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Snakes are, in my opinion, one of nature’s most misunderstood and feared creatures. Nevermind the negative portrayals of reptiles in the movies and their own slithery physical appearances, a more compelling personal reason might be the fact that when you do have the fortune (or the misfortune) of coming face-to-face with a snake, you’ll find that you’re unable to read them.

Of course, neither are you able to read other animals (humans included), although you may think that you understand their behaviour. Our interpretations of non-human animal behaviour are contaminated by anthropomorphic biases. But at least you thinking that you do understand them does give you some confidence in your encounters with them.

Snakes however, lacking limbs and physical dexterity, do not have access to a whole host of body languages that we tend to read the others by. Most make no sound, so there’s another medium of communication gone. It’s inevitable that you try to infer something through the eyes, but even their eyes betray nothing. They can’t move their eyes, they can’t blink. They can’t sport furtive looks like the lizards do. If the common snakes I come across could be described as having a look, well, they look perpetually angry or shocked. Except maybe the Oriental whip snake, which with its Kermit the Frog eyes looks rather like it has just woken up from bed.

If a snake remains stationary, you’d remain pretty much clueless. It if moves, then there’s a hint. Some slither away – that’s self-explanatory. Some, like the shore pit viper, would coil. A S-coiled viper with its intense red eyes trained on you, facing you head-on with its tongue a-flicking is a signal that you may, perhaps, want to move a few inches back. Slowly. The fieldguides say that this species may attack “without warning”. And here – a viper is being considerate enough to give you a warning. Any sensible person with half a wit for self-preservation would take heed!

It’s not that I, or the naturalist-photographer companions I sometimes find myself in the company of, are reckless beings. We’re not trying to be gutsy either. We approach all creatures, most of all the dangerous ones, with a great deal of respect. First of all we know what they are, and we know what they are capable of, and we also know that they are unlikely to behave unbecomingly unless provoked. So we shoot, just out of striking range (you can never be too sure though), with a certain primeval sense of caution, which is not quite the same as fear. I believe animals can detect fear as well as they can threats, and would be aggravated by it. Lots of calm, patience and giving the assurance that you post no danger… is the way to go, and this is equally applicable when dealing with spiders, lizards, birds and others. When we started photographing this snake, a family was just about to get started on the Route 1 loop in Sungei Buloh. Their 3km and goodness knows how long later (one loses track of the time when shooting), they reappeared from the other side, and we were still with the snake, our configurations hardly changed.

And the largest isn’t necessarily the meanest! Three days after shooting the viper, I am still nursing the itch from my scars and my bites, not from the snake (hopefully never), but from comma-sized crazy ants which gave me a good pinching while I was immobilised in my shooting positions. It’s always perplexed me that if ants wouldn’t think of stopping in their tracks up a wooden railing to give the plank a nipping, why would they suddenly want to do so when they’re crawling up my leg or my arm…?

Death stare

Finally on Saturday, after a long, long time. I missed this place so much.

Highlights were mostly reptilian…

Estuarine crocodile

Juvenile Malayan water monitor

Oriental whip snake

Highlights from last Friday; it was largely an arachnidful night.

Lynx with spiderlings

Singapore tarantula

Amblypigid / Tailless whip scorpion

Kendall’s rock gecko

I sometimes wonder what I’ll do if I came across a madman in the forest at night. If he were to become aggressive, I imagine I’d want to flash him at full intensity with the flashgun, right into his face: HA! I BLIND YOU! Although… any form of confrontation probably wouldn’t be wise. And some might ask “how are you so sure that he’s a madman?” and would question what I am doing in out there in dark in the first place.

Those who are used to me would by now know very well what I’m up to. To the unconvinced, I’d simply show a pic or two of those glowing green ‘shrooms and take delight in their whoooas and ahhhhs.

I went to Venus Drive on two consecutive nights this week, after discovering on the first drizzly evening that mushrooms were sprouting in their hundreds from dead logs. I never tire of them. The second night’s trip was prompted by a more botanical objective in mind, falling short however of being scientific although there was some pretty pretty documentation of fungal spore dispersal in action. I daresay these little adventures of mine are almost becoming acceptable to my parents. Almost. It would be if wasn’t the seventh Lunar month, also known to Chinese as the Hungry Ghost Month. The unfortunate and highly aggravating episode of the HK tourists’ hijacking in Manila, and the incident of the falling man which my mom was visually privy to, have signalled to her that perhaps this month is one when us mortals should take more care in where we tread. Brings to mind a similar warning – or plea, even – from an unsettled friend many Hungry Ghost Months ago, when I was shining my torch up into some branches in search of snakes while on some night walk on Sentosa. Y’know, one of those freshers’ orientation thingys.

Looks like my next trip to Venus – one that would do more justice to my scientific training – would have to wait until this seventh month business is over with. Until then, may some rain and nothing else be with us.

We bought a sporting kite from the shop at Seahouses. Lovely beaches, strong breeze, deep blue skies, so why not? Had some great fun tagging at the strings after we returned from the Farnes.

Bamburgh, capital of the ancient city of Northumbria, was most famous for its imposing castle. Mucked about on the hills behind the Bamburgh Dunes in the late evening, waiting for the sun to descend behind the castle.

The Holy Island of Lindisfarne is a funny one. Accessible only during low tides, across a motor causeway. We went on Saturday but there were people in their Sunday best, presumably for some important church function or another. The first monastery was founded there by a St Aidan in 635AD, and it’s been the site of Christian pilgrimage ever since. Now the skeletal ruins of the Lindisfarne Priory remain.

It was a few hours’ drive away from Northumberland National Park . The weather was being miserable, so we mostly stayed in the car, driving along a section of Hadrian’s Wall for a while. Most memorable was the Forest Drive, one of the highest roads in England. We were blanketed by a thick layer of fog as we got to the middle of the forest. Otherwise quite scenic most of the time.

Still misty and grey, we reached the Borderlands. There were two huge boulders marking the English-Border line: on one side was etched ‘Scotland’ and the other, ‘England’. Passed through the Scottish town of Jedburgh and its Abbey before returning southwards towards our lodgings in Belford.

Our adventures in the north being over, we headed London-bound on Sunday, dropping by the City of York. Easily one of the more beautiful cities in this part of England. Gothic architecture melded with Victorian and the modern. Historical town walls and ramparts surround the city centre, much of it still intact and walkable. Plenty of green spaces, and very happy people.

Finally, after years of yearning. This was a far more accomplishable trip, unlike my other dreams of going to South Africa, Madagascar, South America and the likes.

