An afternoon at the ridge

Remember the last post I blogged about Semakau? The first photo features Pulau Jong. Here again is another view of Pulau Jong, from far.

Where were we this time? We spent the late afternoon at Kent Ridge, which is within our school. So what can you find in NUS?


Kent Ridge holds a secondary forest which is known as Adinandra belukar. Adinandra belukar is defined as a species-poor, anthropogenic heath forest dominated by tiup tiup.

Look at the dead tree on the right?


Look closer, there are birds resting.


Being a secondary forest, there will be remains of the rubber trees planted in the past. This photo shows the fruit of the rubber tree.


Alex was the plant expert around and he was collecting leaf specimens of plants he was unsure back to the lab so he can identify them and know Kent Ridge holds such flora.


Siyang was attracted to this ant harvesting nectar from the flowers. Alex shares this plant is at least from the genus mikania.


We had a few bird encounters too. This is a hill myna (Gracula religiosa). According to Chek Jawa online guide, Hill mynas eat mostly fruits, foraging for these high in the trees. They are particularly fond of figs. But they also snack on nectar, insects and small lizards. Hill mynas rarely land on the ground and prefer to stay in forested areas. They don't walk, and instead hop along branches.

Hill mynas can mimic other birds, and even whistle tunes and imiate humans. This makes them a favourite target for the caged bird trade.


Another bird we spotted was this drongo.


Another view of the beautiful drongo.


This is a Black-naped Oriole (Oriolus chinensis). According to Sungei Buloh online guide, Black-naped Orioles enjoy a wide menu of plants and animals. They are fond of fruit and berries, particularly figs. Black-naped Orioles rarely descend to the ground. They forage high in trees and usually say within the canopy. Nevertheless, they are not birds of the deep forest. Originally from coastal woodlands and mangroves, they have adapted to cultivated areas and parks and gardens.

Black-naped Orioles are not at risk and rank among the top 10 most common residents in Singapore. They have adjusted very well to humans and are found even in the city. They arrived in Singapore from Indonesia and became established in the 1920's-30's.


As we continued to explore the ridge...


Alex pointed out this tree...


and on top, there are creepers over the crown of that tree. Alex shares this is Entada spiralis. Click here to find out why it is called spiralis. The flowers shown here does not belong to the creeper. They belong to the tree (refer to previous photo) being covered by the creeper.


On yet another dead fall, we saw pigeon like birds. On a closer look, they are indeed pigeons. Rather, they are the uncommon pink neck green pigeons.


Also on the same dead fall was a pair of the hill myna.

Although common in Singapore in the past, the Hill mynahs are now considered rare residents and are listed as CITES II. Besides Pulau Ubin, these birds are also found in Pulau Tekong Besar, the central catchment forest and the Singapore Botanic Gardens.


A closer look at the pink neck green pigeon. Do note that only the males have the pink neck. Pink-necked Green Pigeons eat mainly fruits. Their colourful attire allows them to blend perfectly in the foliage of fruiting trees.


Towards the end of the trip, we found huge boulders with signs of marine evidences.


Look at the barnacles. They are evidences that someone took these huge boulders from the seashore up to the ridge. Looks like I can't run away from marine habitat. Haha.

Ecology students at Kent Ridge

Sometime back, we had ecology field trips to different parts of Kent Ridge. The first trip was at the plot of degraded secondary forest (Adinandra belukar)


Each group were to conduct a vegetative analysis on one of the forest plot. We did that by setting up circular plot technique where we divide the circle into four quadrats. Then we measure the different biotic and abiotic parameters within each quadrat of our circular plot.


Briefing in process.


Moult at the underside of leaf.


We noticed a couple of common plant species within our plot, this one belongs to Simpoh air (Dillenia suffruticosa).


And tiup tiup (Adinandra dumosa). This is the tree that gives adinandra belukar their name.


In degraded soils, nutrients are easily leached and in pitcher plants compensate by being carnivorous in nature.


As shared previously, these tiny pitchers that can be found among grasses are hard to spot and they are amazing.


Our TA Stanley opened this fig, as requested by a curious classmate. More about figs here and also at Siva's blog.

After that session of doing the vegetative analysis, we all headed back home to start working on our report where we had to propose the most appropriate alternate spot for the relocation of a pump house in one of the forest patch. That was not an easy task but it was a good experience.


The second trip out again to Kent Ridge is not within the campus but to Kent Ridge Park, this time to study community ecology of web building spiders.


While walking downslope from our dropoff point towards South Buona Vista Road,


I saw this very nice seaview.


Our spider of interest is this Tetragnathidae Big-Jawed spider. This is a page of the book, A guide to common singapore spiders, as brought by our TA.


And we had to find these spider webs that are almost invisible to spot to study if there are any relationship between the size of web and the rate of prey capture over several hours. Here we have Yishan in action.


Opps, this is not exactly the spider we were looking for, but it does look impressive right. Id-wise, haha no idea.


And here is a shot of Tetragnathidae Big-Jawed spider and its web. Photographing spider and its web is not easy and glad this one turned out okay. The small centre portion where the spider is residing is called the hub and the surrounding space with no web is the free area. The parts of web that cuts perpendicularly are the radial webs and the majority of the webs are in spirals.


Another photo of the spider and its web.


Close up shot of this beautiful spider.


Interestingly, we witnessed how spiders capture their prey by wrapping them with their web. Also we also saw webs that were destroyed by falling twigs or leaves and rebuilt in half an hour.


This is a photo of us under a bus stop preparing and doing our report on the spot.

That marks the end of our ecology field trip adventures. Sad but hopefully, more of such next year as I proceed to year 4. Looking forward.

Would like to also take this opportunity to thank my TA, Stanley for being such a great TA. Also thank all my peers for making all trips an enjoyable and fruiful one, where we learnt more, not just about each organism, but also in a greater scale, about the ecology of each habitat.

Kent Ridge mini surprises

Siyang and I went to this piece of adinandra belukar secondary forest in campus this afternoon for just less than an hour. Adinandra belukar is defined as a species-poor, anthropogenic heath forest dominated by tiup tiup. These tiup tiup are quite distinct with their pole-like trunks. Another key adinandra belukar species will be Simpoh air. Sorry I didnt take a photo of both, because they are quite common, or you can say everywhere.


Siyang stopped to take a look at this beetle. I usually wont see detailed things, so really need people to guide me to see.


Nice find... the Raffles' pitcher plant (Nepenthes rafflesiana). These charismatic species have been poached to near extinction at all accessible sites in S'pore. This is unfortunate as they do not grow well when cultivated...eventually die soon. So please don't take them away from the wild.


From the hand that is holding the leaf, you can see an extension of the leaf tip that leads to the pitcher itself for the pitcher is a specialized leaf so as to capture crawling insects.


Tembusu (Fagarea fragans) is the tree that you see behind your $5 note. It can grow up to 30m tall and during season, you can smell their fragrant flower scent. This is a key adinandra belukar species.


lots of ants..... imagine them on your face


This is the mini surprise! Look at the size of these pitches. The rounded scale is 50cents coin. Only someone that is super duper observant can find it. Siyang knew about it as his TA shared with him... I wondered who found them in the first place. They just look like grass from far.


Nice, but I don't know the id... :P


I didn't know Smilax can have heart shape leaves...Yucks! These species are very fierce and will kill others. And Dr Wang recently saw it in Bukit Timah nature reserve..hope it doesn't invade into our primary rainforest.