Hazy sunrise over Sentosa

"The haze is back" is what many of my friends and also other Singaporeans will lament. Before we probably will start pointing our fingers at Indonesia again, reports have already stated that yes the haze is back, but blame it on fires on Singapore and that Singapore bush fires hit record high.


The sunrise yesterday was more orangey with the haze. This photo was taken with Tanjong Rimau, Sentosa.


Why is the sun more orangey or reddish when there is a haze?

This is because during a haze, the sunlight must travel further through the atmosphere before it gets to you as more of the light is reflected and scattered off by the particulate matter that causes the haze.

Shorter wavelengths like blue are more efficiently scattered by Rayleigh scattering. Only the longer wavelengths (orange and red) are left in the direct beam that reaches your eyes. Therefore, the sun looks more red and orangey when there are more particles in the air. But as the sun rises to a higher position in the sky, the distance for the sunlight to reach the earth's surface decreases. This decreases scattering and therefore during noon, the sun is not orange or red anymore.

Egrets aplenty at NUS

If you study or work in NUS campus, you would have noticed that egret sightings are common all over places especially in grasslands. As for me, I usually find them at the SRC field area foraging for food in the grasses.


According to Ivan, these are cattle egrets (Bubulcus ibis) where the brown streaks appear only when they are breeding.

Ivan added "I've read on the Bird Ecology Study Group that the cattle egrets in the western side of Singapore are likely to be free-flying birds from Jurong Bird Park, supplemented with migrants during this time of the year."

Thanks Ivan for the correction. I first thought it was an intermediate egret which has quite different body proportions as compared to the cattle egret.


The staircase at the back is the one leading to Lower Kent Ridge Road from the AYE across the SRC field. It's nice to see birds in the wild even at places that are not that wild.

More sightings of egrets at NUS here and here.

Baby horseshoe crab at Pasir Ris

Yesterday evening I was at Pasir Ris Beach. Though this shore has been visited several times, there are still surprises awaiting for us to discover.


A baby horseshoe crab (Family Limulidae) was found by Chee Kong. And it is as small as about 6mm! I have never seen such a small one before.


Even the tail of the horseshoe crab is only beginning to grow out of its exoskeleton. This tiny creature swam short distances using their swimmerettes and gill flaps. Very exciting!


Chee Kong again found another horseshoe crab and though it is much larger as compared to the 6mm one, this horseshoe crab is still considered juvenile as compared to their full size as an adult.


Asian date mussels (Musculista senhousia) were much more abundant this time as compared to previoys trips. They form mats over the shore through their byssus threads which act to trap sediments. This eventually forms the mats of mussel beds. Each bivalve looking thing in this photo is an individual mussel embedded on the substrate (except for the one above).


For the first time, I photographed the mussels filter feeding in action.


The structure that this Asian date mussel used to filter feed is very intricate and this is the first time I noticed it. Such is the beauty of tiny creatures if you bother to look real close.

There were also many more plain sand stars (Astropecten sp.), probably a response from the increase of mussel bed coverage.


There was also another special find of this juvenile cake sea star (Anthenea aspera) which made my day on top of the cute baby horseshoe crab. :-)

To see Labrador for myself

I was at Labrador Nature Reserve with a group of friend yesterday afternoon to explore the shore during low tide.

Despite being an avid shore lover, I have not visited Labrador shore during a good low tide to take a look at the marine life there. My last two visits during 2006 (for a project) and 2007 (to check out the sad state of the shore) were during not so low tides.


This is a great view of Labrador from the top. The beginning of the jetty is where the shore lies.

Why did I named this blog post "To see Labrador for myself"? This is because of several impacts that were and are happening around the waters of Labrador like massive reclamation that will be till August 2009, post of the languishing state of Labrador shore, and the various reports of the effects of cofferdam and marine trashes on the shore.

Personally I feel that it is quite ironical that it seems the shore of only of the four nature reserves in Singapore is in a worse state as compared to many other unprotected shores.

We perhaps have this mentality that to believe something, you must see it for yourself. Thus, the objective of the trip is to look at the current state of Labrador shore for myself.


Joining me are Daniel (left) who is a Canadian exchange student, Nicholas (right) and Yikang. Yikang had his antique camera with him and he took several great shots that are black and white. Can't wait to see his photos.

Unfortunately, he told me after the trips that among the shores he visited, Labrador is the least he like because of the different pollutions like noise, smoke etc.


We arrived on the rocky shore a little earlier and explored the high shores first. One of the first few sightings include this beige flatworm.


Daniel shares with me his find of this ribbon worm (Phylum Nemertea) that was crawling across the rock wall.