We made it off the coast from the Seahouses harbour, and spent a good four hours circling the handful of Farne Islands. Thousands of seabirds – gannets, terns, guillemots, cormorants, shags, puffins. Saw colonies of grey seals too. Made a landing on Inner Farne, the largest of the islands. The Artic and Common terns got real close, so close you’d trip over them or get shat on if you’re not careful. Puffins flew clumsily overhead with rows of fish in their bills. They had short fencing and proper boarded footpaths so it did feel a bit like a zoo or a wetland centre. It was amazing out there nevertheless.

The day after checking my sis into Oxford, we went down to the New Forest National Park last Monday. The deer enclosure there wasn’t all that exciting, but the area had some really lovely and calming woodlands, humble little streams, and moors. Managed to sink into some deep thought while dozing on the prickly grass, while wild ponies trotted past.

Wednesday came the road trip proper. With Xi, Kamil, and Randy who was visiting from Holland. On our way up, we passed by the North Yorkshire Moors, a beautiful landscape of heather moorland, complete with grazing sheep.

By the eastern coast was the little civil parish town of Whitby, featured in Dracula, with some well-utilised but clean beaches and rock pools.

It was getting late when we got to Newcastle, so most shops were shut. Grabbed dinner and left; our hotel was an hour’s drive away. Most memorable takeaway phrase from the city were the words on a cathedral banner: ‘Love good, hate evil’.

Drove into Seahouses on Thursday morning, where the boats to the Farnes launch from. Skipper says bad weather, sea swells, no go. So to Berwick-Upon-Tweed we went instead, the most northerly town in England. It has seen many bloody battles between the Scottish and the English, but it’s now a quiet seaside town with historic ramparts and town walls and an impressive-looking Romanesque Royal Border Bridge which we then found out was constructed only in 1847.

At the Scottish Seabird Centre in North Berwick, we hung around puffiny merchandise and natural history books. There was another beach and rocky shore, littered with families and screaming children with spades, buckets and nets. Dead jellyfish aplenty, a few teeny crabs and polychaetes in the water. Did jumping-jack remote-controlled group shots on the rocks while the tides came in from behind.

I like Edinburgh. It’s got a very European feel, and there are pseudo versions of buildings, statues or monuments that they have in London. Very historical. Busiest city we’ve visited so far. Scottish bagpipers round the street corner, shops selling kilts, Tam o’ Shanters, sporrans and other Scottish garb. Went past the statue of David Hume with his lucky toe polished to a golden shine by passers-by wishing for some good fortune. Entertained by bubble-blowing buskers in front of the St Giles Cathedral.

The British transport system’s a bit of a hit-and-miss, I find. Nothing goes according to schedule and reality never follows the virtual planning that the National Rail website so proudly does for you.

Two destinations down south on Monday; a whole day of travelling.

Ducks, geese and swans at the WWT Arundel Wetland Centre. Something like the London Wetland Centre but with a more rural woodland and Arundel Castle as backdrop.

With a bit of time to spare, we went to Brighton, a very youthful city with an alternative sub-culture. Did the touristy thing, saw the famous Brighton Pavilion and Brighton Pier. I can’t say I like this city much; everything’s so loud.

I like to keep my eyes to the ground as I walk from the carpark towards the office. There are, from time to time, interesting things to be seen. Dead things, usually. Like dead shrews and snakes, and sometimes really gross sights.

This is the second common fruit bat (Cynopterus brachyotis) foetus that I’ve come across at the same spot, under the batty corner of the office block where the bats hang from the rooftop ceiling beams by day. Looks freshly-aborted, unlike the first one which was being over-run by ants by the time I got to it.

This one’s in a more advanced stage of development, somewhere between stages 20 and 22 according to this embryonic development chart. Its placenta is still attached.

I’m keeping it pickled for the time being, in a vial with it lying on its back and wings outstretched. Kinda brought to mind this series of disturbing images. All dead stuff.

(Keeping images thumbnailed so as not to irk the squirmish!)

Blackadder:

We’re in a sticky situation all right. This is the stickiest situation since Sticky the Stick insect got caught on a sticky bun.

A last-ditch attempt to un-pooh another pooh-ey weekend wrought by Things Gone Wrong and emotional hijacks saw brief respite in a night prowl at Lower Pierce last night.

A keen-eyed duck spotted this lichen huntsman with her newly-hatched brood

Huntsman spiderlings snuggling between Mommy Spider’s legs

These brown stick insects in various instars were found mainly on fish tail palms

Also saw a few of these smaller, green stick insects

Lantern bug nymph; it kept inching to the side and out of sight

Colugo which was scrambling on the branches and rustling in the foliage above us

On Monday – new grounds for exploration. A bumslide down a slope onto the undisturbed banks of a canal, knee-high vegetation and hidden pits. A little tame on the faunal side, lots of butterflies, skippers and about two dozen species of spiders – the coolest one we found was this dung spider which I overlooked and a colleague spotted.

Concrete divide

Bird dung orb spider (Pasilobus sp.)

Grasshopper nymphs

Lawn wolf spider

Crab-eating frog (?)

Last night’s foray into Venus Drive was a much-needed break from civilisation. I am starved for such trips, which have become a luxury in these months of late. Fumbling over my set-up and missing critters along the path at the beginning, it took a while to get back into the swing of things. Hearing the high-pitched buzz of mozzies or feeling the strands of spider silk on the face… ahh. It may be annoying, but… ahh! I feel alive.

Having experienced a relatively rainy week I thought that we could see the bioluminescent mushrooms out in force, but alas, only singlets were found.

Praying mantid with ootheca (egg case)

Tetragnatha spider strumming her web

A Gnaphosid spider

Possibly a Pisaurid?

I was shining my UV torch onto a tree looking at the scorpions, when I noticed that the
bark had glowing dots. Fungi perhaps?

There have been reports of the dense vegetation along the stream being cleared; that night under the light of the torch, I saw the scene of destruction for myself. What distressing silliness for what we suspect may be a want for more concrete!

My hands smell a combination of rotting flesh and latex gloves, hours after exhuming a sludge of a month-long-buried Oriental whip snake to pick out its skeleton: its skull pieces, much of the vertebrae, and some ribs have been retrieved with some assistance from a colleague (she had previous experience in sorting caterpillar frass, which is arguably an even tougher task), who suffered the odour and the mozzie bites with me. I didn’t expect the bones to be this tiny. When I first fingered through the muck of soil, I thought the remnants of the snake had totally disappeared. It was only after washing the contents through a three-dish sieve set with a bucketful of water that there appeared to be the first inkling of anything bone-like.

Tried cleaning the pieces as well as I could, and laid them out to dry in my bathroom. Assembling them like one would an airplane model would be too impossible a task so I’ll be contented to just leave it at that!

