Botanic Gardens
Last Updated on 14 January 2023
Come follow us as we explore Singapore’s oldest and finest botanic gardens!
Before embarking on our epic adventure through this award-winning and internationally acclaimed park, we have to first decide which of several approaches to take to enter the sprawling garden grounds.
There are so many gates to choose from, including the Nassim gate along Cluny Road, which is where the Visitor Centre is located…
…or via the Tyersall gate along Tyersall Road, in close proximity to the Orchid Garden…
…or the iconic Tanglin gate facing Holland Road (served by buses 7, 75, 77, 105, 106, 123, 174, 174E, NR8)…
…or the gate facing Bukit Timah Road right beside the Botanic Gardens MRT station (Circle Line and Downtown Line)…
…or through one of the many other smaller entrances dotted along the perimeter of the gardens.
Parking at any of the car parks within the gardens is chargeable by the minute ($0.02 per minute) and park opening hours are from 5am to midnight.
Whichever approach we choose, we will be given ample warning that we are about to enter a UNESCO World Heritage Site…
…a strange and mystical wonderland with long tunnels leading to mysterious places…
…where peculiar airborne figures seem to be a common sight…
…and where curious plants and flowers seem to have invaded the land…
…and fearless animals run amok and rule the grounds…
Sprinkled all over the gardens are water bodies in abundance…
…which provide a perfect runway for the multitude of dragonflies, damselflies and butterflies to parade their radiant colours.
Those we have spotted in the Gardens include the Scarlet Basker (Urothemis sigmata)…
…the Blue Dasher (Brachydiplax chalybea)…
…the Yellow-barred Flutterer (Rhyothemis phyllis)…
…the female Common Scarlet (Crocothemis servilia)…
…the Common Parasol (Neurothemis fluctuans)…
…and the Plain Tiger Butterfly (Danaus chrysippus).
With public housing provided for by the government, many species of birds have moved in and call the gardens their home.
Resident birds that we have spotted here include the flowerpeckers…
…the woodpeckers…
…the sunbirds…
…the tailorbirds…
…the magpie-robin…
…the kingfishers…
…the parrots and parakeets…
…the owls…
…the nightjars…
…the crakes and rails…
…the bitterns and herons…
…and even the rarely sighted snipes.
During the winter migratory season from September to April, migratory birds from the far reaches of the world fly down to Singapore for their winter holidays, and the Botanic Gardens is one of the more popular stopover places.
Some of the migratory birds that have been spotted here include the Asian Brown Flycatcher (Muscicapa dauurica)…
…the Hooded Pitta (Pitta sordida)…
…the Arctic Warbler (Phylloscopus borealis)…
…the Taiga Flycatcher (Ficedula albicilla)…
…the Malayan Night Heron (Gorsachius melanolophus)…
…and the very attractive Common Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis), who loves to pose on a perch beside one of the several lakes in the Gardens and display his brilliant turquoise jewel colours.
With so many green spaces within various themed gardens (Ginger Garden, Orchid Garden, Evolution Garden, Foliage Garden, Trellis Garden, Ethnobotany Garden, etc) in the one big Gardens, it is no wonder that the birds find this place so appealing to spend their winter holidays. Besides the birds, we ourselves enjoy spending days and days wandering aimlessly in any one of these areas.
One of our favourite places to get lost in is the Learning Forest.
Pedantic as it may sound, the Learning Forest is actually a rather peaceful oasis to get away from the maddening crowds and wander around the network of elevated boardwalks through the dense forest foliage like we were giants.
While getting lost in the network of trails in the Learning Forest one day, we stumbled upon a Crested Goshawk (Accipiter trivirgatus) who had just caught a fruit bat and was getting ready to tuck in. But at our inopportune interruption, he promptly gave us the evil eye.
Also roaming around the dense foliage of the Learning Forest is the Grey-headed Fish Eagle (Ichthyophaga ichthyaetus), always on the constant look-out for prey.
The Rain Forest is another area that is well hidden and tucked away in an inconspicuous corner such that not many people venture in.
This small patch of primary rainforest is one of the oldest remaining in Singapore, and home to an abundance of rare and endangered plant species.
The Rain Forest is one of the favourite haunts of the White-crested Laughingthrush (Garrulax leucolophus), who would usually be caught foraging on the forest ground.
Keep a look-out for the resident Greater Racket-tailed Drongo (Dicrurus paradiseus). We’ll likely find him perched at the top of the tall trees or hanging out among the dense tree foliage…
…or clinging onto a tree trunk pretending to be a woodpecker.
Walking along the boardwalk trail in the Rain Forest is like a scene out of a thriller movie, where every few seconds we would hear scrunching sounds coming from the undergrowth or catch some mysterious shape shifting out of the corner of our eyes. Most of the time, it’ll turn out to be a squirrel or monitor lizard or a bird wandering around the forest scrounging for food.
Join us on our next expedition as we explore the National Orchid Garden!