NIE field trip to Sungei Buloh

On 20th May, a bunch of Biology trainee teachers had a field trip visit to Sungei Buloh Wetlands Reserve. I went about an hour earlier in hope to catch the recent hype of otters and crocodiles that have been regularly sighted.

Back to Buloh for nem hunt

Finally, I get to join the Anemone army with Dr Daphne Fautin, world expert in sea anemones! Sadly, it's also the last trip of the series but it's better than never.


Two years ago, our finale hunt was Sungei Buloh and this time also. And Dr Daphne is looking for a special mangrove anemone that she chanced upon the previous trip. And here we go, working hard to find the nems.

Monitor lizards and company at Sungei Buloh

It's a Saturday morning and I'm at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve to guide a group of girls from PLMGSS. The trip was made special not only with the company of fellow students but also by the company of the flora and fauna in the mangroves.


Mangroves and Wetlands are considered as one of the 14 biomes listed in the world and it is amazing to be able to visit it at our own country in the comforts of the boardwalk.


Early in the morning while the little egrets are wading in river banks, suddenly a dog ran down and started to go around the birds. I did not witness the dog harassing the birds too much though.


I guess the main character of today's trip is definitely the Malayan water monitor lizard (Varanus salvator). They can be found almost at every part of the reserve, even at the pond of the river.


Or even at the side of the boardwalk...


Or even BENEATH the boardwalk as spotted by the girls.

Monitor lizards are like vaccum cleaners of the mangroves because they can eat anything that they can swallow. Their broad diet ranges from tiny insects, to crabs, molluscs, snakes, eggs (of birds and crocodiles), fishes, birds, rodents, small mouse deer, even other monitor lizards. They even eat rubbish, human faeces, and even dead bodies!!!


The special find of the day must be this pair of hugging monitor lizards spotted by the teacher! It might look bizzare to you at first, but as for me I knew of such a behaviour because Siva showed our class before of a video on them hugging with each other.

According to Ruo Yu's account at the RMBR intern blog, she mentioned:

"Also caught wrestling in action were two male monitor lizards. The video clip was shown again with excited ooos and ahhs from the students as Mr. Siva pointed out the object of the conflict - a female monitor lizard slipping of coyly into the mangrove waters. The males battle it out by just pushing each other about through a hugging (not mating) position. The winner would be the one who is able to hold on the longest without falling over. Following this, we were told how a scratch would be fatal to these creatures as the forest they live in are full of bacteria and flies that carry diseases. One can just die from an infection of a shallow cut. Fortunately, the battle doesn't involve hurting each other a lot; only a lot of pushing around. Nevertheless, this certainly makes me all the more thankful I'm human and living in sanitary urban areas."

Interesting isn't it?!


At the pond in front of the visitor centre, you might think that it might be a boring place to check out for birds. You are wrong! There are many professional photographers with the telescopic looking cameras doing ambushing. They are waiting for birds to land on the Simpoh Air plant and indeed, I witnessed different types of birds including the pink neck green pigeon.

And just at the pond in front of the visitor centre you can find several types of animals.


Like this White-breasted Waterhen (Amaurornis phoenicurus). They eat mainly on seeds, insects and small fish. They also nibble on worms and small snails; and snack on shoots and roots of marsh plants.


This shy bird found in the pond is a yellow bittern (Ixobrychus sinensis). Thanks Ivan for the id.


There was also this motionless common greenback (Hylarana erythraea) which I didn't really notice until much later.

Later at the boardwalk during the guided tour, the class witnessed a plantain squirrel (Callosciurus notatus) crawling past the boardwalk in front of us! It was my first time to get so close to this cute squirrel. It's action was quick and thus no photograph. One of the students got it on her camera though.

The squirrel was carrying materials like dried leaves and twigs on its mouth which I wondered why. After browsing through the book "Private Lives: An Exposé of Singapore’s Mangroves", I found a photo of a squirrel also carrying materials and it explained that it is for its nest, which is usually built on a fork in the tree.


At the end of the trip, it was time to take a group photo with the wonderful girls at the gallery.


And the mud-lobster mound display proves to be quite popular, good that they now know the importance of mud lobsters as keystone species of the mangroves.


There was a time for nature reflection for the girls to draw or write about today's trip and I was impressed at one of the girl's artistic talent.


We were surprised to also find a cotton stainer bug inside one of their bags which we mysteriously don't know how it fell inside. We didn't see these bugs at the sea hibiscus tress today though. Nevertheless, it was a great chance for them to see it alive before we returned this distressed bug back.


Towards the end of the trip, we were also fascinated by the different flora like this Singapore Rhododendron (Melastoma malabathricum) with the pretty purplish flower that only last one day.


Another flower that also last for a day will be this Simpoh Air (Dillenia suffruticosa) flower that opens at 3am.


Most of us still wanted to stay longer to explore this fascinating place but we had to go eventually after a final group photo at the entrance.

Thanks girls and monitor lizards for your company on this great morning out at Sungei Buloh!

Otters at Sungei Buloh Nature Reserve

A small group of NUS students informally went to Sungei Buloh Nature Reserve today to do a short recce for next week's guiding with the foreign students. While we were debriefing, Jeremy our TA who happened to be there as well told us there are otter sightings!


Being someone who hasn't seen otters in the wild before, I dashed out to the location and indeed there are otters! Three smooth otters (Lutrogale perspicillata) to be exact were spotted. There were avid photographers with their telescope-looking cameras that went snapping continuously like a machine gun and they got very nice photos, one even with the otter biting a fish.


Somehow, one of the otters decided to have a dip into one of the enclosed areas of the pond and after that followed some very exciting commotions as we were all taking photographs of this charismatic otter. It was going underwater most of the time, with occasional pop ups of its head.


Somehow, this otter was trying to get out of the enclosed pool and was figuring out.


Looking left and right, popping up and down, swimming here and there... wow I was excited that my hands trembled.


Interestingly, the otter decided to play smart...


by climbing over the fence and off it goes into somewhere else. Wow, what a great sighting today!


I didn't get nice photos of the otter looking face front but these two quite blur photos which I thought are cute. The photo on the right has the plant on top of the otter's head as it was popping up from the water.

According to Ria's Sungei Buloh online guide,

"Smooth Otters are the largest otters in Southeast Asia. They are named for their shorter, smoother coats which appears velvety and shining. Like other otters, they have shorter tightly packed underfur and longer guard hairs which are water repellant.

Smooth Otters like to eat fish but they eat whatever is plentiful and easy to catch. Prey include crustacea, frogs, water rats, turtles and even large birds. They may hunt as a family group, using teamwork to catch their prey.

Like other otters, Smooth Otters are excellent divers and swimmers. They close their ears and nostrils when underwater. Also like other social animals, Smooth Otters have developed complex communication involving mainly smell, but also calls.

Otters are very playful and are among the few mammals that play even as adults. Play helps youngsters develop co-ordination, and strengthens bonds within the group."

However, like other wetland creatures, Smooth Otters are threatened by habitat loss and pollution.

Mangrove Ecology at Sungei Buloh

Thursday afternoon, a big bunch of learning "ecologists" from NUS went to Sungei Buloh Nature Reserve for a field trip to study mangrove ecology. And believe me, everytime you go, there is something new for you to be marvelled at.


If you enter through Kranji, you might come across this railway crossing which has only one lane for a two-way traffic. Therefore, traffic jam always occurs near here though this place is not every populated.

Upon reaching the nature reserve, we were introduced to zonations based more on topography than species since our "compressed" mangroves are more heterogenous as compared to other undisturbed mangroves elsewhere from Singapore. From landward to seaward, the zonation goes like this: Back mangrove, mud lobster mound system, main forest, sandbank and then mudflat. One thing about the diversity of mangrove plants as compared to that from tropical rainforest is that species diversity is low as few plants can tolerate low oxygen, high salinity conditions.

Our first station is the back mangroves where it is found at tidal heights beyond where the highest water spring tide occur. What dominates the back mangrove will be Sea Hibiscus.


The next zonation will be the mud lobster mound and pool system.


Over here, the mud lobsters dig mud and unknowingly, they create huge mounds which are analogous to condominiums, even with swimming pool, in the forms of water pool. The height of the mound is advantageous to those plant which cannot tolerate salt because these plants can grow on the sides or on top of these mounds and be higher up from the salty water of the incoming tides. Growing on these mounds are mangrove ferns...


and sea holly. These plants can be identified by its jagged edges.


The main forest zone of Sungei Buloh is highly disturbed and therefore has more species of plants in a small area as compared to undisturbed mangroves. The common mangrove trees include the Rhizophora tree with stilt aerial roots, Bruguiera with knee like roots (as shown above) , and Avicennia with thin pencil-like roots.

And this is the flower of one of the Bruguiera species.

Even the huts along the boardwalk is so cute, with all the collages of drawings.

And hey, we saw this monitor lizard basking under the sun. Monitor lizards are the cleaners of the shores as they can feed on almost anything they catch. They also can "smell" the air with their tongue to track down prey. In Chek Jawa, we even saw one swimming and they are known to even swim underwater for half an hour.

Here is a fly on a leaf that has gotten my attention to take a snapshot before moving on as the teaching assistant shows us the different parts of mangroves.

This is a giant mudskipper which is actually a fish that can stay on land. How do they do it? They have hold water in their mouth and also breathe through moist skin. These fearsome predators even have two rows of teeth in their upper jaw, feeding on small fishes and crabs.

Talking about crabs, we have the tree climbing crabs. Why? Because they climb on trees! Duh. They climb high up during high tide to avoid being preyed upon. These guys eat mangrove leaves and seedlings and sometimes scavenge for meat.


The furthest seaward zone is where you can find the sandbank, as shown here. You can see many herons resting and feeding on the sandbank and also have a great view of Johor from here.

A close-up of the birds on the sandbank.

We then proceeded to the bridge over Sungei Buloh Besar and this photo shows the upstream portion where nutrients input into the mangrove ecosystem. There is a big name to explain this: allochthonous nutrient input.

And downstream, we find the river leading to the Straits of Johor.


Across again, another view of Johor. Sadly, we did not see natural shores along, but with modifications.

Here again we chanced upon this resident monitor lizard at the side of Sungei Buloh Besar. It is evident that there are the pencil-like thin roots which mainly belonged to the Avicennia trees.

Archer fish is interesting because they can feed on insects near the water surface by pumping out forceful jets of water to knock insects off leaves.

Our last stop was the main hide where we were told that many telescopium Rodongs can be found on the flat when the sluice gate drains the water out.

The whole trip was summarized with a short test and we were of course stressed over it for that short moment. Other than that, was a great trip. Thank God for wonderful weather despite nasty forecast from meterological station.

Anemone finale at Sungei Buloh

Today is the last day of our sea anemone "expeditions" and guess what, we are at the mangroves over at Sungei Buloh Nature Reserve.


Siva leads us to his territory via the accessible boardwalk system. And at first sight, I saw a few giant mudskipper wading across the wetland and pools of water.

Not too soon, we navigated ourselves down to the mud and dirt where the real work starts!


It is a very nice place after all, in this photo with a stream leading out to Johor Straits.


Ria did not get down at first and was happily taking photos of us dredging across the mud. Of course, Siva also took a photo of her up there before she joins us.


Huaqin found this delicate anemone with its tentacles opened along the side of a stream. Mangrove anemones are pretty either.


We were looking more for those anemones that burrow deeper into the substrate and this is how it looks like out of the mud. It has a orangey or brown column with white stripes running parallel to the it. The tentacles, when out of water, are retracted into its body.


The team works hard to get these anemones where no one bothers about them in the past. We are so glad that Dr Daphne is here to help us know more about these anemone guys, as we can better appreciate and document the rich biodiversity Singapore has.


Trixie is one of the very garang anemone team member and together with Ivy, they assist Dr Daphne with collection and identification. Who says girls can't do such stuffs?


Throughout the search, we found many of these blobs, mostly stuck on hard surfaces.

Dr Daphne told us that these are actually Anthopleura handi. And these anemones are actually named after her professor, called Professor Hand. They are tough guys and live well in the anoxic mangrove conditions.

Swee Hee found another type of anemone which I have forgotten the id. It has white lines radiating from the centre.

And to Ria's curosity, she found out surprisingly that the whole place is full of these rare Halophila Beccari! So far I only knew they can be found in Chek Jawa. And to think that we were all stomping them all over. Haha.

We brought a bit of specimen back to Siti, the expert of seagrass, who will take a good good look at these rosey tiger seagrass.

Today we had a well assorted gang of team members...


working hard and also learning valuable information from Dr Daphne.

Very soon, earlier than expected, we managed to complete our work and reached the objectives. We were pleasant that the park has prepared pools of water with sponges so that we can have a proper washup after getting ourselves down and dirty in the mud. It was a fruitful and enriching experience getting to learn so much from Dr Daphne.

After almost everyone left, Andy, Ron, Alvin, Robert and I stayed behind. We spotted this white-breasted waterhen (Amaurornis phoenicurus) near the edge of the pond.

I thought this was a pretty shot of a red-ear slider "looking" at the edge of the pond of small fishes.

We also stopped by the main bridge and with the assistance of Ron and Alvin, I get to see this beautiful Stork-billed Kingfisher resting on the branch, and it stayed there for really some time, even after we left.

We were talking about otters and tried to sight for one. I saw something moving from afar and I can't recognise what is it. Thus, I took out my camera and make a zoom. To my dismay, from what I saw from my camera, it is only a monitor lizard. Well, better than nothing. We know these otters are still there before Robert saw it some time ago.


That marks the end of the day, thanks to the anemone team for the trip and also Andy for the interesting drives which few people now appreciate the rustic charm of these winding roads.