The whole exercise was one great lesson in snake anatomy. Photos to come when I have the time.

Leaving for Hong Kong tomorrow, for the Chinese New Year. Packing, among other things, is always a pain.

Just a collection of what I’ve managed to rear in recent times:

Pericallia ricini (Family Arctiidae / tiger moths):

Eggs
2nd instar larvae
4th instar larva
Adult

Metanastria hyrtaca (Family Lasiocampidae / lappet moths):

Early instars
Later instars
Adult
Adult

Perina nuda (Family Lymantriidae / tussock moths):

Pre-pupal stage
Pupa
Newly-eclosed adult male
Adult male

Enpinanga borneensis (Family Sphingidae / hawk or Sphinx moths):

Final instar, pre-pupal stage
Adult which unfortunately eclosed
while I was out of the country
Adult
Adult

Carea ?varipes (Family Nolidae / nolid moths):

Final instar… ‘melon head’ caterpillar!
Adult

Driven by curiosity and the urge to test the hypothesis that the smaller, similarly brown-mottled but black forlegged mantid was indeed the male of Diego’s species (ok, driven by the sheer excitement of having little Diegos to complete the whole cycle as well), we found and collected one of these, and in a social entomological experiment, chucked them together after ensuring that they were both well-fed and would highly unlikely bite each other’s heads off in the notorious cannibalistic manner of mating mantids. Diego was nearly two weeks into adulthood, and her sexual organs should have matured.

The first time we placed them together, yesterday, Diego would get ‘freaked out’ and dart away whenever the male approached, although the male was showing no signs of being consciously attracted to her. Not being able to observe them throughout the night, I separated them and vowed to try again this evening.

So I did… after Diego had consumed a grasshopper her size in the afternoon.

Both their antennae twitched continuously. Diego turned her head to look at the male, then faced front again, as if paying him no attention. Then the male sprung, and landed on her back to front. He about turned, then turned again. Wrong direction. He then got off… and they paid no need to each other. I removed him.

Tried again a second time a few moments later. This round, he pounced, re-orientated himself, and tried to connect. Success – after about 18 seconds. She stayed still throughout the entire process.

They were at it for 22 minutes, before he dismounted and flew off.

Now I can’t wait to see if she lays a fertilised ootheca!

With long and graspy legs, nasty jaw-like mandibles and modified appendages through which they inject their prey with venom, these house centipedes look like the epitome of all that’s evil and dangerous in the wilderness at night.

Yet they do no more harm to humans than the average spider – if they do bite at all. Most just scuttle off into the undergrowth at the slightest hint of disturbance. One individual was most cooperative as we four photographers manoeuvred into position around it. It was so still that one of us made a remark along the lines of, “It wouldn’t be surprising if it was actually already dead and suddenly just dropped to the ground!”

Such close encounters are rare; and we made the most of this opportunity to capture whatever we could of this ‘pede as the clocks tick-tocked closer towards midnight.

More photos from the night here.

Okay, so Diego’s a female.

We counted eight abdominal segments when Diego was a nymph, so we took a risk and named it a him even though we knew that we could really only tell when it reached maturity. We also knew that creatures should be its, but it’s got too much character to be called an it.

We thought Diego was going to explode. A month had gone by without him her undergoing ecdysis, yet she was still eating and growing. Her little wing buds looked as if they would burst at the seams any minute.

A couple of days ago, I transferred her into a bigger container, increased the humidity with a ball of wet wool, and provided her with some fibrous twine to hang upside down from.

Today in the afternoon, she moulted.

I watched, entranced, for an hour.

Right after she slipped out of her old exoskeleton – which took but less than five minutes, I took her out in her teneral state and placed her on a potted plant, letting the breeze dry her new wings, then still damp and clumped.

I observed the process of her transformation into full adult form as body fluids were pumped into her fragile and new structures. She lost a tarsus in her previous instar during a struggle with a grasshopper prey, but the lost appendage had regenerated in this final moult. After her cuticles hardened, she started grooming herself in her characteristic mantid way, brushing antennae and femurs with her mandibles and wiping her face like a cat does.

She’s so pretty…

Not entirely certain what species Diego is (this looks like a good fit), but we’re quite sure these are the males of her species, with handsome black forelegs and roach-like long antennae.

A very pretty male with blue irises:

More photos here.

Marbled forest gecko

Close-up

House centipede

Stick insect

Fulgoroid planthopper nymphs with ‘fibre-optic’ tails

Aside from pins and badges, I have a fetish for collecting dead creatures. Arthropods, mainly, and the odd vertebrate, stink though they may. I love being able to examine them up close, at all angles, an otherwise impossible task were they alive. Likewise with the exuviae, my containers of exoskeletons and skins, and zip-lock pouches of feathers.

Just before Christmas, I ordered some entomological supplies from Australia. This was long overdue; I should have acquired them when I still the net-swinging, butterfly-sweeping pre-teen. Or at least after my stint with NHM. Instead most of my specimens were left in vials, all dried up, some diptera headless, some hemiptera legless, and some had succumbed to the humidity and became enveloped in blobs of mould - these were usually promptly disposed of in the bin.

After recently depositing an unidentified species of tingid bug with the Raffles Museum and being given the opportunity to pierce a minuten through its thorax, a brilliant moment of NHM entom-ness struck, and it struck hard. Then I knew that I could hold off starting a proper collection no longer.

I think it’s human nature to want to collect stuff, just that perhaps not that many are into chitinous shells of nature, which is unfortunate. In Singapore, outside the biodiversity establishments, this pastime probably died with the departure of the British.

Whatever it is, it may be that we are deeply intriged by its intrinsic interestingness, its aesthetics, or we simply derive joy in ownership, or we may believe that it holds some potential value. To me, my collections speak to me in a temporal sense: It was [alive], it is [dead], and will continue to be [dead, yet existing]. And, like the photographs I take, I am attached to them through figments of my memory. I remember where I collected them (or how they came to me), with who, and how. Each has a story, and not just physiological ones!

My colleagues have been presenting me with ‘gifts’. The latest are a dead 178cm-long Oriental whip snake (it’s freakin’ long) and a juvenile spotted house gecko. As an experiment, I’ve arranged them in tupperware boxes ventilated with holes and buried them behind the office where ants abound. I’ll give them a while to decompose, and we’ll see what happens.

A beautiful honeycomb, the nest of honeybees (likeliest candidate Apis dorsata), measuring 61cm at its widest and 41cm across - and that is by no means the full size of the nest since parts of it have been visibly broken off. It smells of honey… pure, sweet honey, although all its cells are clean. No larvae, no ants, no signs of life.