You will surprised to see lots of life underneath rocks like this eerie mass of bristleworms (Class Polychaeta). Do remember to flip back the rock to its original position, otherwise the animals will die of drying out.


Another creature found beneath rocks will be this elegant looking wandering cowrie (Cypraea errones).


And also this tiny pretty orange snail that I have no idea what it is.

Soon, a bunch of girls came down to the shore where the seagrasses are. I suspect they are the RGS Labrador angels.


I approached closer and say hello to them with Andy who just joined me also. And yes, they are doing transects to study the seagrasses at Labrador park.


Andy, the girls and I noticed that the seagrasses looked a bit different today.


There was a layer of coating on the leaves and I suspect it could be due to the scorching sun, as I experienced blackening of seagrasses at Changi too. When the tide went lower, indeed the seagrasses at the lower zonation are much less affected which sort of supported my hypothesis.

The team explained that they have not seen such a phenomenon before.


The tide continued to recede and revealed several sad coral skeletons.


There was this Porites coral that was uprooted. It was partially alive at the bottom with the top layer covered by a layer of sediment and silt.


There was another Porites coral that is bleaching.


Even the coin seaweed (Halimeda tuna) is covered by sedimentation.

I walked around the intertidal area and found it in overall to be rather sad in terms of abundance and diversity of animals. It is a rather far cry as compared to the nearby Sentosa shore.


Life is resilient and I found some signs of "struggle to keep alive" spirit in this tiny Porites coral colony and the zoanthids.


Despite the heavy sedimentation and turbidity in the waters, there were still signs that Labrador may recover to its former glory if left undisturbed. I was glad to see some good growth of sponges. However, they were not abundant.


I found this lone patch of the Rubber mat zoanthids (Palythoa tuberculosa)...


while the Button zoanthids (Zoanthus sp.) were more commonly found on the rocky shore.


I was surprised to find a coral colony that is not boulder-like but is branching.


A closer look suggests that this could be the Crinkled sandpaper coral (Psammocora sp.).


There were a few boulder like corals like this faviid coral. Most living corals were found at the much lower zone of the shore. However, the abundance of corals on Labrador is much lesser than Sentosa. I hope these these surviving corals will be able to live on.

There were also several interesting reef associates that we have encountered.


Other than the swimming crabs that run away quickly most of the time, photographing this cute hairy crab (Family Pilumnidae) is not as challenging. I like their two red eyes against the camouflaging hairy body.


It was heartening to be able to sight this juvenile copperbanded butterflyfish (Chelmon rostratus) that has a false eye to distract predators.

Soon, Andy called me over to take a look at what he just found.


Wow! That's a special find of the charismatic spider conch (Lambis lambis). It seems to be a young adult to as the spines have yet grown out. Also the underside of the shell has more prominent patterns that tend to fade as the conch grows.

Andy video-ed a footage of how the conch uprights itself so watch out for that on his SG Beachbum blog.


And in no time, Andy found yet ANOTHER adult spider conch. The spider conch is usually well camouflaged with the coral rubble, so we are fortunate that Andy's keen eyes still managed to find not only one but two spider conchs.

This spider conch looks like it has sponges or ascidians on its upper shell. Seems like the upper surface is a good substrate for animals to grow, like the spider conch with coral on it found in Semakau.


Overturning the seemingly unattractive conch from the top, the underside reveals a more colourful shell with the animal within. This conch has the characteristic spines that help it to upright itself. Also worth a note will be the faded patterns as compared to the previous conch.

We proceeded on to take a look at where the cofferdam used to be and see if there is any life. Despite the rocks and surrounding looking rather boring, there was yet another special find.


We were rather stunned to find a synaptic sea cucumber (Family Synaptidae) on the rocky substrates. They are usually found at seagrass meadows or sandy substrates.


There was even another synaptic sea cucumber around the same area, this one more brown and orange in colour.


Just before we left the shore, Hang Chong, whom we met on the shores, found this Brown striped flatworm (Pseudobiceros gratus). My first sighting of this flatworm was just only the day before this Labrador trip and now again was seen. How coincidental.

Though it is heartening that life can still be found on Labrador shore, I wondered how resilient can the ecosystem be while being faced with several impacts. Will its health dwindle on or will it rebound? Nobody knows. All we know is that Labrador is obviously not thriving as well as in the past two or three years. I want to visit and see it now before it might become worse. Just in case Murphy's law work.

The natural shoreline of Labrador, though tiny and narrow, yet is still highly utilized for different purposes like recreation, education, research...


and even a wedding couple were taking photographs on the rocky shore despite the possibility of the beautiful gown being dirtied by the rocks. Wild places, though charming, are few in Singapore and we hope that the remaining wild locations be left alone for Singaporeans to visit and appreciate its beauty and tranquility.


I certainty hope that the last remaining mainland living rocky shore will be there for many generations to come for our fellow Singaporeans to enjoy.

Changi Beach with MGS girls

It has been quite a while I have visited this portion of Changi beach and this afternoon I was out with many girls from Methodist Girls School for a shore trip which aims to show and teach them about the ecology, biodiversity and conservation of sea shores.

I don't remember participating in such trips in the past, so these girls are really fortunate to experience wild marine life right here in Singapore.


Just at the high shores, the girls were amazed at the patterns of sand balls created.


The culprit of the sand ball formation is this sand bubbler crab (Scopimera sp.). The sand bubbler crab eats the thin coating of edible particles on sand grains by scrapping the food to its mouth. After which, the "processed" sand is then discarded as a little ball from the burrow entrance.

The crabs emerge as soon as the tide recedes. Therefore, you can estimate how long the tide has been out by the patterns of their sand balls. The more extensive the pattern of sand balls, the longer the tide has been out.


We walked towards the lower shore zonation and discussed about seagrasses versus seaweed and the uses of the flora in the sea. This is a seagrass (Halodule uninveris) because it has a root system unlike the seaweed.


Unfortunately, the Fern seagrass (Halophila spinulosa) seems to be affected by the recent scorching weather as they turn black in colour. Let's hope they can recover.


Another creature that excited the girls will be this Spotted moon crab (Ashtoret lunaris). Why were they excited? Because this crab can burrow into the sand in quick time.


Another sharp eyed spotting of the students will be this snail that has an anemone stuck on its shell. This is probably mutualism at work as the anemone can find a hard substrate to land on while the anemone helps to fend off predators of the snail with its stinging properties.


One of the girls spotted this tiny weeny green beachflea (Order Amphipoda) which I won't see because I am not really super detailed in finding creatures that don't have five arms. This beachflea is a crustacean that resemble shrimps. Most beachfleas are scavengers or feed on detritus. Some can filter feed. A few are predatory while some are parasites on larger animals.


The gong gong (Strombus canarium) is well known for being a seafood. It can be found in Changi but the population is dwindling because many people take them off the shores before they could replace themselves, which is probably unsustainable. Maybe one day gong gong may become even rarer to find? Food for thought indeed.


This is another gastropod, and a very big one that made the girls wow-ed. Yes, this is a very large noble volute (Cymbiola nobilis) that is unfortunately listed as 'Vulnerable' on the Red List of threatened animals of Singapore due to habitat loss, overcollection for food and its attractive shell.


It's my very first time seeing such a large razor shell or bamboo clam (Family Solenidae) which is about 8-10cm long! It's the kind of size you find in the seafood table since it is edible. It was really cool to see how the clam swim through ejecting a jet of water with its siphon.


The razor shell can even burrow and it showed us how it did it on the spot. After which, what remains will be this siphon that sticks out to the surface to breathe and filter feed.


I believe many students would have seen starfishes in photos or cartoons but this is the first time for many to see them alive! This is the plain sand star (Astropecten sp.)


More echinoderms were found including the salmacis sea urchin (Salmacis sp.) and many sea cucumbers like this Thorny sea cucumber (Colochirus quadrangularis).


One of the few special finds today will be this unidentified mysterious sea cucumber with "spikes" and circles on its body. It is relatively big, comparable some of the garlic sea cucumber.


The underside of the intriguing sea cucumber that we don't know what it is. It seems to have more spikey protrusions by the side. Another weird sea cucumber was also found by the students that is also as big and look like the Remarkable sea cucumber (Holothuria notabilis) but it is probably not because it also has quite obvious and longer spikey protrusions.

I'm always amazed at the diversity of sea cucumbers in Singapore. So much is unknown!


Under a rock was this weird looking creature that I don't know what it is! It is very small and has four pink stripes. Could this be a tunicate or sea squirt, or even a juvenile sea cucumber?


Another sighting will be this Dragonet (Family Callionymidae) fish that are well camouflaged and thus usually overlooked with the sand.


Another special find of the day! Henrietta found this pretty snail that I've not seen it before personally. This is likely to be a helmet shell from Family Cassidae (Thanks Ron for the id!).

This snail has two curved tentacles that come out from the centre, together with a siphon and a white mantle.


The underside reveals tooth like edges (not shown here) and a operculum looking structure at the end of its mantle to shut themselves off from predation or dessication.


Last but definitely not the least, one of the girls in my group showed me her find of this delicate looking Brown flatworm (Pseudobiceros gratus) and it is also my first time seeing this flatworm!

Today's trip with the girls was a fun one with many nice sightings and sharing about the different aspects of our own shore in Singapore. I hope they were motivated to express and act after exploring the living shore of Changi.