At the edge of a lush suburban park in Singapore’s Ang Mo Kio neighborhood, a hundred people form a line that snakes around the parking lot. It ends at a registration table where a poster splashed with bright colors announces the event: Kebun Baru Birdsinging Competition. Beneath the shade of a nearby tree, friends chat and offer each other encouragement. In covered bird cages at their feet, zebra doves, white-rumped shamas, red-whiskered bulbuls, Chinese hwamei, and Indian white-eyes will be among the species judged. “Each bird has its own character,…