A colleague found it (or rather, it found my colleague) when it fell with a thud from the sky, presumably dropped by the raptor - likely a honey buzzard - he saw flying overhead.

Susan Sontag: “To photograph is to confer importance”.

If I could, I’d just shoot everything I come across.

Failing which, I suppose these would have to do. Pickings from December so far -

‘Diego’ the mantis nymph, an early Christmas pressie from a colleague; and a female rhino beetle (both were photographed in a captive environment):

A mangrove shore pit viper, the last creature we managed to shoot before the torrent of rain caught up with us at Sungei Buloh:

While in the hide, we photographed everything that came within reach. An osprey and a greenshank in the heavy rain:

At Venus Drive at night, once again on the trail of the elusive bioluminescent mushrooms, we spotted a mygalomorph tarantula, firefly larviform female aka glow-worm, a weird species of lace bug and a hammerhead flatworm:

Meanwhile in the office, I documented more ‘pressies’ from colleagues - a green crab spider and this really cute jumper:

Then… back to Venus Drive again. A brown mantis greeted us on the way in, and I couldn’t resist but try to capture the magnificent architecture of a tiny Araneae spider’s web just before we left:

Upper Seletar Reservoir over the weekend; explored a new place. A lymantriid caterpillar, and a katydid with an ant:

Giant millipede and tiny bark scorpion:

Oriental whip snake, front (chin) and side portraits:

A (suspected huntsman) spider parasitised by entomogenous fungi:

And finally, over at Mandai… a masked lapwing (it was quite an amusing situation):

A lynx spider and St Andrew’s Cross spider:

Sunset over Seletar Reservoir:

In hindsight, I wonder how I managed to squeeze in all these other activities while working way overtime in preparation for an overseas conference…

All hyped up from the first recent re-discovery of the bioluminescent mushrooms, we organised a trip for colleagues and friends:

Then came the night of the Leonid meteor showers last Wednesday. We first drove to the Tampines biking trail, following the recommendations of the local astronomical community’s list of 5-star star-spotting locations, but having found it too bright from ambient light, we then made our way towards Tanah Merah, finally camping out on Changi Beach. It wasn’t the best, but at least the skies were relatively clear from 4-6am and we could see the stars. A pity there’s no escape from the lights in Singapore, unless you try the offshore islands.

We spent close to four hours before dawn staring at this patch of sky. Between four of us we saw about 20 Leonid meteors, including an uber-cool white fireball, but alas none were captured on camera.

(See this version with the constellations mapped out)

Went down to check on the mushrooms the following night again. Not that many this time round, so I shot other things:

Bark scorpion

Went back to work on Sat morning and after everything was finally over (for me), more night romping.

Sunset at Lower Pierce

Explored a new area - Upper Seletar. Found a couple of weirder versions of common things:

Predatory katydid with raptorial legs

Limacodid moth caterpillar

Tiger beetle

Sunbeam snake

More of this month’s photos on Flickr.

I’d never have considered myself a mushroom hunter (more of a mushroom eater), but ever since I photographed that lone glowing ’shroom, I was nearing the point of a healthy obsession whenever I stepped onto that trail.

Last night, for once in many visits, we was not disappointed. The week’s downpours were not in vain.

They were everywhere, near the streams, on the opposite bank, next to the trail, on broken branches, in leaf litter, at the edge of the secondary forests. It was unlike anything we’d ever seen. With our lights off and eyes adjusted to the darkness, we could see them very clearly: little clusters of bioluminescent mushrooms, glowing an eerie, pale emerald green in the pitch blackness.

At that moment, I don’t think I would’ve have blinked had I seen a pixie or sprite or some other mythical folk. Or one of those kodamas from Mononoke.

There are globally only slightly over 70 (out of 14 000) described species of mushrooms known to be luminescent, and I’m pretty sure there were at least four difference species from that one little humble patch yesterday. No strenuous hike needed, even. Numerous explanations exist for their luminescence, but generally they still belong to the realm of the mysterious.

More photos on Flickr.

The next time you’re around the mangroves or Route 3 freshwater ponds at Buloh, listen out for this - the sound of a young estuarine croc calling out to its mom. This was recorded on my N97 about two months ago, while doing my bird-ringing mist net rounds. Apparently, (Nile) croc babies start making umph sounds even before they hatch!

If the player doesn’t work, try this.

Synchronicity is played out in nature time and time again. Being in the right place at the right time, or, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, a series of coincidences leading to some meaningful outcome.

Then, enter the human: you, a non-actor in whatever that’s happening, yet a crucial influence in far too many others. To chance upon any one such event in the making is more than just a reflection of your ‘good luck’; the privilege to observe inspires a sense of unity with that precious and special natural world. It is refreshing to feel that you are not inhabiting human society, for a while.

Sungei Buloh yesterday was probably all I needed to recharge and recuperate from the previous weeks, and to prepare for what’s ahead. The day started off wonderfully, warm sun appearing after the rain, and an ad-hoc and extremely brief guided walk (literally just a few steps) and introduction to Buloh for a couple of visitors from Hong Kong. I also shared some locality highlights with a family who was bringing their seven-year-old son on his first visit to the mangroves.

Following a tip-off by Dr Chua regarding the sighting of a dead otter, we made our way towards the high-pitched barking that came from neither man nor bird, and then saw the family of smooth otters, to our left, on a mudflat not too far away, playfully sliding down the banks and splashing in the waters. Then we saw the carcass - loosely wedged between some rocks on the opposite side of the path, the subject of attention of visitors and one big monitor lizard. It was still largely intact, but thoroughly naked, the fur having disintegrated, leaving behind a shimmering, smooth and pale skin. The monitor stood possessively over the body, then attempted to rip a piece of the flesh near the pelvis. Budak called Otterman to ask if RMBR would be interested in its remains, while I requested for some assistance from the Reserve to help us secure the carcass.

After the dead otter was dealt with rather uneventfully - the monitor let out a loud disgruntled hiss as its meal was snatched away - we continued watching the otters. At one point, they climbed up onto the bund we were on, and one after another (there were seven of them), sprainted on a designated spot near the some vegetation less than 10 metres from where we were. Some started grooming themselves. Squatting to stay level with their noses and inching in slowly and respectfully, we squeezed our shutters and fired away. They were hardly bothered by our presence after ascertaining that we posed no threat. Those few moments into their private world were captivating.

Later that afternoon, we also managed to see three crocodiles - two from the Main Bridge, and the third and the largest passed right under our feet at a sluice gate at Route 3.

