Things We Find in the Woods Part Ten

Field work is in full swing, and that means ample opportunities to see neat new nature and wildlife! First of all, how about this super weird thing we saw in the water at Pulau Ubin?! It was long and squiggly and undulated all over the place. At first it looked like a long pink ribbon drifting through the water, but a closer look revealed that it was generating its own rhythmic movements. I think it's some kind of sea worm, but I couldn't find any more information about it in my handy dandy Singapore Biodiversity Encyclopedia.

I've never seen a sea creature that looks like a ribbon dancer!

Speaking of things that squirm and slither, how about THIS thing?! It's a terrestrial flatworm. Yes, that orange thing is its head. As my supervisor so accurately stated, "That thing looks like something out of X-Files." True. It behaves strangely too, eating up earthworms like they're going out of style!

Probably the weirdest wildlife I've seen in SE Asia. About 15 cm long.

At first we weren't seeing many snakes, but one day at Bukit Timah I saw an elegant bronzeback. I love those snakes - they're long and super skinny, and they're harmless, so I feel pretty safe observing them.

Who can resist this cute little guy?!

My bronzeback sighting seems to have broken our snake dry spell, because the next week we had a two-snake day! First I spotted this guy in the weeds off the trail. He's the venomous Wagler's pit viper, so we gave him a wide berth and moved on.

Not a great picture, but you get the idea!

A couple of hours later, I found ANOTHER snake. And guess what! It was a snake I've never seen before! When I first spotted its bright colors, I definitely thought it was venomous, but then I remembered a little rhyme my dad learned in the army,

Red to yellow, kill a fellow

Red to black, friend of Jack

I'm not sure if it's 100% accurate, but in this case, it was right. This red-to-black reptile is the harmless twin-barred tree snake, which is capable of gliding through the air, just like the paradise tree snake!

A NEW SNAKE!!! HOORAY! I wish Bryan could've seen it!

OK, I made it halfway through a nature post without mentioning monkeys. That's the best I can do. So. One day in MacRitchie we encountered a group of monkeys we'd never followed before. We'd been around them for about 5 minutes when they started alarm calling. That usually means that there's some kind of threat around - if the monkeys aren't habituated to people, they might alarm call at them. They also alarm call at other groups of monkeys and a variety of potential predators, including dogs, snakes, crocodiles, large monitor lizards, birds of prey, and more. We were pretty sure that we weren't the source of their distress, so we started looking around for what they were all worked up about. We didn't see anything, but the alarm calling went on and on for about a half an hour. We finally saw the root of all the excitement when this guy lumbered slowly around the bend in a little forest stream!!!

He was HUGE!

He was bigger than an adult monkey. I don't blame them for alarm calling!

If you know me well, you probably know that I ADORE turtles. They're probably my favorite animal after monkeys. Singapore has lots of red-eared sliders, but unfortunately I haven't observed many other turtles in the wild here, so this was really a treat. I think this is a Malayan flat-shelled terrapin, but I could be wrong, so any other suggestions are welcome!

Up until a few months ago, Singapore had a railway that connected to Malaysia (read a neat blog post about it here). The train tracks ran right next to Bukit Timah, and there were lots of fruit trees along the tracks, so the monkeys spent a lot of time there munching on fruits. When the train service stopped, Singapore decided to remove the tracks, and there's discussion of turning the old rail path into a green corridor (hooray!). I followed the monkeys to the site of the old tracks one day, and was astonished to see how well the land had recovered from the tracks. It looks like there was never anything there!! The section of tracks in the photo was left behind presumably because it runs across an overpass and would have been more difficult to remove.

Hard to believe trains were running here 6 months ago!

Of course, no nature post is complete without monkey photos! The road that leads up to the Visitor Center at Bukit Timah recently had new drains installed and the monkeys discovered that the drains make an excellent fort! They played in them for hours, popping in one hole and out the other, tackling each other, and wrestling.

Check out mah new FORT!

Go find your OWN playhouse. This one belongs to the Hindhede monkeys!

Watch out for lots more wildlife posts in the months ahead!

