mama spider creating web @ SBWR - 29Sep2013

Came across this rather bloated orb spider (Nephila antipodiana ?) re-creating a rather large web after heavy rains washed away part of its web. There was a little red male spider clinging on to the mama spider as she went about her business. 

mama spider creating web @ SBWR - 29Sep2013 from SgBeachBum on Vimeo.

Find out more about orb spiders here :

http://www.naturia.per.sg/buloh/inverts/nephila.htm

http://habitatnews.nus.edu.sg/guidebooks/spiders/text/Nephila_maculata.htm

http://habitatnews.nus.edu.sg/guidebooks/spiders/text/Nephila_antipodiana.htm

smooth-coated otter @ Ubin-OBS 28Sep2013

Was treated to a rare sighting of a lone adult otter at the OBS-Ubin sandy shore adjacent to the the jetty. It nervously trotted up the beach and started to rub its body over the sand cautiously stopping every few seconds to look around. It was on the shore for just under two minutes and trundled back down into the water before disappearing with a dive.  

smooth-coated otter @ Ubin-OBS 28Sep2013 from SgBeachBum on Vimeo.

Find out more about these otters :

http://blog.nus.edu.sg/sgotters/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smooth-coated_otter

http://www.naturia.per.sg/buloh/verts/smooth_otter.htm

malayan water monitor holed up @ pasir ris mangrove 14Sep2013

The amazing disappearing magic show by a Malayan Water Monitor was one of the highlights observed during a free nature walk conducted by the Naked Hermit Crabs volunteer guides. 

The lizard was about 1.4m long (maybe a bit longer as it had a very long tail) and had been resting on a branch of a mangrove tree which reached above the viewing platform. It was already about 6.30pm and the lizard must have been basking in the afternoon sun on a safe perch on a high branch. Some kids spotted it on the high branch and their howls of delight must have been too much for the lizard. We need to be quiet in Nature Parks so that the animals do not run and hide which is exactly what this lizard did. The lizard crawled down the branch to a hole in the trunk of the tree. The hole was not much wider than the lizard's head and certainly smaller than the lizard's belly girth. It cautiously looked inside the hole to see if anything else was inside before deciding that all was good. The video clip is self-explanatory....the background dialogue is also interesting. It was certainly amazing to see the entire lizard disappear into the cavity.

water monitor lizard holed up @ pasir ris mangroves 14Sep2013 from SgBeachBum on Vimeo.

Check out all the mangrove denizens spotted during the walk at the unique Pasir Ris mangroves at this link http://nakedhermitcrabs.blogspot.sg/2013/09/family-fun-exploring-pasir-ris-mangroves.html.

Find out more about the unique Pasir Ris mangroves :

http://www.wildsingapore.com/places/prp.htm

http://mangrove.nus.edu.sg/guidebooks/text/1017.htm

http://tidechaser.blogspot.sg/2012/08/pasir-ris-mangrove-boardwalk.html

Find out about wild happenings in Singapore here :

http://wildsingaporehappenings.blogspot.sg/

And here are some fabulous links about the star of this blogpost...the ubiquitous Malayan Water Monitor :

http://varanidae.org/6_1_Ng-and-Mendyk.pdf - read about a water monitor getting eaten by crocodiles at SBWR!

http://www.wildsingapore.com/wildfacts/vertebrates/reptilia/salvator.htm

http://iyb2010singapore.blogspot.sg/2010/12/magnificent-monitors.html

http://www.ecologyasia.com/verts/lizards/malayan_water_monitor.htm

http://mangrove.nus.edu.sg/guidebooks/text/2115.htm

http://www.naturia.per.sg/buloh/verts/monitor_lizard.htm

https://www.sbwr.org.sg/Wetlands/text/06-133-1.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_monitor

http://www.besgroup.org/2007/11/21/monitor-lizards-at-the-sungei-buloh-wetland-reserve/

http://www.besgroup.org/2008/10/25/malayan-water-monitor-catching-catfish/

buffy fish owl @ pasir ris mangrove - 14Sep2013

Finally got a few seconds worth of this rarely seen fishing owl in the Pasir Ris Mangrove.

The owl was spotted during a free nature walk conducted by a group of passionate volunteers who call themselves the 'Naked Hermit Crabs'. Find out more about their fabulous free walks! Join them as they show you what gems Singapore's shores and mangroves have! Send them an email at nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com.

buffy fish owl @ pasir ris mangroves 14Sep2013 from SgBeachBum on Vimeo.

Check out all the mangrove denizens spotted during the walk at the unique Pasir Ris mangroves at this link http://nakedhermitcrabs.blogspot.sg/2013/09/family-fun-exploring-pasir-ris-mangroves.html.

