Squawking A Mystery

For the past 2 weeks, we have been haunting by a mysterious sound.

It came from outside our bedroom window, quite early every morning. Haunting is mentioned because will sound spooky if you were to hear it at night. Fortunately it is heard only when the sun is rising every day.

It sounded like a child-crying hysterically... like from being beaten senselessly, but the sound travels from one spot to another, almost like a fixed pattern, repeating every morning.

One good thing is that no one is beating a child senselessly. Phew!

As suspected, it turns out to be a kind of bird that I have never heard of before. Its species is also unknown. A second such pleasant surprise visit after the family of Black-Naped Orioles came by a few months before.


This time the sound was not lovely, it was a noisy course, crying squawks. Much like a parakeets or a crow... but I am familiar with these two sounds. This one is entirely different.

We always spot a couple of dark birds perched on the tree outside out bedroom window, but just too far to get a good view of what kind of bird these are. Loud squawks that usually wake me and my curiosity up too.

The flight path is always from the big tree in front of out bedroom window, onward to the tallest tree in the centre of the courtyard in front of my gym room, and off to who knows where.


Our son spotted it several times from his bedroom window and thought the plumes looked like a female peacock, which made me even more curiosity to find out. I just needed enough time, maybe on the weekends, and have a chance to spot it the next time the couple comes around.

Today was a great day. Since it is Christmas holiday here, the couple came around, showing off itself and announcing its presence with the loud squawks. This time around however, the couple stayed for longer, perched on the tree at the centre of the courtyard.

Enough time for me to snap pictures of them resting and pluming their feathers, while making loud conversations.


One looked like a crow... all blueish black, which I believe is a male, while the other looked like a cross between a large version of a Eurasian Sparrow and a mini Hawk... with its striped tail. This one is believed to be a female, as it moved around, the black bird kept following.

Searched through my son's "A Guide To Common Birds Of Singapore" book to find out its name and species, but the bird's picture was not listed in it. Could have been an escaped pet, but then again, which pet owner would like to listen to loud noisy squawks every morning?

Or, maybe once the pet owner found out how loud this birds are, he set them free. Hmm...


Anyway, the mysterious sound has a face now... well, plumage and all; and a relentless research has been initiated to find out exactly what species our noisy guests are.

I somehow cannot rest my mind until I find out what these birds are. The Internet is my prime resource for a photo look-alike to identify it, but maybe someone out there with some bird-watching knowledge can help by telling or leading me to find out about our flyby guests here.