For the Future of Our Forest

Olive Back Sunbird and its nest

2009-06-12T23:44:00.001+08:00

morning glory taken at Frasers' Hill Yr2008

2008-09-26T19:51:00.004+08:00

This picture is taken at the backyard of Smokehouse during a group (18 persons) of nature photographers went to FH in May 2008. Winston Loong and I had an afternoon tea there and after that we strolled around the vicinity of Smokehouse. We also booked the dinner for the next day.

Green Magpie taken at Fraser's Hill, Malaysia, 2 May 08

2008-06-04T14:54:00.004+08:00

This bird came to our hotel (we stayed at Jelai resort for May 2008) twice in the morning around 8am. The 1st time I missed, 2nd time (the day before we departed FH), I was lucky having the BF and heard Winston shouted Green Magpie. This time she was willingly to perch at the open quite long (about 3-4 mins) before she vanished to the forest behind.
I didn't see this bird again though I revisited FH in mid-Jun 2009.

Snow Flats (Tagiades sp)

2008-05-09T11:33:00.002+08:00

Just a follow up on the previous post. Wanted to share 2 other pictures that I took of the Snow Flats (Tagiades sp.) at Lower Peirce so that "commander" will be able to help confirm its ID. :)

Cheers
JC

More bugs on May 2008 Nature Walk @ Lower Peirce

2008-05-08T10:41:00.004+08:00

Was at the Lower Peirce for the month May 08 Nature Walk. Uncle Johnny was there also and he guided the 1st group (big grp). As the group guided by Uncle Johnny is getting too big, we separate a family of 3 to a second group which I guided.

On that day, I realised that the Long-tailed Macaque Monkeys are early. Normally, we do not see them till late in the morning after 10pm. This morning, when I was there b4 9.30am, was able to spot them around the trees. Is it due to the recent warm weather?

Anyway, the walk when smoothly and I had sometime left to myself after the walk to practise on my macro-photography skill. Thus manage to shoot some bugs (see below).

Common Palmfly (Elymnias hypermnestra)

A badly tattered Chocolate Pansy (Junonia hedonia ida)

Either a Malayan Lascar or a Common Lascar

A Snow Flats (Tagiades sp)

Of course, how can I ever miss my old friend, Mr. Sun Skink whom I named Mr. Sunny. :P

Was also able to spot a pair of Flying Draco. Anyone can ID if this is the common flying Draco or the black-bearded? Sorry did not manage to take a pix of its throat to differential.

Will also need some help on the bugs ID.

P.S. Tks Commander for the butterflies IDs.

Cheers
JC

April 2008 Walk

2008-04-28T22:24:00.017+08:00

Its been a while since I last posted anything. Managed to join the April 2008 walk after a couple of months break due to work commitment.

Vanessa assigned me to OJT with Boon Cheong. With BC, you can be sure to learn lots from him. While following and learning from BC, I managed to take some pix along the way. :)

(BC giving the briefing before the walk)

(Rubber Seeds)

And one of the main highlight of the day, a rare fungus and food galore!

Anyone who are certain of the various IDs, kindly please share.

Cheers
JC

Bracket Fungus

2008-03-28T21:24:00.005+08:00

" Wah!!!.. SO BIG!!!! "

This is what Genevie say when she saw this photos.

Our Birthday girl (HuiJia) want to have a bit

Photos are Copyrighted © Derek Liew 2008

A moth ?

2008-02-17T16:23:00.001+08:00

I think this is a moth, anyone know what's the name of it?

Insects Identification

2007-12-10T15:39:00.001+08:00

Insects are a major group of arthropods and the most diverse group of animals on the Earth, with over a million described species.

I had some time available in the morning of 1st Dec. Thus decided to join the CNR for the monthly Lower Peirce Walk. Met Vanessa & Uncle Johnny at the trail but seems like there will not be any walk that day afterall. Most likely due to many travelling out of town for the school holiday and the Sitex show in Singapore expo.

Nevertheless, as I'm armed with my macro lens. Decided to take a walk and hopefully took some decent pictures. As I'm really weak in the identification of insect, thus will appreciate if anyone can help to provide the proper ID of them (scientific names will be great too).

(Pix 1)

(Pix 2: Caterpilla?)

(Pix3)

(Pix 4)(Pix5)

(Pix 6: Some hopper?)

(Pix 7: Ant Mimicking Spider?)

(Pix 8)

(Pix 9: IS it eating something?)

(Pix 10)

(Pix 11)

(Pix 12: Mating Pair)

It was also my 1st time seeing this Bronchocela cristatella (Tks Siyang for the ID) in Lower Peirce.

Had fun shooting. Till next time, hope you like the pictures.

Cheers
JC

Does anyone knows what is that??????

2007-10-14T14:07:00.000+08:00

I found this 'creature' at Pasir Ris Beach.

Lizards

2007-06-25T11:16:00.000+08:00

Much overdue post on my last trip to lower peirce walk. This is the 1st time I saw the monitor lizard in lower peirce walk. Actually, I'm not 100% sure if its the clouded or the common Malayan Water Monitor. From what I know, the way to distinguish the two is by the position of their nostrils. Apparently, clouded ones lie mid-way between the eye and snout.

(Posing nicely for me)

(A slightly closer view but abit blur also)

Beside the encounter with the monitor lizard, while walking back, there was this sun skink that is practically enjoying its sunbathing session in the middle of the boardwalk.

