St John's Island's underwater garden

It's our first predawn trip of the year and I'm trying to adjust to having to wake up at wee hours again! We are back at St John's Island this time.

The best part of today's trip would be to survey the rich reef edge of the island. This is something that requires both good low tide and daylight to happen. In addition, there must be any boat movement around to stir the sediments and good visibility also helps!

CNY Day 3: St John's Island

Day 3 of our Chinese New Year field trip series was at St John's Island! It has been 2 years since my last visit and that was also during the CNY period.

St John's Island is one of the remaining few public-accessible shores that lies beneath a majestic coastal forest and cliff. This stretch of shore at Tanjong Hakim has been spared from reclamation or coastal development.

CNY Day 2: St John's Island

Day two's trip on the Lunar New Year was a miracle! The "water snake" or rain storm that swept the north east of Singapore did not come down to the southern at St John's Island.

On top of having a rain free trip, we were blessed with a spectacular sunset over the horizon with the two Sister's Islands at the background.

Easter Sunday at St John's Island

What a splendid way to begin the Easter Sunday with a trip to St John's Island to explore the marvellous reefs and marine life of Singapore.

Of course we were greeted with a glorious sunrise which also signifies new hope through the resurrection of Christ on this special day. Interestingly, the sunrise from this angle of the island was from the direction of Lazarus Island.

St John's shore with TJC students

Last Saturday, I back on the shores guiding a group of TJC IP students at the sandy lagoon of St John's Island.


The creeper snails were among the first organisms that greeted them on the shore. These snails are EVERYWHERE! This also provided an opportunity to learn that every inch of the shore is alive and that we should be cautious not to trample and hurt the shore.

Lunar New Year Day 1: St John's Island

Happy Lunar New Year to everyone!

It is also the period when tides also gets low, since the tides are largely affected by the gravitational pull between the earth and the moon. I can clearly remember my first offshore low tide trip to Big Sisters, which was during Chinese New Year 4 years ago. It was an eye-opening trip, which made me continue visiting our pretty shores till now.


Our destination of the day was St John's Island. On the background is the cityscape. The boat was fast and we reached the island in less than 15 minutes!

Brittle star hitching a ride on a jellyfish

While waiting for the boat to arrive at the jetty of St John's Island after our trip this morning, I had a pleasant surprise!

Half-snorkelling at a new stretch of St John's reef

After spending the bulk of the good low tide period at the usual reefy Tanjong Hakim of St John's Island, I wanted to take a bit more time to look at the sandy lagoon. Just as James and Geraldine were looking at a scorpionfish beyond the lagoon closer to the sea, I was surprised that there is a "hidden" stretch of reef beyond the lagoon that extends outwards.


The waters were relatively clear for an incoming tide so I was excited in having a quick look at this new stretch. But that means I will be doing half-snorkelling: wading with water up to waist height! Who cares when the reef is more interesting than whether I'm wet or not. Haha.

Colourful St John's reef

It's been some time I've been to St John's reef to properly look at the corals at the edge.


Taking today's tide that is quite low, I had the opportunity to check out this colourful and rich coral reef edge that is jam-packed with corals and other lifeforms.

St John's Island Guided walk

It's time to set off for a guided walk! It's been three months since I've guided on our shores during low tide. And our destination for the day is St John's Island.


On our way there, the ferry made a turn that was very near the man-made structure where Kias reef used to be before it was buried and reclaimed to be connected to Lazarus for developmental purposes. This is also the spot where we have seen marine turtles before.

Exploring a new part of St John's shore

After checking out the natural reefs of St John's Island with a special focus on anemones, we had to hide in the shelter for a while due to the bad weather. Good thing was that the rain became a drizzle and I spent the remaining time of the low tide period exploring a new part of St John's shore.

Natural reefs of St John's Island

St John's Island is one of the few southern islands with natural coastlines that the public can still access.


During a low spring tide, the pink outcrops and cliffs extends all the way to the sea as a rocky shore. And among the rocks are marine life that peeks out of water during the short few hours of low tide. These include the large boulder-like corals.

Nems of St John's Island

For the past week of low tides, I wasn't able to explore the shores as I have already started full-time work. This has made me appreciate more of the Saturday low tides and I was glad to be able to go to St John's Island yesterday after a long absence from field trips.

In view of Dr Daphne Fautin's arrival later this month, anemones have become an important component of the lookout list for every field trip, including this one.

My first St John's intertidal guided walk

It has been some time since I've visited the Tanjong Hakim shore of St John's Island. This time, I am visiting it with a group of new friends through my first St John's Island guiding of the intertidal area.


It was a scorching bright sunny morning and we first headed out to the sandy lagoon.


And these are the friends I was referring to. A group of friendly and interesting people who are very interested in the marine life of Singapore. Melissa (in yellow) was formerly a marine biologist!

We began the walk from the high shore to the lower shore zonation.


And within the sandy lagoon, we realized that it is home to many Common sea star (Archaster typicus)! And we witnessed stars with even four and six arms!

