church. The web-edition of the newsletter "Witness" can be viewed here. God Bless! ;-)

Friday, 04 February 2005

X800 XT available on OWC

ati_x800.jpgThe long awaited ATI Radeon X800 XT Mac Edition is now available on OWC webstore for USD$495.99.

Creating smarter Smart playlist

Checkout this article on Playlist's website for tips on how to create smarter Smart playlist on iTunes, the best Digital music player on the Mac.

Thursday, 03 February 2005

Review: Fujifilm S3 Pro

Hmm... a review of the Fujifilm S3 Pro has been posted by Thom Hogan, the good thing is; it uses Nikon lenses. The specs of the camera looks pretty interesting, will have check out some prints to see how is the quality its image.

Tuesday, 01 February 2005

Matrox Parhelia DL256 PCI

Matrox has announced the Parhelia DL256 PCI graphics card that will work with PowerMac and two 30-inch Cinema HD Display. The 64-bit, 66MHz PCI card is features 256MB of RAM, dual 400MHz RAMDACs and supports dual DVI resolutions up to 2,560x1,600. More Info here.

PowerBook product line updated

pb15.jpgApple has introduced an updated PowerBook product line. Now with processors running up to 1.67GHz, faster hard drives, AirPort Extreme, standard memory of 512MB and other enhancements. Look like Apple is getting the PowerBooks ready for Mac OS X Tiger! :-P

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