(Common Sun Skink)

Juvenile Wagler's Pit-viper (Tropidolaemus wagleri)

2007-05-29T10:37:00.000+08:00

19th May 2007 was the 1st Plant Walk @ Hindelle Nature Park in 2007. The next walk will be held on 16 June. Typically, the walk is conducted by the students from Ngee Ann Poly who has adopted the Park. However, due to some unforseen activities at their school, they are not able to attend thus came in the CNR volunteers. :D

While Zeng Rong is leading the public together with leshon, Genevie lead a group of us to brief and introduce us to the HNP. Along the walk, we were introduced to the various flora and we had a great discussions. HNP is really a nice park and is a perfect place for those who are new to nature walk to start with.

You might be wondering, why is my title "Juvenile Wagler's Pit-viper (Tropidolaemus wagleri)" and have yet to mention anything on the snake. Ok. The story of the Pit-viper is this; while we are setting up the various stations for the Plant Walk, 10mins into the process, Uncle Kon joined us and excitedly lead us to a spot where he spotted a green snake.

Upon reaching the location, we saw a lovely green snake with some red spots/patterns and came to realised that it is the Juvenile Wagler's Pit-viper which Genevie did mentioned to us during briefing that a pit0viper was recently spotted in the Hindelle Nature Park. Guess what? The pit-viper resting location is only like slightly more than a metre away into bush from the main paveway.

Take a look at this magnificent snake. And please be careful and keep a lookout when you visit the park the next time.

A point to note, do not mistake the pit-viper as the oriental whip snake. Both are green with pointed/trangular head. Pit-viper is poisonous while the oriental barely is. The pix below is the oriental whip spotted at Lower Pierce.

And of course some other animals and insect spotted.

For more pix that I took on that day, click here.

Fauna & Flora @ Lower Peirce Trail

2007-05-09T12:38:00.000+08:00

5th May 07, the day in the month of May that the Lower Peirce nature guided walk was conducted. Uncle Johnny conducted the 9.30am walk. Ruth did the 10.30am walk.

It has been a great learning experience (OJT) for myself to tag along in their guided walk. Uncle Johnny has lots of experiences to share. Ruth sure knows a lot on the various fauna & flora around the area (including some scientific name).

Well, since this is my 2nd OJT at Lower Peirce, decided to pay more attention to the various fauna & flora. As a result, managed to take some pictures of them which I'll be sharing in the rest of this post. Anyone who can do the proper I.D, please post in the comments or alternatively email to me if you don't mind. :D

Since we are in one of the Central Nature Catchment forest, lets look at some of the flora 1st. Below are two of the most commonly seen in Lower Peirce, the leaf of a rubber tree and the "alien" South American plant.

The rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis) leaf is trifoliolate which make it pretty distinctive. The South American plant/herb (Clidemia hirta) leaf are hairy and we see alot of them along the reservoir area. By the way, it has a very interesting common name - Koster's curse, anyone can advise on the origins of this name?

Along the trail, we saw a number of fungus. 2 of them are shown below which I need help in I.D. From what I know, they are commonly found on rotting/decaying tree/log.

One of the most interesting plant in Lower Peirce in my opinion is the leaf-litter plant (scienitific name, anyone?). This plant has a very strong survival will. Beside the normal photosynthesis process and adsorbing nutrient through the roots, it can also creates its own food by trapping fallen leaves.

Most guides from CNR will never miss the opportunity to introduce visitors to this interesting plant. Regulars to the CNR gave it a very localised name, Kiasu Plant. Very Singaporean indeed. :)

P.S. Scientific Name: Agrostistachys longifolia. Malay name: Jenjulong (Tks to BC)

Next up, the various fauna I saw. Lots of insects especially spiders and animals were seen. Although I probably saw at least 5 different species of spider, am only able to share the pictures of 2 as the rest did not turned out well.

Will definitely need some assistance in doing the I.D of these fauna.

Was told that the pair of spider on the left is known as "Papa Long Legs" spider. :P

Off course, we have the dragonfly, bee & butterfly . How I can I miss them. :)

We also spotted a terrapin in the reservoir and I wonder to myself "Is this a native species or an alien?"

While on the way back to the starting point after the trail ended, I heard some leaves shuffled somewhere halfway into the trail and realised that a few monkeys are hopping from tree to tree. Close to the money, I spotted a blackish bird that kept following one of the monkey. Was told that this bird always follows closely to the monkey so that whenever the monkey jumps from tree to tree, any insects that are on the branch before will be thrown out which in turn provides a golden opportunity for the bird to grab their meal.

I remember someone mention this to me:

A trip to CNR is never complete without seeing any monkey.

For those of you who are new to the CNR's Nature Walk (free), do look out for those big banners like this. Contact number and when the walk are conduct are listed on the banners.

Lower Peirce Nature Trail - 07th April 2007

2007-04-24T01:03:00.000+08:00

A long overdue entry on my OJT @ Lower Peirce Nature Trail on 7th April 2007.

The day started at 9.30am. Surprisingly, there was quite a big turnout. In fact, there were two groups. One from the general public and another from the fellows from AVA. One of them is also a Ubin Volunteer.

While waiting, Derek spotted a oriental whip snake and was eager to educate many of us on how "friendly" it is and how we can handle them with care.

Apparently, there have been cases of snake killed by members of the public. Sad indeed and hopefully with increased awareness and education, such cases will not happen again.

After all participants were accounted for. It's back to the SOP- briefing, conducted at the entrance of the trail.

Along the walk, the guide shared with us a lot of information and stories about the various plants and trees found in Lower Pierce as well as faciliate discussions. It was really an interesting walk for me as we are also sharing our knowledge and experience with one another.