Interesting facts about this starfish species are that it can eject its stomach to feed and that they have the ability to regenerate their arm if there is a sublethal arm loss which can be caused by predation.


There were quite a number of small crab finds including the Pebble crab (Family Leucosiidae) on the left and the Soldier crab (Dotilla sp.). In addition, there are also several Sand bubbler crabs (Scopimera sp.) and Orange fiddler crabs (Uca vocans).


A pair of the Oval moon snails (Polinices mammatus) was also found by our hunter seekers.

Moon snails are fierce predators, feeding on bivalves and snails. A moon snail wraps its huge body around the hapless prey to suffocate it. If this fails, it has a gland at the tip of its proboscis that secretes an acid to soften the victim's shell. With some help from its radula, a hole is created.


After looking at the special find of the Sundial snail, some anemone-looking tentacles were found nearby. Could this be a juvenile Bulb-tentacled sea anemone (Entacmaea quadricolor)?


I later went on to talk about our natural oysters. Oysters are well known to be delicacies in seafood. However, people also associate them with beautiful pearls and may try to pry them open to find them in the wild. However, these pearls are generally not found in nature.

Most pearls we see in the market are cultured and produced on farms. A plastic bead is inserted under stringent conditions, into special bivalves and removed when a thin layer of mother-of-pearl is secreted by the animal. Natural pearls tend to be mishappen and worthless and only occur when a bit of dirt accidentally enters the oyster, which doesn't happen often. Therefore, please don't needlessly kill wild oysters out of curiosity.


The next part of our walk is down to the natural coral fringing reef. The tide looks low!


Before we proceeded to the lower shore, there was a Land hermit crab (Coenobita sp.) found very high up. If you are wondering why, it is because the land hermit crab is so well adapted to life out of water that it will drown if kept underwater! It has special gill chambers that act as lungs.

We went on to talk about how these land hermit crabs are being sold in shopping centres as pets at high prices. This is definitely one of the many threats including that these poor hermits have to endure. For me, I love to see animals happy living in their natural homes. Who likes to be jailed? Do you? Animals, as living creatures like humans, also have the right to live where they originally belong to.


Most people have the impression that seaweed is not in the tube shaped form but this White-stemmed seaweed (Neomeris sp.) is indeed a seaweed. Clusters of these seaweed are usually found on rocks and coral rubble.


A Fireband murex snail (Chicoreus torrefactus) was also sighted! Like the moon snail it can soften the shell of its victim with a weak acid secreted by a special gland on the underside of its foot. Elsewhere, this snail is frequently collected for food and shellcraft. In some localities, populations have been greatly reduced because of over collecting.


The spider conch (Lambis lambis) is definitely an interesting animal! Not only is its pattern being pretty, this conch has two long eye stalks that can peer at all of us. In additon, it has a long muscular foot that can flip itself back and we were marvelled at how it does this!


Of course, coral reefs of the St John's definitely has hard corals like this Pore coral (Porites sp.) that is commonly found here.

Another common coral of this shore will be the Blue coral (Heliopora coerulea). But the blue coral is more related to soft corals instead.


Soft corals of St John's include this creepy looking soft coral that we named as the Dead man's finger. Indeed, it looks like many dead men fingers are coming out from the rock. They look bizzare!


More soft corals abound at the deeper waters.

Sadly, our impression of St John's shore seems to be that the hard corals are doing poorly as compared to the past. Could it be due to the landslides? I reckon it be due to the change in hydrodynamics after the bridge that links to Lazarus has been built. Hydrodynamics of the sea is very important in both providing nutrients to the corals and also provide spawnings of new corals from reef sources elsewhere.


There were a number of flatworms to us to see thanks to the hardwork of our hunter seekers!
The Persian carpet flatworm (Pseudobiceros bedfordi) is one that can eat ascidians and other small crustaceans.


Other flatworms include the Orange-edged black flatworm (Pseudobiceros uniarborensis) on the left and the electrifying blue-in-colour yet rarely seen Red-tipped flatworm (Pseudoceros bifurcus)!

Though the rocky shore may look lifeless, most living creatures are actually hiding beneath rocks to prevent dessication and heat stress. So I overturned some rocks to show how life teems at the underside of the rock without themselves being squashed.


Aha, first we saw a Beige flatworm that sort of resembles mobile phlegm. :P


Then there were also creatures like a sponge, a sea cucumber, snails, small clams and ascidians clinging onto the underside of the rock. We later saw lots of Purple under-a-stone sea cucumbers under a particular rock! It was most fascinating.


How come there seems to be an aerial photograph of many volcanoes?

No lah, it is actually a normal photo of lots of Volcano barnacles (Tetraclita sp.) covered in green algae. But it is such a lovely piece of natural art, don't you agree with me too?


Before we left the rocky shore at the end of the walk, we took another group photo. Take nothing but photographs, leave nothing but footprints.