It wasn’t all fine and dandy though. The many dead milkfish that we saw scattered around the Reserve (some were left hanging on branches by the outgoing tide!) hinted at darker themes. Subaraj, whom we bumped into, was just as concerned. We hope it isn’t contamination, or some thoughtless and inconsiderate act of the upstream fish farmers releasing their diseased stocks. Was the dead otter we saw an early victim? Consequences of tiny actions can be tragic and severe, for ecological processes are impartial.

Water monitor feeding on otter carcass

Dead milkfish

Smooth otters on bank

Smooth otter sprainting

More smooth otter sprainting

Estuarine crocodile

Pacific golden plovers

What a nice day to mark the 10th anniversary since I started volunteering with the Reserve. More photos from the day on Flickr.

Buloh on Tuesday night; took some SP students out on a night survey. The mozzies there are evolving towards the likes of the Semakau-esque Commando breed, and in numbers greater than I’ve ever experienced before. Just the thought of them makes me shiver. Today was no better - no rain, nor wind, nor sun would stop them!

Delphacid planthopper

Eusocial bees

Crab-eating frog

Exploring the wilderness at night is a wholly different experience. More so when the grounds you tread are totally pitch black, shielded by the vegetation and canopies against any light straying in from the neighbouring civilisation. Hardly eerie. Instead, all is at peace.

The light from your headlamp is reflected off dew on the grass, or the backs of spiders or the eyes of frogs. Songs of the crickets, symphonies of the cicadas, calls of the owls and croaks of the toads. Creatures scamper through the bushes - nocturnals that you wouldn’t otherwise see during the day (not that you do see them at night; they move about so quickly that those glimpses aren’t sufficient for accurate identification).

No bioluminescent mushrooms this time, but there were scorpions, looking rather like aliens under the UV light, the fluorescence accenting the beautiful texture of their exoskeletons.

A bark scorpion (Lychas sp.) under normal LED torchlight

The same scorpion viewed under UV light

More photos on Flickr.

Venus Drive this morning was wet… wet… wet… yet we continued shooting through the rain. A number of good catches and sightings, including two very beautiful bearded Dracos.

Black-bearded gliding lizard (Draco melanopogon)

Coeliccia octogesima (?) with blue markings resembling telephone handsets

Dolichopodid, long-legged fly (Subfamily Neurigoninae)

Two of the Metanastria hyrtaca have emerged and been released so far, about two to three weeks after pupation. Mortality rate was high - a few caterpillars died while in their final instar, and a couple were immortalised in their cocoon webbing while still in their caterpillar forms (failed to pupate).

This particular individual looks different from the previous ones though… most likely a male?

A middle-aged woman, clad in a tee, shorts and slippers, came running towards us, carrying a large 2L bottle and four plastic cups. “I was watching you from upstairs!” She exclaimed, gesturing towards some upper level in the HDB block behind her.

We initially thought that she was an acquaintance of one of our companions. It took us a few moments to realise, after exchanging glances with one another, that here was a lady who was stranger to us all.

“I couldn’t see any water bottles - I thought you might be thirsty. You have been out in the sun for such a long time…” And she started doling out cups, which we obediently accepted. We thanked her profusely.

But she smiled and brushed our showers of appreciation aside dismissively before leaving us to our business, saying that if her son was out there, she’d do the same, and that we were like children to her too.

What a kind, motherly soul! (”So there is hope for Singapore after all!”)

After gulping down our share of the ice-cold water, we returned to our positions by the canal, cameras and lenses at the ready, awaiting the next incoming round of terns.

The Metanastria hyrtaca are back. So far so good - no carcasses, and they’re mostly already into their final instar.

Here’s a selection of six faces from the 11 caterpillars that were collected. I’d shoot more of them but it’s a chore getting them onto a branch one-by-one and then keeping them there… they’re either as lazy as muck and no amount of prodding would get them moving (some would then oooooze this icky black substance from their mandibles), or they’d scamper all over the place in an obstinate determination to avoid getting pinched by my pair of chopsticks-cum-forceps.

I guess… if you try really hard, you could tell them apart. After all, they’re all individuals… as are we all.

Such innocence we find in the expressions of the young.

Innocence that lasts past its tragically short life, a life which we failed to protect.

Left: 4th June; Right: 17 June

Perhaps as an effect of its fall onto the car, or perhaps as a result of having recklessly swallowed one too many mealworms, the bulbul’s left side is a little quirky and it has developed an unsightly kink in the neck. “Is the bird ok?” – everyone would ask. In its default state, it is hunched over like an old vulturous hag with the head perpetually tilted at a curious angle. While at rest or asleep, the head just sinks lower. The body posture reminds me of a certain leaning tower. Surprisingly, defying the prophecies of the pessimists, it has made it through not only the first, but the third weekend with us.

New names for it have been proposed by friends and colleagues (‘Toffee/Walnut’ didn’t quite catch on, except among a few of us): Fluffy, Humpy, Flumpfy, and the tongue-in-cheek Quasimododo(do).

At this age, I believe, the young bulbul should be capable of finding, or picking up its own food. But no – it’s still quite ignorant if I may admit it to be so, and it may be my fault for being incapable of teaching it the ways of the aves. It still gapes, quivers, and chirps babyishly and loudly for attention. And it knows no fear. I near-lobbed a large black hole-puncher at it, and instead of ducking and cowering away, it stretched its neck out towards the supposedly-intimidating object and opened its mouth, expecting food! A colleague suggested that I try dressing up as a big brown motherbird, peck at worms, and flap my arms. Failing which, I should at least costume my hand as such. And for good measure, I should also get a cat outfit…

The mynah fledging died last Monday, after a mere four days under our care. It had spiritless pupils, and a constantly damp and dirty vent to which was stuck bits of faecal material – the mark of an unhealthy bird. We suspect it came from a condemned brood (diseased? parasitised?) for its sibling was already found dead when the nest was removed from the ceiling.

Immediately after its demise came another young bird in need of maternal attention. The young yellow-vented bulbul arrived in style: on top of the family car, discovered after the car was parked back in the basement carpark at home. (There’s a bunch of low-hanging bushes just above the entrance to the carpark, and it’s possible that there’s a bulbul nest there, and the fledging did a spaghetti Western stunt and dropped onto the car as it was passing by underneath. At least, that’s as far-fetched a scenario as my imagination would allow.) This little one’s doing very well, consuming an average of a dozen mealworms each meal, with up to 10 feeding sessions per day earlier this week. It has since become more reasonable with its feeding(-on-demand) times, but it’s learnt to become more selective and would refuse either the mealworms or bird feed and preferring the other. It’s been chirpy, very observant, capable of short flights, and obsessed with preening. The silly thing isn’t very good with keeping its balance on the perch and so it would fall a few centremetres sideways – and downwards – whenever it tries to scratch its head with its leg over the wing, before it flutters frantically for a few moments and regains its upright grip.