Other than the benefit of being in nature, I believe one of the best rewards to any Nature Guide is to know that the group he/she is leading is paying great attention to him/her.

Half of this trail goes under the canopy of the forest. Many different species of plants and trees were spotted, and I started to wonder: will I ever be able to remember all these names? Guess I'll never know the answer till I try! The same logic apply to many things in life.

While we were approaching the reservoir area, one of the participants wittnessed one of the "spike" of a palm tree dropped from a height and spears through one of its leaf. Amazing! Sure glad that my hand was not in that area during that time.

Along the way, we did not forget to add some fun. Derek gathered everyone and together with Leshon, they demonstrated how one can create a "bullet" from a plant. Some of the kids were surely impressed. To many of us (adult), this is something that we used to play so often in the past. However, the kids these day, with their limited exposure to the open grass fields & nature, may not have played this before.

As we moved on, we reached the last 1/3 of the trail. This stretch is along the reservoir edge and "boy oh boy", the view is just spectacular!

After walking for about 45mins (from the start), we reached the end of the walk. We bidded each other farewell and parted our ways. Some decided to try venturing onwards to the other side while a couple of us headed back to the trail for more discovery. All in all, everyone had enjoyed themselves and had just attended a well conducted nature class in the one of the best classrooms- Lower Peirce Trail of Central Catchment Nature Reserve.

Nature Encounters

2007-03-05T20:55:00.000+08:00

The largest Snail that I've seen. I can't identify what species was it!

This spider has a unique name. It is called St. Andrew Cross Spider. Its web contains 4 silken zig-zag bands, it resembles the cross of St. Andrew's. The purpose is to mark its territory.

This is a scenic view of Lower Pierce!

Volunteer Recognition Event (Conservation Division)

2007-01-27T23:17:00.000+08:00

18 Nov 2006. It's the first time we decided to gather all the volunteers from Central Nature Reserve, Pulau Ubin and Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve together for the year-end recognition event. The event was a success, with close to a hundred volunteers and staff mingling with one another and enjoying the activities such as (Rain)tree-climbing and a guided walk to the HSBC TreeTop Walk.

Tay and Derek caught some really interesting portraits and actions on their cameras... will post them when I am back after mid Feb. Meanwhile, do check out photos taken by Dr. Chua's on his Flickr and also posts on Ubin's volunteer blog.

Apologies for the late update. "Heartware" has been down at home : P

Reforestation at Big Island, Hawai'i

2007-01-24T08:12:00.000+08:00

I am fortunate to travel to Big Island, Hawai'i and had a great opportunity to visit the lush native rainforests in the amazing volcano park. My guide brought us into the rainforest (where tourists are not allowed) to do reforestation and do our little part for the native rainforests. We are tasked to remove the ginger plant - an ornamental plant in Hawai'i (not sure what is the scientific name), not the normal ginger plant we are familiar with. The rapid growth of the ginger plants is affecting the other native plants and ferns. We could see them sprouting all over the forests as we walked through the area.

We need to pull out the roots of the ginger plant to remove it completely. The concept is similar to what we did for Simlax reforestation except that the ginger plant is not a climber like Simlax. Here is the photo of the roots of the ginger plant. For a goup of six people, we managed to remove a huge bag of ginger plants, with roots. It feels good to be helping out, though in a small way.

Forest Nutmegs

2006-10-15T12:19:00.000+08:00

This fruiting tree (Horsfieldia sp.) found in our forest belongs to the nutmeg family (Myristicaceae). The fruits turn from green to light-yellow and then dark orange-yellow. If you observe this picture carefully, you will see a shallow longitudinal grove on the fruit- this is the line along which the fleshy outer covering (pericarp) of the fruit will split into two halves to reveal a seed that is wrapped entirely by a bright crimson orange-coloured aril.

Uncle Tay took this beautiful picture a few days ago, which shows a Plantain Squirrel munching on, presumably, some parts of the fruits. We cannot really determine whether it was eating the fruit's pericarp or the seed, the latter of which means that rather in helping to disperse the seeds, the squirrel is yet again, a notorious seed predator in our forest.

Asian Fairy Bluebird

2006-10-11T23:36:00.000+08:00

Next, I would like to share with you the pictures taken by another 'Uncle'- Uncle Johnny! The tireless nature enthusiast can be seen these days in the wild with his digital SLR and super-long lens. I eqaute that to taking a hike with an heavy dumbells, before long, you should have good arm strength and stamina.

Johnny took this pix from the summit of Bukit Timah Nature Reserve last week. The bird was one of the many that were foraging on the fig tree. Read more about the tree and the birds that it has been attracting on the blog of the Bird Ecology Study Group

Time to visit dentist?

2006-10-11T22:13:00.000+08:00

My colleague Uncle Tay, the family man, is too ~~lazy~~ pre-occupied to create a post here, or maintain his blog as a mean to share his photos- which we will receive in our emails once in a short while. It is such a shame that only a few of us can see his photos, which usually come with funny captions that will make people laugh. So, with his permission, I will be regularly posting some of his photos here to share with you his sense of humour, inspired by nature.

Every nature trip is unique...

2006-10-09T20:20:00.000+08:00

Every trip I made to nature was fruitful and unique. My last trip to Lower Peirce was quite a special one. I took 43 pictures in total with Ms Chang giving me good tips on how to take good pictures. I saw many things. These fruits were one of them. Anyone knows the name of it ?

