Giant Spider Season!

So after a long nature hiatus, I decided to revisit good ol  Ubin on Saturday, accompanied by Sam and Ruici. It’s always an uncomfortable feeling, trudging through bicycle alley with all the rental shop owners trying to convince you to rent their bikes. It’s hard to patronize one without feeling kinda bad for rejecting the others, especially when there aren’t a lot of other people so you’re the only customers. So after renting our bikes, we headed out, and it was soon very apparent that it was once again Nephila season! I spotted at least 10 females of varying sizes in the fringing trees in the first 50 metres or so, so many I eventually stopped bothering to look at each individual. Along this journey, the Great Mormons and many other butterflies were out in droves, since it was the active time for butterflies. Also spotted were a Changeable Hawk Eagle sitting in a tree (photo will be posted when Sam sends – Edit: and here it is! ) and an Emerald Dove waddling about the forest floor. Somewhere along one of the off-road bike paths, we encountered a Nephila (pilipes) actively wrapping it’s moth victim in silk, so i finally decided to bring out Snowy (my camera). Not sure if moth or butterfly.. Pardon the darkness, failed to notice i was shooting against the sun. The calls in the background are from four Stork-billed Kingfishers, according to Ruici’s estimates. So as seen, the conventional way of embalming the prey involves spinning the prey with the front feet like a reel, while pulling silk threads from the spinnerets over the prey with the hind legs. After a few more layers of silk wrapping

Spider webs are truly amazing structures

This one looks like a space station (Photo by Sam)

 

 

And you can see the slightly golden sheen in this web that gives the Nephilas their common name, the Golden Orb Weavers (photo by Sam)

We also encountered two baby monitors (one malayand and one clouded), both the sizes of  Changeable Lizards! So cute! The only shot i could get, before it scampered off :/ And here’s a horrible photo of a garden spider We then headed over to the small butterfly garden, where we took photos of everything but butterflies. (note – dollarbird and strange raptor sighted from here!) Fancy little orthopteran nymph Dew-covered web, feat. spider. Quite strange, since it was already late morning! One of a pair of cyptic heteropterans

What we referred too as the blue aluminium baseball bat. It’s defininitely a beetle, just not sure what kind.

Face!

And then there was this grasshopper that shied away from Snowy

Going..

Going..

Gone!

Speaking of orthopterans, on a leaf further up lurked this katydid (which is a name totally begging to be used as a bad pun)

Interesting fact about katydids – their hearing organs, unlike most other insects, are located on the “knees” of their forelegs, instead of their chests

Also seen was this common leafhopper

Nothing to say!

And this ant-mimic salticid

Whiiiiich cannot be seen clearly ><. The spider is the one on top, grasping onto its ant prey with its mouthparts (chelicera). This guy had a zipline between a tree and a fence that was swarming with kerangas, my guess is that it swiped an individual from under (or over, in this case) it’s sibling army’s noses and took it out to the middle of the zipline so it had no way to escape.

Overall it was a fruitful, refreshing trip, and this was a very laggy post. I really need to get out more :/

2011 in review (9 posts? Should stop being so lazy..)

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,400 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Why Sketch? (Also a post on SBAW)

So recently i was reading “Field Notes on Science and Nature” by Michael R. Canfield, the book that inspired me to keep my own nature diary. Chapter 8, “Why Sketch?” by Jenny Keller, focused on the value of hand-drawn documentation. Here i shall summarise.

• Drawing makes you look more carefully at the subject, needing you to pay attention to every detail – even the seemingly unimportant ones.
• It enhances observation, and could reveal different, unexpected aspects of a subject under study.
• While cameras are necessary for capturing fleeting events and complex detail, their colours are typically inaccurate, proportions sometimes distorted and key features of the species may not be recorded clearly (or captured at all). For example you may realise while post processing your pictures that the tail of your macaque subject has been obscured by leaves and branches in all your pictures, or that the hooves/feet of your quadruped subject have been entirely obscured by long grass (which is almost always the case).
• A simple image drawn on the page provides a convenient way to record observations. E.g. a single line may be used to describe the arc of a raptor’s dive, or the angle of a bird’s central axis as it perches.
• The final reason to sketch while taking field notes is to get yourself thinking visually about the publishing stage of your research (acknowledged this line was taken wholesale from the chapter, and does not apply to everyone).

 

So now I’m more determined than ever to improve my drawing skill (or lack of it), so seeing as today was Sungei Buloh’s anniversary walk, i decided to challenge myself my recording all sightings with the help of nothing but a notebook, a pen and a set of colour pencils (no camera!). However this endeavour proved to be difficult for an amateur such as I, who took really long to complete a proper sketch. In most cases I never got to finish the drawing at one go and had to return to it later (either being hurried along to catch up with the group, or because the subject fled), in most cases with reference to photos taken by friends. Which is sad and ironic. Much more work to be done!!!

Anyway here are some of the sketches made this morning.