It would appear that, being hand-reared and having imprinted on humans, the bird is now too tame to be released into the wild. Different schools of thought here; there are yet some who believe that it can survive on instinct. But we’ll see – its future is still uncertain.

During a recent night survey at Sungei Buloh:

Gynacantha dorhni, a large but slender and beautiful dragonfly, contentedly perched and completely oblivious to the world around it. This individual was, with the mutual agreement of the entomologists present, collected and presented to our in-house odonata expert who then recommended that it be kept as a museum voucher specimen.

A mangrove cricket, back-lit; I had only a moment to set this shot up before it hopped away into the foliage.

A strikingly-patterned and coloured moth (Dysphania sp.) which drew ooohs and ahhs and started a mini-lecture to some less inverty-type volunteers who asked about the differences between moths and butterflies. This moth was also responsible for making me lie flat on my back shooting against the sky with ants crawling around on the ground next to my head. Thank goodness none got into my ear.

A lone, wild bioluminescent mushroom as the naked eye sees it. Taken with a 30-second exposure, not too long ago.

At Buloh, my sis pointed out an Atlas Moth perched right behind me (I was much too engrossed in photographing a tiny juvenile Argiope spider) and according to her, I sprang a little sideways when I came to realise the close proximity of the giant of moths to my head. How I missed it I have no idea, and in her words, it was “noob”ish of me. Other hightlights: Weaver ants tending to young hoppers, hovering d’flies, and a beautiful Gasteracantha.

* * * * *

We spent almost an entire day around the Butterfly Hill/Jelutong campsite on Pulau Ubin, a shrubbery patch which I doubt was larger than a 100m square but so rich was its arthropod diversity that we took hours just to advance a few metres. The variety of bird songs challenged my meagre birding skills, what with my then-knowledge of the call of the [Singapore] flowerpecker having been replaced with the screeches of the [Australian] galahs, which were in turn truncated to make space in my memory for the chirps of the [British] tits. And so on and so forth. I am in bad need of a refresher. More unforgivable was mistaking the chorus of cicadas for crickets, but it was a tune with which I was not familiar - coming from a striking red-and-black cicada species which I have not encountered before on the mainland and was later identified from photographs I took (not specimens I collected *hrrmph!*) as Huechys sanguinea. There’s also a bizarre-looking spider with a teardrop-shaped abdomen, and that one’s awaiting identification from the experts. A centipede was spotted residing quite cosily in what looked like the rolled-up leaf chamber of a sac spider. So many things to see, to shoot, to be baffled by…!

More photos:
Sungei Buloh, 10 Apr
Pulau Ubin, 11 Apr

Not being able to find aphids for the lacewing larvae, I settled for whatever I could find on the leaves of the plants surrounding the office. Fortunately, the larvae took quite well to the whiteflies (Aleyrodidae) and other smiliar-sized insects.

I placed the larvae and their prey onto an island surrounded by a moat in a dish, and observed the proceedings under the microscope. It was like watching Discovery Channel live - almost!

A larva loads itself with debris (a mixture of pieces of vegetation and the remnants of its previous meals, serving as both camouflage and defense against subjugation); it arches backwards and applies the packet to the spikes on its back:

Here one of the larvae has impaled the fly on its jaws and is sucking it out, and another is trying to steal debris off the first:

In this short video clip (please excuse Bach in the background), a larva appears to have successfully harrassed another and taken over its place at the table:

On my desk sit containers housing stalks of lacewing eggs, a clump of hemipteran eggs, a pair of gecko eggs, and an egg of mysterious origins, unknown disposition and undetermined fertility which was found exposed on a grass patch just behind the office block.

Some of the lacewings have hatched; the ravenous larvae have cannibalised one another and only four out of the dozen were left standing by the time I had gotten round to separating them into individual cells. Now I’ve to find food for them - donations of aphids and mealy bugs are welcomed.

Lacewing eggs (Neuroptera - Chrysopidae)

Mystery egg

Sunset over Merawang Beacon, Tuas. A trip four years overdue…

The first of the three sole survivors of the genocide has emerged.

Presenting… the adult Metanastria hyrtaca, a swirl of a snouty, chocolately furry being. My foster-motherly tendencies not being able to resist a gentle pat of its head for making it this far, I swept a finger lightly along what could be called its forehead, only to feel and to find a row of black spikes embedded into my fingertip.

Yeowch, that evil little thing.

Two more to go, and they’ll most likely emerge tomorrow. They shall be released where they were found, and may the force be with them and their offspring as they wage the war on and continue the fight for their species. It is a war of man against nature, and man against man.

when young. Thanks to Roger Kendrick, the gregarious cats have been identified as Metanastria hyrtaca. Apparently, these (seen 2 Dec 08) were simply earlier instars of these (RIP 19 Feb 09). I wonder if they’re the same batch though. It’ll be a real pity if they were.

After two-and-a-half years later of journeying with my D200… it’s time to lay it to rest in the dry box. Not that the D200 was proving inadequate; I’d very gladly stick to it till its shutter dies, but its sensor had gone awry and it’d cost more than a third the price of a new D300 to get it replaced. I had waited a while, deliberating, but the white line problem was getting worse, and decided that there was no point in hesitating further. Camera and lens prices have been rocketing recently too, with the strength of the Yen. Had I gone to the shop last week, I would have saved a hundred bucks or so.

As tradition goes (D70, D200), I spent the day with my new D300 (duckfully named the Husky Express) at Sungei Buloh. It was a poor day for wader flight shots, compared to the previous Saturday, but it rained… finally! After all these weeks of nothing but the sun. I was at Venus Drive yesterday and walked through a patch of scorched earth, the site of a small bushfire a few days ago.

A water monitor wades past a flock of Common Redshanks and Little Egrets. The birds were hardly disturbed.

Grey heron in the rain

Buloh Main Bridge

Sprayed with insecticide by SBG staff, apparently. Some were still twitching by the time I got on scene.

They were there on that same spot on the tree (a Terminalia ivorensis) for a week, at least. I counted over 160 of them earlier this week, and collected 6 of them, 4 of which have pupated and cocooned themselves at the top of the tank. Now I wished I had been greedier.

There were none left alive on the tree, a Terminalia ivorensis… none which I could see, anyway. No cats, no cocoons. Just carcasses atop a giant pile of poop.

Curious onlookers would approach me, where I was standing by the main bridge with my camera pointed at the bushes, asking what I was shooting. I’d point out the Shore Pit Viper coiled up between the branches, adding a descriptive sentence or two about the reptile.