Find out more about the unique Pasir Ris mangroves :

http://www.wildsingapore.com/places/prp.htm

http://mangrove.nus.edu.sg/guidebooks/text/1017.htm

http://tidechaser.blogspot.sg/2012/08/pasir-ris-mangrove-boardwalk.html

Find out about wild happenings in Singapore here :

http://wildsingaporehappenings.blogspot.sg/

Find out more about this fabulous owl :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffy_Fish_Owl

http://habitatnews.nus.edu.sg/pub/naturewatch/text/a051a.htm

http://www.besgroup.org/2007/05/31/buffy-fish-owl-encounters/

http://www.safeproject.net/animal-sightings/buffy-fish-owl-ketupa-ketupu/

http://www.planetofbirds.com/strigiformes-strigidae-buffy-fish-owl-ketupa-ketupu

http://ibc.lynxeds.com/species/buffy-fish-owl-ketupa-ketupu

http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/speciesfactsheet.php?id=2232&m=1

bad birding practice @ pasir ris - 11Aug2013

Visited a small nook at Pasir Ris to see if there was any appearance by the rarely seen Greater Painted Snipe(GPS). However, the disappointment came not only from a no show (which I had been expecting) from this shy bird, but mainly from the wanton use and discard of styrofoam boards on the muddy ground. 

I had previously seen photographers use these boards to stand their tripods on them or even sit their chairs on the boards whilst waiting for the GPS to show but I had assumed that the photographers would know better than to simply abandon the boards on the ground once their watch was over. 

As can be seen in the photo, some bit of the boards had broken off and littered the muddy ground. The smaller bits of styrofoam will likely remain in the ground for a very very long time (forever by human lifetime references) and I hope the GPS or some other animal would not inadvertently consume the muddied styrofoam granules peppering the muddy ground.

The two photographers on the right who have been masked out are doing the RIGHT thing as pictured by using boots and being unafraid of the mud. The styrofoam boards to the left were probably left by other photographer(s) doing the WRONG thing.

Perhaps it is time for bird photographers to pay more attention to how they go about their art and to take a critically reflective attitude towards some basic dos and don'ts. Peer pressure by other photographers should also be practised to encourage the baddies to practise good common sense. It would be a shame if the GPS or some other animal suffered fatally from ingesting the undigestable styrofoam bits.

The bird photography community will know who the lazy photographers are and what little value to accord to their images....all of them. Professionalism does count.

I hope I maintain a decent standard of good practice as well.

It should not be too difficult.  

deadfish III @ northwestern singapore - July2013

It appears that the local fishfarms are deliberately dumping deadfish into local waters. There may have been a 'depleted oxygen' incident affecting the Northwestern waters off Lim Chu Kang.

This 'dry weather-no rain-low oxygen' explanation favours the fish farmers but it of course (perhaps the fish farmers are simply overstocking their pens?) does not explain why the other fish in the area (like those free swimming in the Sungei Buloh Reserve) did not seem to be affected. If they had, there would have been many many more dead fish seen floating.

The story seems to be that proper disposal of dead fish was organised and that none of the affected fishfarms had dumped fish 'over the side'. Instead all dead fish were collected and transported to the Lim Chu Kang jetty for proper disposal.

Sadly this explanation does not fit what was seen in the waters around Lim Chu Kang and the SBWR. 

It may be that the local fishfarms did not throw away dead fish. However, it looks like they released dying fish into the surrounding waters. Why wait for the soon-to-be-dead fish to die? Mercy release? This now unpopular quasi-religious practice never did involve the release of dying animals, did it? 

What's even worse is finding obvious signs that dead fish were 'released' despite the denials.

Here are pics from the northwestern coast showing fish meal bags (the usual container for fish meal as supplied to aquaculture establishments in Singapore) stuffed with dead fish. Now this makes the denials smell ... fishy. Who would place live but dying fish in such bags and leave them adrift to reach the shore? So dead (or maybe including dying) fish were in fact placed in bags and set adrift and away releasing the farmers from certain environmental obligations and responsibilities.

If visiting ships in port have to pay for a trash collection service where trash is collected from them, then our local fish farms should also pay for similar trash collection. It should not be left to the local fish farms to bring their trash to a determined trash point on the shore. We know that expectation is a failure now isn't it?

Whilst some fish farmers may comply, there are others who clearly do not. These recalcitrant farmers take advantage of the cover of darkness to dump their waste anywhere they feel like it. And there is more than dead fish generated by these off-shore farms. 

The workers living on these floating farms generate waste as well...both human as well as general household waste. (General waste includes, inter alia, styrofoam, plastic bags, empty fish meal bags, bottles, lightbulbs, lubricating oils and grease for machinery, etc.) Where does all this go if the trash collection points are not used. (If you want to know more about Singapore's coastal trash, visit http://coastalcleanup.nus.edu.sg/.)

There desperately needs to be a more formal system of trash collection from licensed fish farms.

Given the poor track record as shown through this incident,  perhaps it is time for Parliament to legislate standards and practices at fish farms and this could include compulsory fee-based trash collection to leave no doubt as to what really happens to the trash generated 24x7x365.

Or we could all just continue pretending that there is no problem and that both our fish farms and our waters are perfectly fine. 

Of course, there are many sources of pollution in our waters and the locally licensed fish farms are but one. Will any face prosecutions for this series of dumplings? Probably not.... but why not?


links to related posts :
http://sgbeachbum.blogspot.com/2013/06/deadfish-northwestern-singapore-coast.html
http://sgbeachbum.blogspot.com/2013/07/deadfish-ii-northwestern-singapore.html
http://wildshores.blogspot.sg/2013/07/fish-farms-dumping-dead-fishes.html