Seagrassing @ Cyrene Reef 06Dec2010

What a great sunset! after a great Seagrass session on the rarest reef ecosystem in Singapore!

Pasir Ris Boardwalk - 27Nov2010

Bumped into RT, WLK and IK at Changi Village Ferry Terminal decided to accompany them to look at the heronry at Pasir Ris Park instead of doing a long walk to Chek Jawa together with TKL. Good decision as the Pasir Ris Boardwalk proved a delightful vantage point to look at the many jewels of the mangrove.

First up was a thick gianormous caterpillar which was busy devouring all the leaves on a small bush. RT identified it as an Atlas Moth caterpillar.

Atlas Moth Caterpillar 27Nov2010 from BeachBum on Vimeo.


Next, further along the boardwalk was a juvenile Malayan water monitor which was taking a siesta on a low branch soaking up the afternoon sun.

water monitor from BeachBum on Vimeo.
The patterns on it's skin would gradually disappear as it groww older ... probably because it would not need the camouflage as it became the top predator in the mangrove (discounting cousin crocodile of course).

Next was a pair of giant mudskippers.

mudskippers & mosquitoes from BeachBum on Vimeo.
Probably a mating couple as other similar duos were seen in isolated nearby spots too. One was very yellow whereas the other was noticeably a dark grey. It was good that the yellow mudskipper was there as it seemed to attract most of the mosquitoes which happily swarmed around it's head. The grey mudskipper seemed invisible to the mosquitoes! Perhaps it holds the key to the next greatest ingredient for mozzie repellant!

Here is a clip of another nearby yellow mudskipper...also plagued by the mozzies.

mudskipper w mozzies from BeachBum on Vimeo.


Then someone spotted a snake! This was just below the boardwalk.

dog-faced water snake @ Pasir Ris Mangroves from BeachBum on Vimeo.

It was a dog-faced water snake about a metre long and it was a bit unusual to see it foraging for food during the daytime. It usually seen after sundown where these snakes come out in droves hunting small fish in the shallows. These snakes are expert fishing snakes and are capable of injecting a small amount of venom into their prey disabling them before ingestion.

RT pointed out a fat-armed jellyfish actively swimming into the mangroves. This should be one of those kinds you would not want to touch or be touched by.

mangrove jellyfish from BeachBum on Vimeo.


Next in the water was a small school of green bromides. These had followed the tide in from the river when it spilled over the mangroves to flood the mangrove forest near the boardwalk.

Bromides @ Pasir Ris Mangroves from BeachBum on Vimeo.

There were several small groups of these fish at various spots near the boardwalk.


Check out RT's Wildshores blog for more things seen!
http://wildshores.blogspot.com/2010/11/mangroves-at-pasir-ris-with-high-tide.html

2010 ICCS Briefing - Part I (28Aug2010)

ICCS 2010 Site buddy briefing part 1 from sgbeachbum on Vimeo

Read about the interesting briefing given by N. Sivasothi ! : http://coastalcleanup.wordpress.com/2010/08/29/what-should-you-do-when-you-encounter-a-crocodile/

ECP Cable-Ski park residual oil sheen 27June2010

Looks like there is still residual oil sheen visible (and smellable) at certain parts of the East Coast Parkway.
The clip shows a residual oil sheen at the bay just outside of the Cable-Ski park. This seems to have been in residence for quite a long time now. The smell is much less apparent but it is still present in the air.

Kallang Riverside megatrash 27June2010

Looks like the recent floods pushed out a lot of trash into the Kallang Basin...but where will a lot of it end up?

Pictures taken Sunday 27June 2010 morning.

A trash bin cover...

Some dead rats...

and then another one...

There were quite a few dead fish too!

plastic bottles and trash as far as the eye could see...

A wallet....with some ID cards (hopefully the owner wasn't also washed away in the floods).

and more dead fish...



...and more dead fish (all tilapia sp.)




