The Ubin–Khatib Important Bird Area, also known as the North-East Conservation Area , is an 8940 ha tract of largely undeveloped land in north-eastern

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

on the border with the

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

n state of

Johor Johor, also spelled Johore,'' is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia in the south of the Malay Peninsula. It borders with Pahang, Malacca and Negeri Sembilan to the north. Johor has maritime borders with Singapore ...

. It encompasses the island of

Ubin Pulau Ubin (), also simply known as Ubin, is an island situated in the north east of Singapore, to the west of Pulau Tekong. The granite quarry used to be supported by a few thousand settlers on Pulau Ubin in the 1960s, but only about 40 villa ...

and much of the islands of Tekong and Tekong Kechil, as well as a coastal strip of the main island, including the

Lower Seletar Reservoir Lower Seletar Reservoir ( Chinese: 实里达蓄水池下段 ; ) is a reservoir located in the northern part of Singapore in the Lower Seletar subzone, located in Yishun New Town. The reservoir has a surface area of 3.6 km², and a capaci ...

, with the intervening coastal waters,

seagrass Seagrasses are the only flowering plants which grow in marine (ocean), marine environments. There are about 60 species of fully marine seagrasses which belong to four Family (biology), families (Posidoniaceae, Zosteraceae, Hydrocharitaceae and ...

beds,

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows mainly in coastal saline water, saline or brackish water. Mangroves grow in an equatorial climate, typically along coastlines and tidal rivers. They have particular adaptations to take in extra oxygen a ...

s and intertidal

mudflat Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats or, in Ireland, slob or slobs, are coastal wetlands that form in intertidal areas where sediments have been deposited by tides or rivers. A global analysis published in 2019 suggested that tidal ...

Birds

The site has been identified as an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

(IBA) by

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding i ...

because it supports significant numbers of visiting and resident birds, some of which are

threatened A threatened species is any species (including animals, plants and fungi) which is vulnerable to extinction in the near future. Species that are threatened are sometimes characterised by the population dynamics measure of ''critical depensatio ...

. These include vulnerable

Chinese egret The Chinese egret or Swinhoe's egret (''Egretta eulophotes'') is a threatened species of egret from east Asia, first described by Robert Swinhoe in 1860. Description The Chinese egret averages 68 cm in height. The plumage is white throug ...

greater spotted eagle The greater spotted eagle (''Clanga clanga''), also called the spotted eagle, is a large migratory bird of prey in the family Accipitridae. It is a member of the subfamily Aquilinae, commonly known as "booted eagles".Helbig, A. J., Kocum, A., ...

s and

straw-headed bulbul The straw-headed bulbul (''Pycnonotus zeylanicus'') is a species of songbird in the bulbul family, Pycnonotidae. It is found from the Malay Peninsula to Borneo. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forest, subtropical or ...

endangered An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching, inv ...

Nordmann's greenshank Nordmann's greenshank (''Tringa guttifer'') or the spotted greenshank, is a wader in the large family Scolopacidae, the typical waders. Description The Nordmann's greenshank is a medium-sized sandpiper, at long, with a slightly upturned, bicol ...

s and

critically endangered An IUCN Red List critically endangered (CR or sometimes CE) species is one that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. As of December 2023, of t ...

spoon-billed sandpiper The spoon-billed sandpiper (''Calidris pygmaea'') is a small wader which breeds on the coasts of the Bering Sea and winters in Southeast Asia. This species is highly threatened, and it is said that since the 1970s the breeding population has dec ...

s, as well as

greater crested tern The greater crested tern Retrieved 28 February 2012 (''Thalasseus bergii''), also called crested tern, swift tern, or great crested tern, is a tern in the family Laridae that nests in dense colonies on coastlines and islands in the tropical and ...

References

Important Bird Areas of Singapore North-East Region, Singapore {{Singapore-geo-stub