Dairy Farm Nature Park

Nope, Bryan and I have not yet run out of new nature places to visit in Singapore. This weekend we headed to Dairy Farm Nature Park. As its name implies, Dairy Farm hasn't always been a pristine nature area. Previously a farm (duh), it was opened in 2009 as a nature area that serves as a green buffer for Bukit Timah, the largest remaining patch of primary rainforest in Singapore.

Trails at Dairy Farm and Bukit Timah

I didn't really know what to expect of the new nature park. Because it's opened somewhat recently, I thought it might have an overly manicured feel, but its connection to BTNR made me think that it might have been populated by neat wildlife that had made its way over from the more mature forest. I was pleasantly surprised- Dairy Farm had nice trails and was much less crowded than more popular Bukit Timah, which was a good change of pace. Unfortunately one of the park's highlights, the Singapore Quarry, is closed for landscaping until September 10th. Instead of going that way, we headed the other direction, toward the Wallace Education Centre. There were lots of pretty plants along the way, some of which we'd never seen before.

Spiky!

Creamsicle-colored flowers

Looks like a pineapple!

Iridescent morning glories

We took a side path called the Wallace Trail, which had intermittent sign posts with information about Alfred Russell Wallace, a naturalist and contemporary of Darwin. Wallace was a bit overshadowed by Darwin, but made many important contributions to natural science himself. He also made a trip to Southeast Asia, where he stopped off in Singapore and braved the tiger-ridden jungle to catalog the species he found here. Apparently while here he also developed a deep and abiding love for the durian. Scientists are a pretty strange bunch.

When we came out the end of Wallace Trail, we found...(drum roll please)...AN ABANDONED BUILDING!!! YAY!!! The building looked pretty rickety and unstable, which is probably why NParks had taken the precaution of roping it off and posting an intimidating sign. It was also the only abandoned building I've ever seen with a beautifully maintained garden.

I just wanna fix it up and move in!

Front of the building

Back of the building...maybe a chicken shed?

The garden outside the house was full of blooming, vibrant flowers, chirping birds, and colorful butterflies.

(I think...) A female brown-throated sunbird

Fuzzy purple plant

Pink dragonfly!

After exploring the abandoned building as well as we could without breaking any laws, we moved on to the Wallace Education Centre. The Centre is an old cowshed that was converted to an educational facility when the nature park was opened. It had lots of info about Wallace himself, but more importantly, it had giant replicas of cows!

Yay cows! Made us Midwestern kids feel right at home. Also, the cow is kind of an honorary mascot of my alma mater.

When we walked outside, we saw a bunch of people standing around, staring into the bushes. We went over to see what they were looking at and saw...holy crap!!! A lizard eating another lizard!! It was pretty creepy- the little one struggled for a few minutes before finally being conquered, then the big lizard just gulped the little one down in a few huge gulps until all that was left was a tail sticking out of his mouth. Ick.

Ahhhh! Weird! The big one is a young water monitor and the unfortunate little one is a changeable lizard.

Once we'd been thoroughly eked out by the reptile predation, we moved on. We decided to go ahead and make the hike over to Bukit Timah by taking the Dairy Farm Loop to the North View Path, then the Rengas Path to the Main Road. As we walked along Dairy Farm Loop, we got another bonus. Another abandoned building! This one looked like it had probably served as a bathroom at one point, but had long since been left behind. It's not every day you get to see two abandoned buildings, especially in endlessly progressing Singapore!

Lots of moss and a little graffiti give it character

Inside the little building we saw lots of rogue vegetation, loads of bugs, and one cute little lizard. I think it was a flying dragon, but it seemed like an unusual place for one. Usually we only see them on tree trunks.

Flying dragon hiding out

As we went along the trail turned into mostly steps, going up up, and up some more. We hadn't realized that the trails that we chose would involve so much climbing, but it made sense considering their proximity to the Bukit Timah summit (the highest point in Singapore). We trudged onward and were rewarded a few times for our efforts.