No camera? Draw lor.

So I started a little mini project to keep my brain occupied during national service, a written nature diary!
Shame my handwriting is so terrible.

I’m experimenting with watercolours now, and I’m kinda noob at it. Still got more to do, some of the drawings have not yet been graced with colour.

I only wish I had started 8 months ago instead of lamenting about the ban on image-capturing devices in camp…

The Army Protects more than just our Human Citizens

Well I’ve been serving the nation for 8 months now, and unlike majority of my fellow servicemen I kinda like heading outfield. It’s kinda like I’m being paid to trek through vegetation! In fact in all the camps I’ve been to so far I never really had to step out of the bunk to make a wild encounter (mantis in pasir laba, dragonflies in gedong etc).

When looking at the map of Singapore, you’d see a surprising amount of greenery for a “developed” country

(http://www.orangesmile.com/common/img_city_maps/singapore-map-1.jpg)

And about half of it (especially the northwestern area) are military training areas. Now while it may seem like a bad thing at first (what with all the troops and vehicles bashing around), this may actually be a good thing for the biodiversity in the area (granted the issue of forest fragmentation is still pertinent). In fact many of Singapore’s natural treasures are housed within military areas, which ironically offer them protection from public impact and development. Pulau Tekong is home to possibly the last largest pristine stretch of mangroves in Singapore, housing rare birds and rare mangrove species such as Tumu berau (Bruguiera sexangula). Nee Soon swamp forest, one of our last remaining natural freshwater habitats is located adjacent to a military live-firing range, thus public access is restricted (and this also puts off any possible plans for development).

For the last 8 months in service I’ve had numerous encounters (being bounced from Tekong to Pasir Laba to Nee Soon to Sungei Gedong), many of which were sporadically and carelessly recorded in the form of crude drawings strewn between multiple notebooks (since image capturing devices are mostly a strict no no) which i have regrettably not organised (i’ve been making an effort to change that, as will be shown later). In some cases i managed to obtain specimens and record them at home (usually transiting first through my bunk, much to the disgust of my bunkmates), and for the rest of this post I shall record some of these experiences through a bunch of anecdotes (as far as i can remember).

Pasir Ris

While i’ve never been posted to Pasir Ris camp, the Pasir Ris training area is relevant here cos it’s pretty much in my backyard (see posts tagged under pasir ris). A year or so back I was ranting about how a small patch of the forest nearby was cleared to make room for a condo showroom and parking lot, and how i was worried about the development of the small patches of forests around the area. Turns out a patch nearby is being used by Pasir Ris Camp as a training area, so for now I shouldn’t have to worry..

Tekong Centipedes

Tekong is well known for it’s freakishly large centipedes (of the family scolopendridae) that most guys who have been through BMT should be familiar with. This individual was encountered during my UO field camp.

Ignore the ugly fingers

 

This monster was found by a few of my platoonmates in a drain. They then proceeded to drip some SAF insect repellent (DESTROYS EVERYTHING) on it, and it started sizzling and smoking (no joke!). After a while it stopped moving, and sometime later while no one some freaked out friends were looking, I put it in a ziploc and brought it home at the end of the week (yeah it stayed with me for the rest of the camp). By that time it was smelling something nasty, so i gave it a quick wash, took some photos and had to dump it :/

Nasty venom claws!

Oh the little black thing was another little one (geophilid?) that i just threw in for scale (it was already dead!).

Pasir Laba Mantis, Tarantula and Pitchers

During my stay in PLC as an SCT, a mantis invaded one of the bunks on my level one night and some people were freaking out. I managed to lure it out from under one of the bedframes onto a broom stick and let it fly off…

During sentry duty one night for a field camp at Lorong Asrama in Mandai, a group of us entertained ourselves watching a black tarantula crawl along.. not sure what it was yet, though it definitely didn’t look like the Singapore Tarantula.

During a navigation thingy, we ended up on top of a hill where the ground was red earth, and woah small pitchers all around my feet! Another time during a live firing, while we were setting up stuffs huge pitchers (Nepenthes rafflesiana) up to 30cm in height were hanging over our heads, it was quite distracting (for me at least). I managed to bring back a dried up pitcher.

Ignore the looney toons ruler

Lots of stuff at Sungei Gedong

Gedong is surrounded by forest and well, lots of stuff wander into our living quarters/training areas all the time.

During our driving phase, the only “toilet” we had was a single portable loo, and having to service so many trainees it soon broke down and a stench was soon apparent. At night though, it seemed to attract lots of little fireflies (i can only assume since i didn’t see them anywhere else)! Cool, since this is the first time I’m seeing so many in the wild in Singapore.

During an exercise while we were settling a wire fence, a wild boar and her piglet dashed across from the vegetation on one side to another.

Lots of weird moths, especially around the buildings at night. Hawk moths galore, and one weird moth in the toilet that looked like a bagworm caterpillar, it’s head and wings looking like the bagworm casing and its front legs with tufts of hair that made them look like a round head with feelers or mandibles.