“How do you know it’s a viper?” a little girl asked.

“See the triangular head? Vipers have triangular heads.”

“How do you know it’s venomous?” she pressed.

“Would you like to try…?”

A furious shake of the head, a few steps back, laughter.

“Jokes aside, it is very venomous, so please be careful… do not disturb it, provoke it, or go too near, and you should be safe. All vipers are venomous, and can strike without warning…”

She looked mortified, so I added in the interesting fact that these pitvipers give birth to live young, unlike most other reptiles.

Thank goodness she didn’t ask me how I knew that.

Keep seeing massive clumps of various sorts of hairy/tufty/spikey/furry moth caterpillars on tree trunks lately…

I was out of the office most of this week at a three-day workshop, and so couldn’t keep a motherly eye on the two reptilian eggs of an unknown species that were collected from a coastal forest in mid-December last year. On second thoughts, I should’ve brought them home, like I usually do.

When I returned to the office today, a colleague told me that she saw geckos in the tank.

“?! They’ve hatched?”

I could only find one of them, well-camouflaged within the leaf litter, a tiny 6.3cm thing which resembled a little Rye, a Gekko monarchus. The name ‘Ryester’ quickly caught on.

The other was nowhere to be seen; it might have slipped through the holes in the cover. I also found a piece of slough which looks like it might have come from the lower jaw. Ryester’s got some rough peeling patches - hatchlings moult this soon? Hardly three days’ old.

He’s also extremely skittish, skippy, and likes to pounce. If you touch his snout or stroke his head, he’ll open his mouth so wide that you can see his palate and all the way down his throat.

We’ll keep him for a while longer, until he has the chance to go on a short return boat ride and be released where he came from.

Yesterday while at the Kranji Nature Trail, many of us noticed the odd occurrence of a great number of the black spiny ants (Polyrachis sp.) apparently ’suspended in motion’, especially towards the end of the trail where the mangroves met with the secondary forest. They were all dead, their mandibles clasping onto the edge of a leaf, or twig, and isolated from the colonies. We suspected it’s the doing of fungal parasitism. I collected a few of them, with the thought of doing some research on this. Today I saw fungal growth on the ants - so the cause of death is certain.

More on this to come as soon as I find out more.

Office Pet #4: Gekko monarchus

We think it’s a she, although it’s probably still too young to tell, for it still has almost double its body length to grow. She’s getting better at that hunting job and gobbles up everything I throw at her - grasshoppers, crickets, ‘roaches, spiders, the odd caterpillar… and doesn’t need to be ‘tweezer-fed’ any more. I’m now waiting for her to moult, for I’ve yet to observe a gecko in the moulting process. Learning quite a lot about gecko feeding behaviour too.

Recently, I’ve had caterpillars fall onto my path, cats as gifts, and cats gotten rid of as unwanted pests on (or around) my colleagues’ beloved plants. The collection of vials and containers on my desk and my bathroom at home has been growing. Some contain eggs, some house pupae, and others… other stuff. My latest obsession has been a patch of Clerodendrum plants near the Visitor Centre at the Botanic Gardens, which I’d visit every day after work if I could. It all started with these tussock moth pupae I discovered suspended in webs on its leaves… and took a few back, curious as to what would emerge from them. Turned out to be Perina nuda, and apparently all of them were male. Keeping an observation diary of sorts now… and I’ve a dozen suspected Perina nuda eggs waiting to hatch.

1: Un-IDed moth cats
2: Clearwing/Banyan Tussock (Perina nuda), pre-pupation
3: Grass yellow (Eurema sp.)
4: Common Awl (Hasora badra badra) cat
5: Sphingidae, pre-pupation (Hawk or Sphinx moth)
6: Nicknamed ‘Kaonashi’ aka ‘No Face’, Hesperiidae cat, possibly Telicota sp.?
7: Tussock moth
8: Un-IDed moth cat?

Last week was all about the shores and seagrasses. This week was all about the birds, butterflies and bees(+wasps), with two groups - the NSS birders, and Butterfly Circle members down for their respective faunal surveys.

What beautiful weather! Clear blue skies as we set off from the West Coast Pier on a 12-crew workboat.

The breeze was strong, presenting a real challenge for macro photography, and the sun was dehydratingly hot. For the most part, I gave up on nature photography and just did mainly landscape shots.

The butt experts got unexpectedly busy. They shot by the roadside, in the mangroves (with the swarms of mozzies), by the coast, and in the grasslands. Some of us took the opportunity to slack it out in the hut, enjoying cans of 100-plus whilst the more hardcore ones amongst us continued on their hunts through uncivilised territory. We spotted lots more butts today - tigers, pansies, lascars, yellows… and altogether the team tallied a list of 18 species, which is quite impressive considering the lack of butt sightings on previous trips by other groups to Semakau. These guys have trained eyes, patience, tolerance, and luck on their side. Also with us was John Lee, the hymenopteran expert behind this website whom I had only knew by name but not by face. Armed with his net and bottles of specimens, he’s a walking encyclopedia of all buzzing things that sport a sting.

Links:

• Butterflies and bees of Pulau Semakau
• More mangroves of Semakau

The Semakau Landfill is Singapore’s only landfill for waste disposal. It covers a total area of 350 hectares and has a capacity of 63 million m³. To create the required landfill space, a 7-km perimeter rock bund was built to enclose a part of the sea off between Pulau Semakau and Pulau Sakeng [off the southern coasts of Singapore]… was commissioned in April 1999 [and is expected to last until 2040].

- Signboard at Semakau NEA jetty

As if the excitement of the previous day’s trip to Cyrene wasn’t enough for a week, this was my first time to Semakau too. I wouldn’t have known this was Semakau, or that it was a landfill site, if I hadn’t actually known. It had none of the unpleasantries associated with waste disposal and management… nothing like a typical landfill in the UK. It was clean, green… and flat.

A 45-minute boat ride brought us from the Marina South Pier on the mainland to Pulau Semakau. Once there, we split off into our teams and together with our equipment were ferried in a small van along the rock bund to an opening in the mangrove forest that separated the landfill cells and the sandy shores. We trudged through the mangroves, and got out on the other side, the more unfortunate among us already itching and scratching from the mozzie assault.

After some initial difficulties in getting the transect line taut and straightened and laid according to the given bearing, the seagrass survey went quite smoothly.

The sky was overcast and it had rained a little earlier in the day, so we were grateful that not a drop was drizzled when we were out there. There was a beautiful sunset, too, its colours reflected in the pools of still water during the low tide.

Photos:

• Semakau on Zoto

Links:

• The day’s trip on the Team Seagrass blog
• More of the same on the Wildshores blog
• Wiki article on Semakau
• NEA Master Plan for Semakau
• Project Semakau website

Tiger beetle

Weaver ants attacking termite

How many waders can you spot?

Sunset at Buloh

After more than a year of snakeless sightings at Buloh (for myself, at least), we stroke it lucky with a double whip and a [dead] croc. Being too lazy to write about them myself, I'll just prod you towards budak’s posts here and here (and less relatedly, here).

Juvenile Oriental Whip

Pwoor croc

Female juvenile Changeable lizard

Whimbrels - possibly the best waders-in-flight shot I’ve taken in Singapore thus far

Ged’off my proboscis!

The term ‘cute’… being applied subjectively, of course.

Oriental magpie robin

A baby monitor lizard

Sun skink

WALL*E spider

A Common Greenback surrounded by Asiatic Toad(let)s; taken with my N73 at the Botanic Gardens.

Oriental Whip

There were crowds at Pulau Ubin last Friday. Crowds! We actually had to queue to get on a bumboat, the bicycle rental shops were packed and the restaurants were full even when lunch hour had long passed. Don’t know if it’s a good thing or bad. Most weren’t locals though. Mainly bunches of gweilos and mainlanders (or PRCs, as they call them here).

Much has changed since I last went to Ubin, which, according to my records was in December 2004. For one, Chek Jawa was still relatively untouched. Now it’s got that boardwalk… and House No. 1 has been turned into a visitor/heritage centre. There’s that Ubin Green House, SEC/GVN’s eco-house, and the newish Ubin Volunteer Hub. The potent mozzies still wouldn’t leave me alone, though. Among the four of us to have gone there that day, I suffered the most bites. Others came through unscathed. Sigh, the unfairness of it all.

Saw the hornbill there at long last, and caught it in flight, too! Pekan Quarry is a lovely place to relax and lie in wait for passing birds. It might become my favourite spot there yet.

Not sure why I’m feeling so lazy to type right now. It’s one of those periods when I’m dry of words. Budak has written up entries on it - this and the preceding six posts.

Robber fly with damselfly prey

Digger wasp, Bembix sp. (Sphecidae)

Glossy starling

Oriental pied hornbill

Pekan Quarry

Mutt

Full moon

I think I’m getting the hang of the R1 close up speedlights. All those flashes have been giving me that black background and some harsh lighting at times, although a number turned out decent. I might try my hand at alternative lighting techniques on my next outing though, with angled flashes and bounce cards and the whole lot. I’ve also come to realise how useful a monopod can be in the field… which reminds me, I really should get a ballhead.

Bukit Timah Nature Reserve and the Botanic Gardens yesterday, with the companionship of mr budak and my sis, on her first visit to BTNR. A quiet day, the critters we saw were all much too tiny, but at least the weather had been extremely kind and the forecasted thunderstorms did not come.

Even bugs need to pee - a Stink Bug nymph (Pentatomidae)

A Squash Bug (Coreidae)

Don’t be fooled - one’s an ant and the other’s a spider. Amazing how alike the real thing (a Polyrhachis aka Spiny Ant) the mimic can be

A cute little Kendall’s Rock Gecko with those big round eyes (not sure if the term ‘lifer’ applies to non-avians but this would be a first for me)

A male Changeable Lizard, in faded breeding colours

Photos :: Bukit Timah Nature Reserve & Singapore Botanic Gardens

The rain shows no signs of easing up, with thunderstorms forecasted for the rest of the week. Still, managed to get a few macro shots at the Botanic Gardens today, amidst drizzles, my new Nikon R1 close-up speedlight system finally seeing some action in the field after having sat at home for a month.

White-handed flies doing a curious mating dance

White-handed flies… after the dance

Need-to-find-out-its-species cicada

____________ (fill in your own caption)

Photos :: Singapore Botanic Gardens

The earliest diary entry that mentioned my fascination for caterpillar-rearing was written when I was 11 - 10 April 1996: “checked the plants and found out that the caterpillars turned into pupas [sic]!“. Now it’s my sis who gets all excited, and watches over her charge day and night. A lime caterpillar I found on one of my mom’s friend’s plants was brought back and passed to my sis for safekeeping. It turned into a pupa (also called a chrysalis for butterflies) just before we left for Hong Kong, and in the wee hours of this morning, the butterfly emerged.

These pics of previous caterpillars reared were taken with my Nikon CP4500. These are both lime caterpillars - the one looking like birds’ droppings is of the earlier instars, and as the caterpillar matures it would assume the green, plump and juicy form.

Left: a newly-formed pupa, and right: hours to metamorphosis completion.
The remains of the caterpillar’s final moult is found next to the pupa.

Fresh out of the pupal case, the butterfly rests while it pumps fluids through its wings and waits for them to dry and harden. During this time, I place it where it can receive ample sunlight.

A closer look at its coiled-up proboscis and ‘furry’ body

Ready for release, my sis and I bring it down to the gardens for a final photoshoot before seeing it flutter away into the treetops

I’ll be returning to Singapore this weekend, but not before we have a quiet little reunion of QuGee and the extended circle and enjoy an evening meal with our friends.

* * * * *

A refreshing breath of chilly winter air away from the city centre was just what I needed to wrap up this season in London. The ponds have frosted over, ducks and geese are sliding on ice. The watervoles are, supposedly, hibernating. It’s a frosty winter, this.

When The Red, Red, Robin
Comes bob, bob, bobbin’
Along, along,
There’ll be no more sobbin’
When he starts throbbin’
His old sweet song.

Wake up, wake up you sleepy head,
Get up, get up, get out of bed,
Cheer up, cheer up, the sun is red,
Live, love, laugh and be happy.

The red, red, robin himself

Hark how the green-finch bears his part

Dusk falls in the early afternoon - Hush, hush, hush

Photos :: London Wetland Centre

Sparring during the rut A bachelor herd of young Red Deer bucks Golden (tick-infested!) grass and shrublands More photos on Zoto.

Scientists, naturalists, and others from the biodiversity circles gathered yesterday at the Singapore Botanic Gardens to attend the screening of Expedition Linné, a film by the Swedish photographer Mattias Klum (of Nat Geog fame) and journalist Folke Rydén. Inspired by Carolus Linnaeus (Carl von Linné), the father of plant and animal classification, the film prompts [...]

Tim Egan in writing for the BBC describes the need for the “wilderness as a yin to the urban yang”. Well what we have in Singapore is not quite the ‘wilderness’, but our natural reserves are as close as you can get. I need to get out to revitalise. Yesterday was good - little kids [...]

Sungei Buloh today… Shield bugs A vespid wasp Spiderlings!