White-breasted Waterhen
(Amaurornis phoenicurus)

Throughout the Gardens

Most visitors to Gardens by the Bay have laid eyes on a dark slaty bird with a clean, white face, breast and belly, and a tail held upright and jerking while out and about. This is none other than the white-breasted waterhen (Amaurornis phoenicurus).

A waterbird of the rail and crake family, Rallidae, but less shy or secretive than its relatives, it can often be found foraging in the open, singly or in pairs, along the edge of a waterbody, in drains near busy roads or paths, or clambering up low vegetation. Reeds or undergrowth are no obstacle to the white-breasted waterhen as its body is able to flatten laterally for ease of movement. Probing with its bill in mud or shallow water, or picking up food it sees, it feasts mainly on insects, small fish, aquatic invertebrates and grains or seeds.

Despite being a 'waterhen' and closely associated with water habitats, it prefers to walk rather than swim, given its long, non-webbed toes designed for plodding on soft mud and vegetation rather than paddling efficiently through water. It is not uncommon to see it playing hopscotch, stepping from one lily pad or floating leaf to another at one of the many waterbodies in the Gardens, avoiding looking less graceful or even clumsy in its surroundings.

Widely distributed across South and Southeast Asia, the white-breasted waterhen was supposedly eaten as food in the early 1960s in rural parts of Singapore as they were abundant and easily trapped in open drains! Thankfully, this is a thing of the past, and today they are considered common residents amongst our rich local biodiversity with stable populations in a variety of habitats across the island despite rapid development over the years.

If you're next at the Gardens at dawn or dusk, listen out for a loud, raspy and repetitive "ruak-ruak" (its Malay name "Ruak-ruak Biasa" is an onomatopoeia mimicking its croacking call). You just might have identified the white-breasted waterhen by ear before it came into view.