Exciting vertebrate night at Central Catchment

I have always wanted to go out for mammals or vertebrate hunt with Ron after hearing many of his wonderful finds. Finally finding a night that both of us were free, I went to Central Catchment Nature Reserve (CCNR) last night in hope to find some special animals in the dark.

And wow! Just at the outskirts of CCNR right at the beginning of our hunt, Ron spotted a Lesser Mouse Deer (Tragulus kanchil)! My first time seeing a wild mouse deer and it is super cute!

Thanks to Ron for kindly lending me his zoom lens for a while, I could take such a nice closeup photo.

This is how the mouse deer looks like using my own kit lens. It was quite shy and kept a safety distance away from us.

The mouse deer even licked a leaf with its tongue. Awww! Not sure if it was trying to munch on the leaf.

We tried to get a bit closer and this was one of the best shots I could get with my own lens. Not long after that, the mouse deer moved on and left the area.

That's not all, we later came across THREE more mouse deers. This photo shows the second one that is quite far away from us. The last two mouse deers were together at another location and Ron got nice photos of them!

As for me, I was just there wishing I have the zoom lens. Haha! Neverheless, it was great to have a first hand experience with these mouse deers that are unfortunately endangered in Singapore.

The night proved to be very fruitful because just at the location where we first sighted the mouse deer, Ron also found eye shines from the crown of this tall tree. Hard to spot isn't it!?

Here is a closer look, can you spot a furry and small mammal?

Yes, this is it! We found THREE of these Horsfield's Flying Squirrels (Iomys horsfieldi) which are also endangered in Singapore. These squirrels "fly" by gliding where they extend and stretch the membrane of skin between their four limbs. Ron and I kept exclaimed how cute they are!

I managed to also capture the shot of the flying squirrel with its paw in front if its mouth. Haha. This is yet another my first time seeing this animal wild in Singapore! Thanks again to Ron's zoom lens, if not I will not be able to take this photo.

With Ron's keen eyes, we will almost definitely see Malayan Colugos (Cynocephalus variegatus). And indeed we saw FOUR of them! Here is one clinging onto the tree trunk.

I only managed to get a closeup shot of this colugo before it glided to another tree.

While heading back along the outskirts, Ron was saying that it is still possible to find mammals. Indeed he was spot on as he found yet another colugo.

This colugo looks rather young and it was clinging tightly to the tree trunk.

It moved a little and I especially love this position and pose of the young colugo! Super duper cute and kawaii! :-)

Our forest are indeed very much alive! 2011 is the International Year of the Forests and it is wonderful to experience the beauty of them with my own eyes. Thanks to Ron because he spotted ALL of the mammals we found during the trip. My spotting skills are pretty lame on terrestrial field trips haha. I am also super tempted to get the zooms lens too after this trip haha!

More photos of the trip here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/koksheng/archives/date-taken/2011/09/02/