Thank you my group "Mangroves" for being such a nice group to share the marine life of St John's with.


Parts of St John's natural rocky shores are as charming as before. Such coastal landforms are now rare in Singapore.

However, it was sad to see huge portions of the cliff being cemented to prevent further landslides. I didn't have the heart to show you all the cemented cliff photo but landslides are usually caused by human modifications of the biophysical conditions, which is existing at St John's higher up above the cliffs.

Thus, it is crucial that development of all sorts should be done in due respect and knowledge of how nature works. If done sensitively, development and conservation of nature can coexist just like Semakau landfill. I'm not too sure if it applies to St John's as well given so many threats it is currently facing.

Dialling the sun at Saint John's

What's up about dialling the sun at St John's Island? Is it another cold joke I have from the whole week of field trips sleep deprivation?


It is actually because we all saw the Sundial snail (Architectonica perspectiva) for our first time today! In fact it was laying eggs! WOW.

Today the RMBR guides were doing a guided walk at St John's Island. And Robert, our top notch hunter seeker, found this special snail for all of us to behold. Chay Hoon and friends also saw this snail at Hantu for their first time just a month ago. Refer to her Hantu blog post for more of their account. The sundial snail is listed as 'Endangered' in the Red List of threatened animals of Singapore, thus explaining for its rarity.


This beautiful sundial produces a detailed pattern of bands and spots and they have rather flattened shells that coil to form a flat disc-shape with a flat base.

They prefer silty sand or mud near reefs and tend to be found at the subtidal zone, from depths of 10 to 120 m. That could explain when we don't usually see them at the intertidal shores. In addition, these snails are usually found at the Indo-pacific region.

So what does this snail feeds on?

Interestingly, they feed on the polyps of various types of corals and sea anemones!


Though from the top, this sundail snail looks flat like the Button snail (Umbonium vestiarum), by from the sideview, it looks slightly conical in shape and height. I just love the pretty spirals of this snail.

Now I better keep my eyes more open to look out for more of this pretty snail the next time I hit the shore, which is tomorrow. :P

Will blog more about today's trip after I get the energy to do it!

St John's Jambu air

At St John's Island, I came across this tree which has pink fruits. A closer look reveals that it is the Water Apple which is also known as Jambu air. There are two scientific synonymous names for this species: Syzygium aqueum or Eugenia aquea. The tree is not very tall and it is characteristic of growing up to 3-10m in height.


The water apple occurs naturally from southern India to eastern Malaysia. Elsewhere, they are cultivated as fruits. The fruits are filled with water, which is great for thirst quenching. According to early writings, a water apple salad is a ceremonial dish for new mothers.

This bunch of green water apple fruits is not riped though.


When it ripens, it turns pink.


And I chanced upon a bee on the ripening fruit as well as many of the red ants shown in the next photo.


The red fruit is an example of how Jambu air will look like if it overripens. Unfortunately Jambu air are rarely found in markets around the world because they spoil very quickly after being picked.

Reference:

Morton, J. 1987. Water Apple. p. 382–383. In: Fruits of warm climates. Julia F. Morton, Miami, FL.

My favourite cat has grown up

There are lots of adorable cats at St John's Island.


I last shared about my most favourite cat whom I named "leopard cat" because of it's stripes on the body.


In just a few months, my leopard cat has grown up so much! It seems to be fatter too..haha. Probably from our regular feeding. So pampered right?


Before (left) and After (right).

Now my darling leopard cat has not only grown bigger, but also looks cheekier. :P

Blooming pigeon orchids

Though Singapore is well known for exporting cultivated orchids, I prefer to actually admire these pretty flowers in the wild. Recently during the week, there has been heavy downpours which of course also led to a sudden decrease of temperature.

If the decrease of temperature is at least 5.5 °C, the pigeon orchids will bloom! When they bloom, not only are they nice to look at, they also will exude strong fragrance which unfortunately last only for two days.


Pigeon orchids (Dendrobium crumenatum) are the commonest orchid in Singapore. These tropical epiphytic plants can be found growing naturally in the branches of trees. I found many pigeon orchids blooming at St John's Island a few days ago.


From the side view, the orchid resemble a flying pigeon. Therefore, they are commonly known as the Pigeon Orchid.


The pigeon orchid flower, like some other flowers, have “landing pads” at the bottom that allow insects, like bees, to fly, land and then walk in to help pollination.


The underneath of this "landing pad" or lip has a nice pale yellow colour.


This epiphytic plant has aerial roots that can help to absorb moisture from the humid air.


The stems are slender and smooth with pseudobulbs at the base.

According to Burkill, the Malays commonly use the juice of the pseudobulbs for treating ears.

The Malays poultice boils and pimples with pounded leaves. Wow!


It is known that ants of the genus Dolichoderus nest among the aerial roots of the pigeon orchid. I'm not sure the red ants here belong to that genus though. Hehe.

The next time you see pigeon orchids blooming, do stop for a moment to take a closer look at them!