I also witnessed a small wasp flying out of a fig when we cut the fruit into two. I also saw green crested lizard, two pairs of squirrels mating, long-tail macaque and a very big spider (forgot its name).

Taking a respite

2006-10-01T21:37:00.000+08:00

At the end of a good day out in the field, this is really something beautiful to do- to lie close to the earth and try to acquire an ant’s eye view. That’s if you can be oblivious to the ants that are curious about a big mammal lying in their territory…

Nepenthes Galore

2006-10-01T21:30:00.000+08:00

I told you last Thursday was a wonderful day- there was the mysterious dead rat, the panicky deer and the expansive resam field. It was also a day of pitcher plant galore!

Without having to move a step but simply pivoting around in the degraded area, we can see all 3 species that occurred in Singapore. So, although we were short of time, we couldn’t help spending some on capturing the beauty of the pitchers with our digital cameras.

These so called carnivorous plants thrive in open sunny areas where soils are poor in nutrients; they are often seen at degraded areas in our forest such as young secondary forest. There are 3 species in Singapore: Nepenthes gracilis, Nepenthes ampullaria and Nepenthes refflesiana. According to the little guidbook’s A Guide to the Carnivorous Plants of Singapore (published by Singapore Science Centre), there are also 3 hybrids found locally.

Developing pitchers of the Nepenthes rafflesiana, which is named after Sir Stamford Raffles. The slender one is an upper pitcher while the urn-shaped one is a lower pitcher.

And when these babies matured, this is how they will look:

Lower pitcher of Nepenthes rafflesiana. It is more squat and urn-shaped than the elongated and funnel-shaped upper pitcher (secod photo below). And oh, I found an asphyxiated Giant Forest Ant in the liquid of the lower pitcher, together with a wriggling white larva.

An attempt to capture the sensual beauty of the pitcher:

Being small, egg-shaped and arranged in a rosettes, the lower pitchers of Nepenthes ampullaria often illicit remarks on how cute they are.

Realised I didn’t bother to take pictures of Nepenthes gracilis. This is what happens if you become too common in this world.

Deer encounter

2006-10-01T00:25:00.000+08:00

Last Thursday was really a wonderful day out in the forest. The dead rat was a sad sight but it was, nevertheless, interesting to us. But nothing bet what we encountered later in the morning- we saw, or rather, caught a glimpse of a deer! Yes! A DEER! And mind you, we were not at the zoo or anywhere near it. It was dashing away from us from a distance of about..erh..say 30 metres away.

It spotted us before we saw it because we were only alerted to it when it ran away frantically- that's what my ears had perceived (rather than my eyes) as they picked up the sound made by the deer crushing through the crispy dry leaf litter). At the instant when I heard the noise, the first thing that came to my mind was: someone is coming towards us...are we in danger? Also, I had not quite recovered from the excitement I generated 30 seconds earlier, when SC and I was greeted by the sight of an expansive resam area (see photos below).

Now which deer could that be? Since my concious mind did register some iamges of a dog, the deer-like animal we saw in a flash could probably be deduced as the barking deer. It couldn't be a mousedeer- I have heard of folk tales describing how a Sang Kancil will freeze when it senses danger, rather than run for its life. And it couldn't be a sambar deer as it was not that big. Whatever it was (anyway, I really can't tell from a flash of brown fur unless I am an experienced deer expert that can relied on instincts), it is good to know there are deers in our forest.

Here are two pictures of the resam area that caught both SC and I by surprise before the deer gave us the second one.

Tea-plantation in our forest? It does look like the one I have seen in Indonesia, which was just next to a good forest. This is a football field of resam fern arresting natural succession in our forest.

This is the biggest area of resam fern lands I have ever seen in NR.

Dead Rat

2006-09-30T23:47:00.000+08:00

SC and I was on our way to check out a resam fern land at Upper Peirce area last Thursday when we saw this dead rat.

Since my childhood days, I have learnt from the adults that rats are dirty and should be trapped and killed (I had seen them scaling trapped rats with boiling water), so the sight of the dead rat did repel me a bit. SC, on the contrary, was remarking how adorable a rat can actually look.Ha ha...

Anyway, we took pictures of the dead rat and even placed a ruler next to it as a scale to faciliate identification work later by some other people who can tell one rat from another. Then, in our best way to give the carcass some dignity, we pushed it onto the natural ground.

Fruits, waste or what?

2006-08-28T22:28:00.000+08:00

The Tiup Tiup Path is one of my favourite paths on Bukit Timah Hill. I find this the most "primary" part of the forest, as exemplified by the presence of many Dipterocarp giants. The forest never cease to be interesting, revealing intriging "happening" every now and then.

On this recent trip, I encountered this heap of "fruits at the foot of a medium size tree. They are coloured bright orange, dry and roughly textured. The tree wasn't in fruit, though the nearby Tempinis and several others were.

However, just about a foot off the ground, I discovered a tiny hole with one orange "seed". This is the origin of these fruits.

These are not seeds or fruits but waste pellet that were push out from inside the tree. A larvae of some sort have bored into the wood. These are wood waste after having passed through the gut of the larvae. What the larvae becomes is yet to be seen. How much of the living tree it will consume also wait to be seen.

There was another tree, a Cinnamomum iners, near Dairy farm Hut, is similarly afficted.

Enclosed is also the top half of the affected tree, if you are keen to seek out the tree to have a closer look or see what eventually emerge.

Discover the treasures at Yosemite

2006-07-04T05:43:00.000+08:00

(Left photo) At the Fallen Monarch, see how small I am compared to the fallen tree? They are a sight to behold.