The PUB contract cleaners were out in their blue trash tub boats clearing flotsam from the deeper parts of the reservoir.

Hope the Barrage/Reservoir managers will send someone to clear up the shore too! or else some of this stuff will eventually flow out of the barrage into the sea. There was a lot of litter in the shallows out of reach of the blue trash boats. Every 15 seconds (my observation at the barrage on several occasions), a piece of plastic trash can be observed in the upper water column flowing out to the sea once a barrage door is opened. And that is just in the upper water column. Imagine how much trash is ejected year round! Where does all this trash come from? You and me!. We are also responsible for using far too much plastic. Plastic is an inconvenient convenience.We need to reduce our use of it and carefully dispose it whilst recycling what we can.

Singapore should do more to prevent any 'accidental' contribution to the Trash vortexes.

Do you want to do something about marine litter?
Learn about what you can do here :
http://coastalcleanup.nus.edu.sg/
http://coastalcleanup.wordpress.com/

Links about the trash vortexes:-
http://www.treehugger.com/galleries/2010/06/cartonist-explains-the-pacific-garbage-patch-with-talking-sealife.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/03/100302-new-ocean-trash-garbage-patch/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8534052.stm
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/the-worlds-rubbish-dump-a-garbage-tip-that-stretches-from-hawaii-to-japan-778016.html
http://oceans.greenpeace.org/en/the-expedition/news/trashing-our-oceans/ocean_pollution_animation
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/06/today-on-planet-100-the-pacific-trash-vortex-explained-video.php
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/04/pacific-trash-vortex-signifies-future-of-oceans.php
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/02/great_pacific_garbage_patch.php
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1914145,00.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/7450769/The-Biggest-Dump-in-the-World.html

Chek Jawa check up 19June2010

Is there still oil at Chek Jawa?

Whilst the rest of the Team Seagrass group busied themselves with the nitty gritty of seagrassing, I took the oppurtunity to visit the impacted stretches of beach and mangroves on Chek Jawa’s Northern face fronting the Northern sandbar and seagrass lagoon.

The beach segments did not smell of oil and they were generally clear of oil residue except in small pockets.

One of the most impacted clumps of mangrove was now clear of any signs of crude oil.

This was how another corner of the same mangrove tree looked like on Day 2 of the spill :


There was still some residue on leaves, stems, branches and driftwood....especially in the mangrove section near the boardwalk.

I am surprised that the leaves were still green knowing that this same crude oil was able to dissolve plastic bags such that the bags became soft enough to tear at the slightest pull. Somehow, the leaves were able to resist the corrosive effects of the crude oil.

Part of a mangrove tree root with a layer of crude oil on it

Here is a short clip on oiled leaves spotted :


Crude oil splotches on a piece of decomposing driftwood :

There were no signs of any large numbers of dead animals such as fish or crabs....perhaps the wildboar which frequent the shores ate them up if there were any.....but there were also no signs of any dead wildboar too!...but there were lots of footprints of live ones!

The SandBubbler and Fiddler crabs seemed OK. 

The grey areas on the sand is a layer of residual crude oil. This had the characteristic crude oil smell when the finger-to-nose test was done. Note the tiny sand bubbler burrows and balls of sand near the grey areas.:

The SandBubblers did not seem affected by the oil.(?!) even though the sand bubblers lick the sand for biological material to get their food.

Some of the mangrove trees were flowering and the propagules looked normal (no pinkish tinge commonly associated with pollution). 

There was still quite a bit of trash coated with crude oil and these were slimy to the touch. Some crude oil soaked plastic bags were wrapped around the mangrove roots.

The pic shows some residual crude mixed in the sand...




There is still some cleanup work needed at Chek Jawa. The oil that is still coating the mangrove sections may never be totally removed as most the mangrove roots are difficult to access. Perhaps the continual washing action of the waves is able to get rid of all the crude.

Read about Ria’s check up here: