Super low tide at Changi

As part of the recce trips of the star search (for sand stars and button shells), I have a gang of seven wonderful friends with me this morning (3am plus) at Changi. This week's tide is the super lowest of the year so there's a huge patch of intertidal area which is rarely exposed. As such, we can also recce extensively too.


There were a lot of movements in the water and we stumbled upon this hermit crab "partying" moments where many of them gather and move around quite actively. Wonder are they taking turns to change shells?


I think I found the patch where lots of button shells used to thrive, but I couldn't find any alive on my own today. They are not as shallow as they should be, I think they just dead and it might be part of their annual cycle. Looks like we have to wait a while in June and July for the recruitment to kick in.


There are a lot of these sea pencils stuck on the substrates.


They are actually related to corals, can you see the polyps coming out in the water?


A couple of solefishes were spotted and this one is different, with white patterns on its beige body.


As usual, there were plenty of white salmacis sea urchins all over the shore! We had to watch our footing to avoid stepping on them.


I've also found a couple of this purplish peacock anemones and they are really pretty.


We used to call this the strawberry anemone when Dr Daphne was around as it has strawberry spots running down its base. I'm not sure its identification though.


It has been some time I've seen gong gong snails on Changi, glad to find one today. Hope they are not overcollected by poachers.


At night, the stars are partying out including this brittle star.


I saw several carpet anemones and this one has a really cute anemone shrimp.


There were other marine animals swimming around including this filefish. Hard to photograph swimming animals and I couldn't got a photo of the cuttlefish Pamela found as the water was murking up.


This shrimp looks interesting with the orange part near the head. Doubt I've seen such pattern before.


I think this critter excites me a lot. It has a long stalk (not shown in this photo) with a flowery thing on top. At first I thought it's just a flower or a plant thing.


But it shrunk all the way in when I tried to observe closer! I've totally no idea what is it! Is it a fan worm or a tube worm sort of thing? Anyone please help me with id?


Pamela also found this noble volute which is among the biggest I've seen in our shores!


Other surprises I've found include this pair of horseshoe crabs.


I also found this seahorse stranded during low tide and thus quickly put it back into the tidal pool. Hope its not too stress.


Back to the agenda, we found quite a lot of sand stars today along the trip. However, they are quite shy today as in they are not out in huge numbers like I've seen at Changi before. Glad we have quite a number of people looking for these stars today. Most of them seem to be burrowing.


Quickly, we gathered our stars and did measurements on the shore. I've noticed that the stars on Changi are smaller than usual as well. Are they starving out without button shells?


Zavier found this huge sand star, at 15cm diameter! It has different patterns as compared to the usual sand stars found above. I suspect this is another species, Astropecten vappa while the ones we are finding is Astropecten indicus. I've read that the Astropecten vappa feeds exclusively on button shells. Indeed, a quick touch check, I've found there are button shells in its stomach.


Compare the size of this sand star with the hand. It's really sharp and spiny to touch and feel.


There are several small biscuit sea stars found as well. A total of three as shown here.






It's weird to find someone's name on one of the shell.


I've also found this ghost crab and it sort of chased Pamela. So we can say Pamela was chased by a ghost at Changi today. Wahaha.


I guess Pamela's wish is granted eventually as she finally sees a live octopus on the way back.


As everyone gathers at the octopus area, it's also a great opportunity to take a group photo! :-)

Thanks to Alex, Robyn, Pamela, Zavier and Paul for helping me at such an unearthly wee hour.

Thank you (extra very much) Khairul and Benjamin for driving us. Hope you all enjoyed the trip as well.

Sandflat at Tanah Merah

The super low tides are here again and this time round, I will be mostly recceing for my sand star project. With Ria helping me check Pasir Ris, a team of five (Chay Hoon, Vyna, Mei Lin, Alex and I) met at Tanah Merah to check out the sand flat that is known to have a lot of button shells and sand dollars.


And without doubt, there are indeed plenty of sand dollars and button shells. But most button shells seem to be dead with just the empty shell.


To my surprise, Chay Hoon found two button shells that are alive. They are snails so you can see their foot sticking out and moving along.


Where there are button shells, there will bound be moon snails. Moon snails are fierce predators prawling around the sand to hunt for preys like button shells.


To our delight, Chay Hoon found a really pretty moon snail with brown stripes on the white shell. I have never seen this before.


If you put it into a container with a hard surface, you can see the whole body fully expanded. What a beauty!


These circular structures are contain egg mass of the moon snail, which explain their abundance in this sand flat.


When moon snails die, that does not mean you can collect the beautiful shells. That is because hermit crabs need shells to live and be protected from predators. The moon snail shell on the right belongs to the tiger moon snail.


Chay Hoon took time to check out the larger sand dollars and we found two keyhole sand dollars! I have never seen them before at all. That's really amazing.


This is the underside. Why do they have slots or "keyholes"? It is suggested that they can help the sand dollar to burrow, upright itself, gather food or to prevent water current from lifting them out of the sand. Cool isn't it?


Of course, with button shells, there are sand stars which is the subject I'm more interested in. Though there aren't many, we found seven today which is already not bad. Ria smsed me that she found a lot at Pasir Ris. Can't wait to see her blog post when she does it.


We did measurements on them.


And also checking, by touch, if they have shells within their stomach. Indeed, two of the seven stars contain button shells within them.


A sandy habitat means you can also find acorn worms. This is actually the cast of the processed sand. Can you see the yellow bit where the butt of the acorn worm is? Hehe.


Like past East Coast trips, seagrasses were washed upshores. We wonder where the seagrasses came from? Is there a hidden meadow at East Coast/Tanah Merah area?


There are some bits of algae around too, and this one has a sea squirt on it.


In pools of water there are also swimming crabs like this one, and also moon crabs which are almost impossible to photograph since they burrow within seconds.


This cone snail lookalike is actually an olive snail, which might be the one I saw at Cyrene Reef.


In pools of water, fishes were swimming about gracefully, like this cute rabbitfish.


This is another big fish which I don't know what is it.


And it looks like the tiny algae patches are perfect spots for them to hide and rest during low tide.


Last but definitely not the least, is another new discovery for me, found by Chay Hoon again! Yay. They are chitons which are actually molluscs. They mostly eat algae, bryozoans and sometimes bacteria.


Here's a closeup of each chiton, nice to see two different colours!

Grateful again for them to come and help me hunt for sand stars and button shells today! Thanks Vyna for the rides as well. Many more trips to go and looking forward to them.

Javan myna visits my house

I was on my computer desk working and heard chirpings. A quick look reveals a Javan Myna (Acridotheres javanicus) perching near my window.

According to Wikipedia,

"The Javan Myna, also known as the white-vented myna and the buffalo myna, is a myna, a member of the Starling family. It is a successful species in much of South East Asia and has penetrated into India and neighbouring regions.

The Javan Myna is considered a pest, especially in urban areas which they prefer. They deposit droppings over buildings and even on unsuspecting human beings. Their roost also contaminate the ground below by the droppings. Apart from that, they are also a source of noise pollution and are capable of spreading zoonoses. In Singapore, the Javan Myna is one of the species of birds which can be killed by citizens without breaching of law.

They are also available at most Singapore bird shops at a very cheap cost, thus, many of them are bought and release into the wild and damaging the ecosystem of Singapore even further."






I'm not too sure what does the feather-raising action means which I always observe with these mynas. Haha. Any clue?