(Right photo) Have you seen a tree with a tunnel? You'll find this Tunnel tree at Mariposa Grove - home to the Giant Sequoia trees. The tunnel was created to allow travelers to pass through in the olden days At Glacier Point, you get the paranomic view of the whole valley. Here you see the Upper Yosemite and Lower Yosemite Falls on the left of the photo. It feels like you are on top of the world. Time just stopped for you to take in the beauty!

In the photo above, you see the beautiful Vernal Falls - one of the many majestic falls in Yosemite. The best time to visit will be from April to July when the snow melts and it brings abundant water gushing through the valleys. You get to see the rainbows at the end of the waterfalls too!

Flemingia strobilifera

2006-07-03T21:45:00.000+08:00

Remember the shrubs that were planted along the track leading to Chek Jawa? Some of you were asking me what they were.

I found the name of the plant on Ubin's volunteer blog. It's Flemingia strobilifera.

Also found a botanical illustration of the species on this website as well. Pretty isn't it?

This shrub, which is a legume, grows well in dry open waste areas. Most people will be attracted to the long droopy bunch of dried bracts. It has attractive leaves too, with their neatly arranged veins.

(Correction, 15 Sep 06) Earlier, I wrote that this plant is not a native plant- I am wrong! It is a native plant, occurring in open coastal areas in the region. Outside its original distributuion range, it is considered a global invasive species.

Thanks to Robert- the “MAN” on Pulau Ubin- for the correction. The plants that we now see in CJ is the progeny of those planted outside NParks office, which in turn were grown from seeds collected from Kampong Melayu. According to Hsuan Keng’s Concise Flora of Singapore, it is uncommon and specimens in our Singapore Herbarium were collected from Changi (by Ridley) and Blakang Mati, which is Sentosa. Margie had also pointed out the discrepancy when I had earlier included its origin includes East Indies, which she said would have included Singapore.

According to this website, it has medicinal uses in the Philippines, including using a decoction of the leaves for some sort of a steambath for women 2-3 weeks after childbirth. It also mentioned that the dried bracts are used for stuffing pillows and cushions. Wonder if such pillows will smell nice, but they will probably be nice to crush them to make a crisp noise.

Scaly Ball from the 'Long Kang'

2006-07-03T20:45:00.000+08:00

Guess what Ranger Ismail and our contract worker found in this not so big drain on an afternoon two weeks ago? A young pangolin stuggling to get out of it! It's strange how the scaly ball ended up there but it was clearly in trouble. Ismail told me that it was raining earlier on that day, so there were some ruching water in this drain near the Senapang Track. And the pangolin was having difficulty keeping water from getting into its nose.

So Ismail and a few others bailed it out of the drain and later sent it to the vet for a health check. Everything looked well until my colleagues were about to release it in the forest later in the evening. It was pathethically weak- didn't move an inch and seemed to support itself up using its snout! So we decided to observe it for a day and see whether it will become better.

I saw it the second day and took the following pictures.

Using Nasir as the 'scale'.

See what I mean by it looking pathetically weak? The night before this pix, I heard it almost literally collapsed like a domino on its side from this position.

It didn't even curled up into a ball like most other pangolins we encountered.

So what happened to the pangolin? I wasn't there at the release later in the evening, heard Janet brought it near a termite nest and this guy tore it all up and slurped them up eagerly. A good sign indeed. Ask Janet to tell you more the next time you see her : )

You can read more about the pangolin here.

Fieldtrip To Pulau Ubin, 18 Jun 2006

2006-07-02T23:02:00.000+08:00

Last Saturday, the CNRV went overseas! to Pulau Ubin... The last fieldtrip we had, which was to Changi heritage trees area was half a year back, so it was great to let our volunteers meet up with one another again.

Ria and Jacky were our nature guides to Chek Jawa on that day. We learnt a lot of things from these two very experieced guides. I believe there were many first-times for all of us- the first time we hold a live sea cucumber on our palms, see a sea star or touch the stinging cells of the carpet anemone.

We spent a good 1.5-2 hrs out there among the strangest organisms you can find on Earth! And to think these were almost buried a few years ago! Or should I say they may still be buried in the near future???

After the CJ walk, we had a quick lunch at Pak Ali's shop, where we "fighted" over the last few plates of the famous lotong before we headed to the Sensory Trail.

I was a little bit deterred by the noon heat at first, but glad we all went to the trail- many of us were "revived" by the many interesting herbs and plants planted along the trail.

Johnny was obviously more of his old self around plants than sea creatures as he happily told us the medicinal values and uses of the various plants.

Meru, who is also keen in medicinal plants also shared with us, so once again, we had two good guides!

Guess the sense of smell is really one of the powerful senses to engage when we lead guided walks because I remember the 鱼腥草 (translates to "Stinko Fish Herb") best... The crushed leaves of this herb smell like dead fish! Didn't take a pix though, was running away from the plant.

Check out the photos of the trip here!

EnviroFest 2006

2006-06-15T12:01:00.000+08:00

Our participation at the EnviroFest would not have been so fun without the presence of our volunteers. Thanks to Karen, Woon Kiew, Eric and Leshon, who spent the Sunday helping us at the booth! And not forgetting the support of Eric's mum, Leshon's dad, mum and sister!

Eric and Leshon did an excellent job going around asking for donation to our education fund. I bet almost all the participants had known them by the end of the event and many would have now gotten a copy of the TreeTop Walk guide book. They even approached the GOH Mr Heng Chee How.

We look forward to participating in another exhibition. Next time, we shall plan interactive activities in addition to our static display. The SP team in front of our stall gave us so much inspiration with their constant stream of children joining to play the snakes and ladders!

More photos on my flickr.

Biodiversity Day Planting

2006-06-15T11:46:00.000+08:00

To celebrate International Day for Biological Diveristy (22 May), the staff from Schering Plough and their family members carried out reforestation at Jering Trail, MacRitchie on 20 May. They donated $5,000 and planted 40 tree saplings at an area that was previously occupied by Resam fern.

Earth Day Planting

2006-06-15T10:42:00.000+08:00

Haven’t been able to provide regular update on the happenings of CNR on this blog ever since my home PC started to be cranky 2 months ago. Since I have some time in the office this morning, I will try to “back blog” some events and activities.

On Earth Day (22 April), students from Woodgrove Secondary, who adopted the forest area along Mandai Road, helped us reforest a degraded area with about 100 trees. With the help of volunteers Raymond, Joseph, Susan and Kwong hung and my colleagues, Nasir, Ragu, Thomas, Firman and Sidek, we were able to complete the planting in about 2 hours!

Check out more photos on my flickr.

Redwood State Park

2006-06-10T02:24:00.000+08:00

Dear friends in Singapore, just to share a picture taken at the Armstrong Redwoods State Park -Guerneville, California. Here you see me with the cross-section of a fallen redwood tree. It is estimated to be over a thousand-year old. The metal tags on the tree reflects the world events (San Francisco earthquake, World War One and Two etc.) which had taken place as the tree was growing. Isn't that amazing?

To read more about the state park, you can visit http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=450

Amazing encounter

2006-05-30T20:42:00.000+08:00

Malayan Monitor Lizard

It was an amazing encounter to me but may not be so to others. I captured this shot with my handphone during my 3rd visit to Sungei Buloh wetland reserve. It was also my first time joining the guided walk. To my surprise, the volunteer guide was Uncle Keith. I met him a day before at Botanic gardens. It was a fruitful day, I learnt alot from Uncle Keith, he was a very experience guide. We also saw a crocodile. Too bad, I didn't manage to capture that shot! Sigh...

Finds in the forest that tells a story

2006-05-17T20:23:00.000+08:00

Hi,

Was walking along the boardwalk along Petai trail, starting from the reservoir. About One kilometer from the end, came across this mass of fur and one piece of long bone on the boardwalk.

The mass of fur is devoid of flesh and smell. Just fur and one bone. Bone about 9 cm long. Considering animals such as Tree Shrew, the two squirrels, forest rats, long tail macaque...

The likely animal is the macaque, going by fur colour and bone. How did the agile monkey meet this end.

Is it a case of animal swallowed by snake and undigestibles regurgitated?

Si Guim

Nature at your doorstep?

2006-04-05T00:01:00.000+08:00

Was at BTNR last Sunday for the volunteer orientation and evening guided walk. These days, if you go to the hill, you will see the following structure. Viewed from the overhead bridge, it looks like we are operating a canopy crane for research in our forest!

Well, it's nothing as excited as that. They are building a condominium on the land in front of Hindhede Nature Park. Previously, the land was occupied by some factory.

I can't resist taking a pix of this billboard. Beautiful tag line but nature can be such a vague word, akin to the word- nice. To some people, a tufted course is nature too!

I also love the banners that they hanged up along the road leading to the show room. The illustrations are beautiful. Meet some of your neighbours, each of them says.

I hope people will not miss another banner nearby, for you will definitely meet one of your most friendly neighbours in your neighbourhood- the Long-tailed Macaques! Don't invite them to your home for tea though because feeding of monkeys is an offence, as clearly spelled in this right-in-your-face-sized banner. But there are gate crahers among the group so make sure your entrances are monkey-proof.

It's great to have nature at your doorsteps. If I strike Toto, I will consider buying a unit there. Imagine you guys can come over for a swim after volunteering at BTNR, ha ha. And anyone who is interested to do insect survey can use one of my rooms as a light trap.

Colugo Weeks

2006-03-31T19:29:00.000+08:00

The past 2 weeks have really been "Colugo Weeks". Luckily, other than the horrible poaching incident and the sad demise of mother and baby colugo, the other 2 episodes with this unique mammal species of our forest are about rescue and release.

The first rescue incident happened in Bukit Timah, along Hindhede Drive, sometime last week . It may be the big colugo that Vanessa and me spotted in the state land in front of Le Woods apartments last Tuesday. What happened was that a colugo was found in the big drain along Hindhede Drive! This was the second time! A few years back, a colugo had somehow ended up in there too! Luckily, both didn't sustain critical injuries and were rescued and released back into the forest.

The second case happened on the day baby colugo was put to sleep. Someone has reported a colugo somewhere in Bukit Batok area. Animal Foster Parent's blog reported that it "crashed" into someone's house!

This colugo, as you can see in the photo above, don a different fur color than our mother and baby colugo. Johnny nicknamed it the "Ah Beng" version. If you want to know why, go ask him!

Some of us used to think that the difference is due to sexual dimorphism- where female and male of a same species display different morphological features. However, the "Ah Beng" version has been observed to carry babies as well, which is deemed unlikely. Up to now, I am still puzzled about this.

Janet. Did the zoo vets determine the gender of the orange colugo that day? You mentioned it's a she in your blog.

Reforestion at Lower Pierce on 25th March 2006

2006-03-31T15:14:00.000+08:00

Another interesting day with nature, tired but fun! The little boy on the picture is ME, the nature fanatic! Met many nice and interesting people. Eye opening ....!!!!!

Morning walk at Prunus Trail

2006-03-30T21:01:00.000+08:00

Do you know that many SIA stewards and stewardesses are into 5Cs? No no no, I am not talking about materialism here. 5Cs here do not stand for cash, car, credit card, condominium and country clubs. It stands for Cabin Crew Club for Care and Compassion. It's the volunteering club of the SIA Cabin Crew Division launched in 2001.

5Cs adopted the AWWA Community Home for Senior Citizens and Chao Yang School, and have been actively been organising regular fund-raising and volunteer activities for these beneficiaries.

This morning, CNR Volunteers Johnny and Juliana and the outreach officers joined force with about 10 5Cs volunteers to bring about 60 students from Chao Yang School to Prunus Trail (MacRitchie) for a nature walk. For many of these students, it was their first fieldtrip into our forest.

This was only my second or third time guiding mentally-challenged children, so I was prepared for it to be a good learning experience. Talking to them about nature is also challenging for the nature guides as they have a very short attention span and can understand only simple English and concepts.

Today I learnt from my guiding as well as sharing with the other volunteers, that building rapport with the children is very important indeed. Before you can introduce them to anything, it is important that you make them feel comfortable with you and to gain their trust.

I was a little surprised but happy that as we were nearing the end of our walk, one of the boy with Down Syndrome who was holding the hand of his teacher, suddenly hold on to my hand with his other hand. Perhaps it's his way of saying Thank You : )

In Memory of our demised Flying Lemurs

2006-03-29T21:41:00.000+08:00

What can I say? Letting go is the hardest thing to do. Just like Genevie, I too wish to thank everyone especially Dr Sonia for her excellent help, advice & medical care rendered to Baby. Thank you to everyone who shared our anguish, hopes and sadness.

This setback will not damper us but strive to make us and you stronger in spreading the message across to everyone to treasure and protect our fragile wildlife. You can do your part by helping us: either advise would-be offenders on how fragile our wildlife is, be more vigilant and report any illegal activites that you come across by calling our Hotline, PUB Hotline or the most convenient call to make - Police.

DON'T WAIT FOR IT TO HAPPEN, YOU CAN PREVENT IT. HELP US TO HELP & SAVE OUR WILDLIFE AND OUR FOREST. THIS IS THE GIFT YOU CAN GIVE TO BABY & HER MOTHER. THANK YOU.

"IN LOVING MEMORY OF BABY & HER MOTHER"

She is gone

2006-03-29T20:56:00.000+08:00

The baby colugo is gone today. This morning.

I was not in the Ranger Station and didn't get to bid it farewell.

It was still doing reasonably well on Monday. But yesterday, it started to reject food and water in the morning and according to Sonia, one of the zoo vets, its eyes appeared to be rolling backwards. All these were bad signs, indicating the baby colugo was relinquishing its will to survive.

I didn't want to blog about the above yesterday, hoping that there would be miracles this morning. Think Janet was also not in the mood.

As I was in another office today, I do not have further details. But there should be a ST report tomorrow morning.

Thanks to the people who has helped to rescue and take care of the baby colugo. Thanks to everyone who had showed your concerns and anguish about the incident.

Guess the next best thing we can do is to tell more people about the colugo and their vulnerabilities. They depend on the forest for its survival. They, like all the other forest's inhabitants, are born to be wild and free.

Baby Colugo into its 2nd week here

2006-03-27T19:51:00.000+08:00

Wow! A week has since past. Let's just hope the little bundle of fur gets stronger and stronger by the day. Before I left the office, I fed it with some young tender shoots of Syzygium polyanthum, just the leaves without any banana spread, and it readily munched it all. Crunch! Crunch! Crunch! Yes, you can hear that when it grinds leaves in its mouth.

Syzygium polyanthum is not on the list of plants that Norman sent to me, but there are 2 Syzygium species listed and so I gathered it will eat this one as well. Also known as Salam in Malay, S. polyanthum is a familiar tree to Malays as they use its leaves for cooking. The leaves impart a light fragrance to the gravy for Lotong. When the colugo is grinding the leaves, I could actually smell the fresh scent!

This afternoon, the colugo wasn't so cooperative though. Janet and I had to chopped the leaves finely and let it ate them in a spoon together with a little banana and saline water. Here are some photos to share. Pardon the funny colours as they were taken without flash and not so steady hands.

The meeting table doubles up as a food preparation counter. Surrogate mother no. 1 is seen here preparing Silverback Salad for the baby colugo.

Close-up of what she prepared earlier in the morning. Banana lassi with chopped onion? That's the leaves of Silverback or Rhodamnia cinerea.

Feeding the baby colugo is not easy sometimes. It's almost like begging some kids to eat their veggies. Note the cloudy left eye. It doesn't look good at all. Will have to go back to the vet tomorrow.

This is what it will do to show that it does not want to eat what you give. It will just stop munching and hold the leaf in its mouth like this.

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Oh by the way, it's not our idea to put the colugo on the back rest of the chair. It wanted to be there itself. Seriously.

Have You Seen A Bored Colugo?

2006-03-27T19:17:00.000+08:00

"Harloooo, are you done with the meeting? Me getting bored & sleepy. Think no one will notice if I turn my back on them and just sleep. Oops, some kaypoh just took a picture of me!" Hahaha....this must be what Baby is thinking. Actually, me & Genevie were trying to feed her when she got sleepy with all the grinding and swallowing. Don't you wish you could do exactly like her when you get bored at meetings or lectures?

