I am a beloved child of Divine Love/Great Spirit, and so are you. We are spiritual beings on a human journey. My main interests in life include Nature, music, spirituality, inspiration, philosophy, sports, reading and photography.
Aerial view of the secondary rainforest at Bukit Batok nature park, where the setting sun cast a rosy glow on the canopy
As night approached, the sky dimmed, with the sunset adding faint hues of pink to the greyish clouds amid the blue canvas.
By 7.45 pm, five of us participants started our night walk at Bukit Batok nature park, led by our knowledgeable guide Tony O’Dempsey.
We stopped by under a majestic rain tree, which supports a host of other plants, such as ferns and creepers, near the carpark entrance.
As we entered the park via the main track, we were fortunate to spot a solitary Sunda colugo, aka flying lemur, clinging onto a tall tree trunk.
Tony paused at a few junctures and told us about several kinds of plants, such as cinnamon (whose leaves appear to have freckles) and clidemia (whose leaves have a hairy surface).
He also demonstrated that the fruits of clidemia are edible by eating one himself, and I followed suit – I was glad to learn a jungle survival skill.
One of us spotted a green caterpillar hanging onto an imperceptible thread, as if it was floating in the air.
We passed by a fig tree that looked spectacular, with its roots wrapping around a boulder for stability.
I decided to shine my phone light on some plants to see if I could see any creatures, and was soon rewarded with the sighting of a beetle resting on the underside of a leaf.
Tony pointed out a large tree with patches on its trunk, which bears resemblance to eucalyptus trees.
On the way back to the park entrance, we saw a snake skin, from which the snake had moulted, at the ceiling of a shelter.
Here we are, back at the entrance of the nature park, having learnt much about its nocturnal beauty and perennial treasures
Despite the late hours, I did not encounter any mosquito during the night walk in this regenerating secondary rainforest.
This contrasts with the fact that Bukit Batok housing estate opposite the park is currently experiencing a high number of dengue cases.
Perhaps restoring ecological health and making the urban environment conducive for frogs and dragonflies to control mosquito populations would be good?
Entrance next to a newly constructed factory building
The Horseshoe Crab Rescue & Research event was conducted by Lester from Nature Society Singapore (NSS) at Kranji-Mandai mangrove mudflats on 7 April 2022, 7.30 am.
This morning, I arrived about 15 minutes late at the meeting venue as I had underestimated the travelling time for cycling, and the intermittent rain caused the roads to be wet and slippery.
Thanks to my team for giving the directions, I managed to find my way to the correct entrance to the mudflats.
Litter near the gate
Upon entering the gate, the first sight that greeted me was the sheer amount of rubbish strewn on the ground.
Gosh, it’s been nearly a decade since I last came here for a similar event conducted by NSS, where we cleaned up the beach, and this place has been dirtied again? I thought to myself.
New mangrove shoots on the beach
Thankfully, as I made my way to the beach where the mudflats were exposed at low tide, I saw very little litter on the sea shore, which appeared fairly clean and undisturbed for the most part.
I was also glad to see mangrove saplings taking root on the mudflats, which suggests that the mangroves are in the process of restoration.
I spotted my team members gathering on the mudflats some distance away, and I walked gingerly on the soft muddy shore towards them, hoping not to get my shoes wet.
Alas, I soon found myself sinking ankle-deep into the mud at one point, and I resigned myself to having to trudge around in soggy shoes and socks.
Perhaps as a consolation, I chanced upon a tiny horseshoe crab, which was barely conspicuous against the dark muddy ground surface.
A baby horseshoe crab
I signalled to Lester to come over and take a look to see if it was dead or alive, as it appeared to be staying still instead of crawling around slowly.
Just then, another group member found a bigger horseshoe crab and passed it to Lester, and he began to share with us interesting facts about horseshoe crabs, such as their physiology, gender differences, feeding habits, conservation status, how to pick them up without injuring them, and how researchers would rescue and measure them before releasing them back into the wild.
Lester demonstrating how to hold a horseshoe crab properly to avoid injuring its tail
Then my group members continued to comb the mudflats for horseshoe crabs and other marine and seashore creatures, while I stayed around my little zone, hoping not to step on any horseshoe crab by mistake, since they were hard to spot and they also have become rare and endangered in the world over the years.
Lester briefed the group about other marine creatures found at the mudflats, such as crabs.
Meanwhile, I was glad to see another small horseshoe crab (which appeared to be moving its tail a little when I picked it up), as well as some other tiny sea creatures, such as a crab and sea snails.
Sea snail moving aroundUnderside of horseshoe crab
Soon, it was time to call it a day, and just as we were making our way from the mudflats to the gate entrance, it started raining again. I was fortunate to see a medium-sized horseshoe crab in a rivulet near the high tide mark along the coastline along the way.
As noted by another team member, this horseshoe crab appears to be a male, going by its thick legs (which somewhat resemble biceps).
All in all, it was an informative and fruitful horseshoe crab rescue and research trip. I was pleasantly surprised to see at least a few of these crabs (which actually are closely related to spiders and scorpions instead of true crabs), as I had thought that their populations have been declining to the point of near extinction in many places by now, due to various factors, such as habitat loss, pollution, exploitation, and so on, over the years.
Route map with approximate locations of wildlife sightings
On 20 March 2022, I attended a birdwatching outing at Dairy Farm nature park from 7 am to 10 am.
My small group was led by Jeff Tan, and we walked from Hillview MRT station to Dairy Farm nature park and then to Singapore Quarry.
Along the way, we saw some birds, such as Asian glossy starlings, greater racket-tailed drongo, straw-headed bulbuls, yellow-vented bulbul, bee-eaters, long-tailed parakeets and Eurasian tree sparrows.
Incidentally, 20 March is World Sparrow Day, so it is apt to see sparrows on that day.
Besides the “wheeping” calls of a drongo and the melodious songs of the critically endangered straw-headed bulbuls, I could hear the sounds of hill mynahs (not shown) during the trek.
Besides birds, we saw other kinds of wildlife, such as insects, snails, toads, and so on. I was intrigued to see a cricket (identified as Nisitrus Malaya in iNaturalist) along the trail. It appeared to be feeding on an animal’s dropping. I learnt that it would make a shrill sound when rubbing its wings quickly. It is also a prey of some birds such as flycatchers.
At Wallace Information Centre, I learnt some useful information about the biodiversity and natural history of Singapore in the context of his travels in Southeast Asia in the 19th century.
It is interesting to know that “the greater the variety of living things in a forest, the healthier it tends to be”. From my observations, the less disturbed a tropical rainforest, the greater is its biodiversity and the healthier is its ecosystem.
Dairy Farm nature park appears to be a fairly mature secondary forest that has been designated as a buffer to protect the biodiversity of Bukit Timah nature reserve next to it. It has a number of significant large trees, such as mature fig trees.
A huge mature fig tree. Some of the fig trees provide food and shelter for the wildlife, such as birds, squirrels and monkeys.
To me, the near-absence of mosquitoes encountered during the birdwatching session at Dairy Farm nature park testifies that the forest ecosystem is fairly healthy because it shows the presence of numerous natural predators of mosquitoes, such as frogs, toads, spiders, geckos and dragonflies, is helping to keep the mosquito population in check.
A common Asian toad. Frogs and toads are vital to keep our ecosystem healthy, as they eat insects such as dengue-carrying mosquitoes.
My wish is that the unmanaged secondary forests, such as Tengah forest, Clementi forest, Simpang forest, Dover forest, Bukit Brown heritage park, Pang Sua woodlands, Western water catchment forest and so on, will be conserved and restored, so that they can continue to serve as important ecological corridors and habitats for our flora and fauna.
Otherwise, negative consequences, such as inbreeding, roadkills and human-wildlife conflicts, will result from habitat fragmentation.
Boosting the biodiversity in these forests will benefit us because they can help reduce the risk of dengue outbreak, and their pollinators and seed dispersers can also help us grow crops better and ensure food security, especially in uncertain times like this due to the pandemic, military conflicts in other countries, etc.
What other benefits of forest conservation and restoration can you think of?
BFF Biodiversity Challenge 2022 