Morning at Central Catchment area

On the first Saturday morning of 2008, I joined the Semakau guides to the Central catchment area.


Greeting us are these bold Long-tailed Macaque (Macaca fascicularis). As you should know, there are people illegally feeding them which will disrupt the whole ecosystem. Eventually, now we see these macaques as animals that chase human for food. There are even incidents of them raiding houses near nature reserves. Fine is now enforced, $250 for feeding them.


Walking along the tarmac track where cars zoom by, there is still much to discover. This plant (Macaranga sp.) may look no different from others and may come across as uninteresting.


But if you bother to take a closer look, the brown areas on the stem are where ants live within, forming a symbiotic relationship. Learn more from Helen's new blog.


Like Bukit Timah nature reserve, Central catchment also has Terantang (Campnosperma auriculata) plants.


One distinctive feature of the Terantang plant is where they have a pair of "ears" can be found at the base of the stalk on the spoon shaped leaf.


Siyang was sharp as he spotted this rather rare Grey-headed Fish Eagle (Ichthyophaga ichthyaetus). According to Bird ecology study group:

These birds are "usually confined to the Central Catchment forest. The eagle has a small greyish head on a longish neck. The wings and body are dark brownish grey and the lower belly, thigh and under tail coverts are white, the last with terminal or subterminal black band."


Crawling among the grasses, this spider caught our attention as it seems to be carrying eggs.



I'm not very good with bugs but these beetle-like looking bugs were around the leaves of this water banana leaf which is found at the edge of pierce reservior.


The Common Bluebottle (Graphium sarpedon luctatius) is an interesting butterfly. The males tend to be found feeding on roadside seepages or urine-tainted sand. And we noticed that this particular bluebottle kept flying back to this particular exact point of the stone. Ah-huh, someone or some animals must have urinated here. Hahahaha.


Towards the end of the trip, while walking along the tarmac road, we chanced upon this road kill.


It seems that this Twin-barred tree (flying) snake (Chrysopelea pelias) was just recently ran over by a car. Its eyes are still opened.


And again, these long tailed macaque which are not shy openly show their affection for us to see. Remember again, do not feed them, or they will become even more aggressive and at the same time disrupting the ecosystem.