While many Singaporeans were stuck at home earlier this year due to the ‘Circuit Breaker’, our wildlife seemed to be out and about in force.
Take hornbills for example. Once a rare sight in densely urbanised Singapore, they’ve started to be noticed more often around the island.
The latest sighting was in an unnamed hawker centre in Singapore, where a hungry-looking pair were seen on tables gazing longingly at diners.
A man later came up and fed them a banana, even bothering to peel it for them.
A video of the hornbills was posted on the Facebook group 走，新加坡 (Walk, Singapore) on Sunday (29 Nov) night.
Members of the public are reminded that feeding wildlife is a punishable offence.
In the video, the pair can be seen pacing on the empty tables of the busy hawker centre as diners watch on.
Occasionally, they caw, and one goes over to the next table, staring at patrons nearby and seemingly looking for food.
Intrigued, some passers-by come over to take photos of the birds.
Eventually, a man in a blue T-shirt comes up to the birds with a banana in his hand and shows it to them.
He starts peeling the banana, which catches the curious creatures’ attention.
The other bird comes over just when he places the peeled banana flesh on the table.
As the man places a small piece of banana on the table, the bird on the right picks it up.
The other bird then caws, and her pal feeds her instead of eating its own portion.
This happens a few times, though the birds also help themselves to the food.
But one bird fed the other often enough that the man even said presumably to the hornbill on the left, “you eat your own lah!”.
Netizens who watched the video speculated that the birds were literally lovebirds.
While the man may have good intentions in providing food to the birds, Singapore’s Wildlife Act strictly discourages people from doing so.
In fact, anyone found guilty may face up to a $5,000 fine for their first offence.
We hope that more members of the public will be aware of this rule, which was also introduced to protect our precious wildlife.
Letting them fend for themselves naturally is a form of help too, so let’s learn when to step back and leave them be.
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Featured images adapted from Facebook.
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