Fat green larva

Archduke butterfly, identified with the help of Butterfly Circle

Once we finally huffed and puffed up all the stairs and made it to the Main Road, we started going down again. When we got to the bottom of the steep hill, we decided to just keep walking and go across the street to get something refreshing to drink. But on our way out we ran into the Hindhede monkeys, hanging out outside of the Mont Timah condos. We stopped and watched them for awhile, romping and playing in the trees. We were especially entertained by Kurt (one of the big males) who chased Keira (one of the adult females) all over the place. He was trying to mate with her, but was unsuccessful, because she kept running away. Finally he gave up and stubbornly ignored her while she fear-grinned and lip-smacked in the tree next to him.

Keira and Kurt, sitting in a tree...

So we ended our day on a high note by hanging out with the monkeys. If you're looking for something new to do in Singapore, go check out Dairy Farm (but maybe wait a week or two until the quarry is open). It was nice to see a different place, and to hang out at an uncrowded nature park. The hike over to Bukit Timah was fun too - just make a day of it!

I'm Famous!

Well, maybe famous is kind of a strong word. But I AM in the Bamboo Telegraph (the magazine of the American Women's Association), and that's pretty cool! And look! I'm with the monkeys!

Me and some of my good friends (click for larger view)

The article features the monthly Monkey Walks, led by yours truly, at Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. The walks have been a success so far, and have been a lot of fun for me and (I hope) the people that come along. We've even had a few colugo sightings!

And we set new dates! Some of the walks will be led by Dr. Gumert, who recently returned from collecting more monkey data in Thailand, but most will be led by me.

Monkey Walks 

August 13th

September 10th

October 8th

November 12th

December 10th

If you'd like to come hang out with the monkeys on one of the dates listed above, please email sgmonkeywalk(at)gmail.com. You may sign up for yourself and up to three other people. Spaces are limited, so please register early. All walks begin at 5 PM with a brief talk in the Visitor Center classroom, and usually last until about 6:30 PM. Walks are canceled if it rains heavily up to 45 minutes before the walk, and participants are notified via SMS. Most importantly, it will be a good time!

Many thanks to Melissa Diagana, a Monkey Walk participant and the author of the article above!

Things We Find in the Woods Part Eight

Well everyone, my apologies for not posting recently but I've been sick and laying around in bed, coughing and blowing my nose. Somehow that didn't seem blog-worthy. Anyway, because I haven't been doing anything too exciting, I made another compilation of fun stuff we've come across on previous nature excursions. I hope you enjoy, and now that I'm feeling better I should be posting again soon!

Man, we have been on a roll with the wildlife lately (well, until I got sick anyway). I think Bryan's mom visiting must have brought us good luck. When we were at Sungei Buloh, we saw this huge atlas moth. I saw one once before, at Bukit Timah, but this one was much prettier. These moths are just giant- this one's wingspan was probably about 9 or 10 inches. The females are even larger!

Male atlas moth

On Pulau Ubin, we saw this butterfly. I think it's a Burmese lascar, but a lot of the lascar butterflies (Perak lascar, common lascar) look really similar to me. Can anyone confirm?

One of Singapore's many lovely butterflies

Bryan photographed this bird at MacRitchie. It looks like some kind of flycatcher to me, possibly a young Asian brown flycatcher.

Fragile little bird

One day Bryan and I were walking down the street right next to our apartment when we heard a cacophonous racket in the trees next to the sidewalk. We looked up and saw three robust birds just squawking away. We'd never seen them before, but I recognized them by their appearance and all the noise they were making. They were Asian koels- two females and one male. Asian koels are members of the cuckoo family, and are interesting because they engage in something called brood parasitism. This means that koels don't build their own nests. Instead, they lay their eggs in the nests of other birds (here in Singapore they often use myna nests). Koels usually lay one egg at a time, and they choose nests that are already occupied with eggs. Then the mother tending the nest hatches the koel egg right along with her own! Sneaky! Unfortunately, on the day that Bryan and I spotted the koels, we were just taking a stroll to the store so we didn't have a camera and so we have no photos to share. But we'll be on the lookout for them again!

On our last trip to Sungei Buloh, we saw a green crested lizard right near the entrance. I was told by an NUS biology professor that green crested lizards used to be quite common, but they've been largely displaced by the invasive changeable lizards that are now everywhere. I see changeable lizards on an almost daily basis, just hanging around on the bases of young trees, right along the sidewalks. I've only seen green crested lizards a handful of times, and always in a nature reserve.

The native green crested lizard

The invasive changeable lizard

Another of Singapore's invasive species is the red-breasted parakeet. The bird is common in Changi Village, on the east side of Singapore. In addition to the parakeets, there are also cockatoos. Both birds were introduced through the bird trade and managed to reproduce and thrive in their adopted habitat (more info about the birds of Changi here). I was eager to show these birds to Kathy and my friend Shira when they were visiting, so I was walking along the sidewalk, staring up into the trees. I was so focused on finding the birds that I wasn't paying attention to where I was going. And...I slammed right into a lamp-post. Headfirst. I hit it so hard that my head rocked backward and I saw stars. The sound of my head hitting the pole (GONNNNNNNNG) reverberated over and over through my skull. Bryan, Kathy, and Shira all stared at me and tried not to laugh. They did pretty well for about 3 seconds before they just couldn't help themselves anymore. And who could blame them? If I'd been able to see straight and if my ears weren't ringing so loudly, I probably would've laughed too. I'm sure the hundred or so people eating at the hawker centre 10 feet away got a kick out of it. Sigh. Anyway, we found the parakeets.

Was this bird sighting worth a lump on my head?

Speaking of invasive species, how about this red-eared slider pileup?

Like a stack of dirty dishes. Except cute.

We don't just find animals in our wanderings. Sometimes we find cool plants too. Like this dewy purple flower (yes, you can laugh about the fact that I know the names for the animals, but refer to all the plants as "pretty flowers" or "big trees").

Flower on Pulau Ubin

Young leaves, a monkey favorite

We were on Pulau Ubin when we took the picture of the flower. That same day, we say a red jungle fowl, which is the ancestor of the modern chicken. The jungle fowl was really skittish and took off deep into the woods as soon as we saw it so, sadly, we didn't get a photo. However, we did get a photo of some random chickens we saw inexplicably wandering around East Coast Park one day.

Not red jungle fowl.

Chickens aside, Bryan and I have both gotten way better at spotting wildlife since moving to Singapore, but we still aren't that good at spying the local insects (aside from the mosquitoes. I can ALWAYS find them). But since I started following this blog I've been more vigilant about looking for insects. We recently managed to find this superbly camouflaged grasshopper at Sungei Buloh. Isn't he neat?!

Patience, young grasshopper

Sungei Buloh is totally our hotspot for wildlife. We also saw all of these awesome things there:

Little egret

Spotted house gecko

Batik golden web spider

Yellow-vented bulbul

Again, I leave you with my favorite, the lovable long-tailed macaque. This is Catherine lip-smacking at Arwen.

Monkey love

Silly Signs Part Eight

As I said in the last sign post, there's a seemingly infinite pool of bizarre signs in Singapore. And I will continue to photograph them, despite the sidelong glances I get from people wondering what on earth I am doing. The first sign is one we found in the parking lot (sorry, I mean the carpark) at HortPark. I love the stars coming out of the guy's head!

I think I would die laughing if I saw this happen in real life. BOINK!

The next one is from Sungei Buloh. The wetlands reserve is also home to my all-time favorite Singaporean sign, the WATCH IT crocodile. This sign kind of gives me the creeps for some reason I can't quite put my finger on. Maybe it's those lush, disembodied lips. I don't know. But it's also entertaining because the sign is near the main entrance and pretty much every time I see it there's some unruly kid running around nearby, screaming or punching a sibling, leading me to wonder...what tranquility?

Enjoy the obnoxiously loud children.

Coming from the U.S., we're not used to seeing many typhoid and cholera awareness campaigns. And this one is kind of freaky. We found it outside at Reflections at Bukit Chandu.

Wash your hands. Or you'll get typhoid.

These new signs were recently erected at Bukit Timah. They are a cooperation between a Raffles Girls School club called Monkey Business and NParks. The signs give information about the monkeys and how to be around them without upsetting them. And the advice is accompanied by adorable cartoon monkeys! What's not to love?

They remind me of the evil monkey from Family Guy.