Anyway, Genevie has all the juicy details about her feeding so I shall leave to her to provide you with the information.

Don't you think she's cute????

The baby colugo without its mother

2006-03-23T22:36:00.000+08:00

For the first two days since Sunday’s ordeal, the baby colugo was weak and refused to eat properly. Yesterday, "surrogate mother no.1" Janet managed to feed it some banana with pieces of chopped Syzygium lineatum- a tree belonging to the same family as our Jambus, but it took a bit of an effort. So we are all glad that the baby colugo is taking food readily this morning.

This morning, I smeared the banana on a piece of leaf of the same species Janet fed it the day before, and to our delight, it chomped and ingested half of the leaf heartily! We will have to slowly adjust its diet to an array of leaves and eventually without the bananas. You don't see banana jam on leaves in the forest, do you? Ha ha.

Thanks to Norman Lim from NUS, who had observed the feeding of colugos in the wild, we had a few choices to begin with. Luckily, they are all common tree species that can be easily found near our station.

To keep the baby warm, we keep it in a plastic bin with a light. But being a colugo, it will naturally want to hang vertically. So we also got a branch for it to cling on when it wishes to. When clinging on the branch, it will sometimes turn its head to look behind her (Sonia from the zoo thinks it’s probably a female but will need to confirm again when it’s older). I wonder if it’s looking for another tree to glide to, but we are not sure whether it can do so.

We have to monitor the infection in its left eye too. The vets at the zoo are not only pretty ; ) but extremely kind to squeeze an appointment among their busy day to help us examine the poor little fellow yesterday. Sonia gave us the necessary medicine for the eye and saline liquid for it to drink, and also made a wonderful suggestion to keep it warm and at the same time, let it feel a sense of security (just like when it is hugging close to its mother). She wrapped a towel over a hot water bottle for the colugo. She said a teddy bear might be useful too. Here's a pix showing the fellow embracing the towel dearly.

And here's Vanessa teaching the baby how to blink it's left eye after she had applied the medicine on it. She is good with it man. The eye was swollen and the colugo couldn't closed its eye, so she had to manually close its eye to simulate blinking so as to spread the medicine evenly.

Smilax battle at MacRitchie Nature Trail

2006-03-23T22:08:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, I had much fun in the afternoon at MacRitchie with the boys from St. Gabriel. They were on an environmental educational programme that we will be running a few months later with more schools on forest ecology and invasive weeds.

With the help of these enthusiastic boys, we removed kilometres of Smilax setosa- a native weedy climber that our reforestation volunteers are most familiar with.

These boys were enjoying themselves so much that we had to ask them to stop when the time was up! Hopefully, with all these fun, they will retain some of the knowledge about the forest and the weeds better.

Saving Cratoxylum cochichinense

When a main Smilax stem was found, someone will call for help and the Gabrielites will form a line behind him to get ready for a tug-of-war!

And here's usually what happen in a tug-of-war...but they simply couldn't get enough of this.

Cratoxylum cochichinense saved from being under a blanket of Smilax! The weight of the climbers had given it a flat top!

Celebrating victory!

First guiding experience at Hindhede Park!

2006-03-23T19:20:00.000+08:00

It was my 1st time guiding at Hindhede Nature Park. An unforgettable experience! I met many nice people. I learnt alot too! During the walk,I talked about Dillenia suffruticosa (Simpoh Ayer).

Leshon (^_^)

Inaugural post

2006-03-21T21:36:00.000+08:00

This CNR Volunteer Blog is long overdue! Anyway, it's finally here! I spent quite some time trying to discern the html of the template because I wanted a set of colours that match our volunteer T-shirts! Hope you guys like it ; ) Feel free to suggest how to improve the look, but most importantly, you guys must start blogging!

As each us volunteer or work in various activities, this portal will keep everyone in the volunteer and management team updated of what we are all doing at different parts of the nature reserves. We can also share our experiences and encounters with the inhabitants of the forest as well as the visitors- the good ones and the bad ones....

I hope you guys will start posting interesting stories soon! Although I know blogs should be as free and creative as possible, I think for the well being of the biodiversity that we are protecting and to maintain the harmonious working relationship that we are having now, I have to highlight some points on what to blog and what not to blog here.

What to blog?
1) Outreach and conservation activities by volunteers- experiences, stories, inspirations.
2) Tips for guiding, nature photography, identifying plants and animals, etc.
3) Encounters in the forest, not necessarily with the flora and fauna.... I mean with visitors too.
4) Oversea trips only if you think it will be interesting and relevant to fellow volunteers.
5) Your thoughts about green issues/ outreach/ environmental education in Singapore or examples you have learnt overseas that you think will benefit us.
etc. etc. etc....

What not to blog?
1) If you think your post will lead villains to the site where a rare or coveted plant or animal species is residing, don’t blog about it.
2) If you think your post is going to upset people or taint the harmonious working relationship between one another, don’t blog about it.

Good practice
1) Write in proper English and do a spell check. Personally, I can accept Singlish, but save us from SMS or MNS language please!
2) Check that the name of the organism is correct. You do not want to mislead others.
3) Post pictures as people love them. Not only flora and fauna, people love to see people too.
4) Before you click “Save as Draft” or “Publish Post”, select all and copy your masterpiece on a word document. Shit does happen and your post will vanish into thin air, never to be found again.

HAPPY BLOGGING. We are all learning.