Large rhinoceros beetles are quite common here, my excited coursemates brought one to me one night and we watched it crawl about for a bit and then let it go. And then there was this strange beetle about the size of a rhinobeet and had fan-shaped antennae, that seemed to hiss (though it sounded more like sneezing) rather loudly, as if it were spraying gas on my shoes and pants. However it didn’t look like the usual candidates for chemical spraying beetles, and there were no visible stains or obvious smell on my clothing so.. I don’t know! Perhaps it was mimicking the sound of a snake, or it was just catching a bug..

And then one morning during a battalion run, my friend told me he had seen what looked like a small snake near one of the tank sheds so i went to go check it out. It was the last round, and the snake looked dead so i picked it up and hid it with my bottle (not inside it of course), and then brought it back to bunk after, much to the WTH of my bunkmates. Then i tried doing a proper sketch of it.

 

It was rather hastily done as we had a lesson after the run. I uploaded the drawings to FB, where Ivan ID-ed it as a banded malayan coral snake, which as it turns out, has a habit of flattening and throwing it’s body into twists and curls and playing dead when threatened, which was exactly how it appeared when i picked it up. Also it’s highly venomous. Hmm. O.o

Well i’m sure there’ll be lots more to encounter before i ORD next year in Dec, but after that no more access to restricted areas (except for reservist training days)..

Reason to sign on? HMMMMMM…. nah

Hopping on the BoSSIII reflection bandwagon!

Seems like bandwagon hopping is pretty popular, what with the ”Singapore got <insert habitat/ecosystem/species>, meh?” theme going on at BoSSIII (which by the way stands for Biodiversity of Singapore Symposium III which was held yesterday), and so since some of my peers have written about their takeaways from what was undoubtedly a fruitful and insightful session, i feel compelled inclined to do the same! I’m just gonna reflect on a few of the stuff brought up that i found interesting and/or thought-provoking, and well in a non-chronological order.

thoughts i had..

First off, a quote - ”When we take students to Bukit Timah, and we ask who’s ever been here, it’s the exchange student who enthusiastically raises his hand” – Sivasothi N.
Sadly, this kinda reflects something about Singaporeans. Maybe because we are born and raised in tropical Singapore, many of us are perhaps used to and therefore unimpressed by our large variety of non-human citizens in the country (and also many PRs), and thus do not appreciate the individual species nor the diversity itself. In contrast people from temperate regions, with nature areas of larger expanse but not necessarily larger diversity, are usually more impressed and thus may better understand the value of what we have. OMG idiom opportunity! “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure“! Case study –  a Belgian scientist comes all the way down here to tell us that “Hey, I was working in your forests and found like 150 new species of long-legged flies, which is like more than triple the number previously recorded. Cool shit. I’ll leave you the specimens.” Also he actually gushes about how awesome our nature is, and i’ll quote him for reals this time.

‘This is really a large number, especially for such a small country. For a biologist, it’s a dream come true.’ 

‘I was so surprised to find so many species here, with different communities living in microhabitats just 500m apart. We are just scratching the surface and the information is already overwhelming.’

‘Singapore is like an open laboratory. All you need is a short drive and you get to see insects in their natural habitats, displaying and feeding.’

Do we really need foreign scientists to tell us what we have and to appreciate it (i have to qualify that not many people would wanna study flies so this may not be a clear representation of our lacking effort)? Clearly there’s a lot more left to learn about or local biodiversity, and hopefully more interest can be generated and more locals can contribute to the local knowledge and literature.

Second point – Are alien species always bad? Can they come in peace? If i’m not wrong this question was raised by Dr. Darren Yeo, clarifying that invasive species may not always be detrimental to our ecosystems, clearing a common assumption that I was, until then, also guilty of. He raised an example of migratory birds feasting on non-native tilapia during their stopovers and some others that i have problems remembering. This is definitely a new insight for me, i suppose observations are necessary to prevent jumping to conclusions. Since quite a number or “natural” habitats in Singapore are artificial or have have been heavily modified, introduced species may not actually be bad for those particular habitats, and if action is taken on these invasives without first checking on their impact and how they fit into the web, there may be unnecessary spending of resources and effort and the place may even be worse off after. Before dealing with an issue, check if it’s an issue in the first place beforehand!

Third point – just saying that i agree very much with what ms Ria Tan said about actively speaking up and expressing ourselves when we feel things are just right. I suppose humans are rather negative in that aspect, we are quick to criticize, but rarely give praise. Using her example, say just one person feels that a nature area is unsatisfactory and should be say paved over or cleared to give way to a mall, and everyone else is fine and prefers the place as it is but do not write in to say how pleased they are with the place, the relevant agencies do not have actual physical support to conserve the place even if they wanted to, which would be a terrible shame. So yes, we should all speak up more and make ourselves heard! Chek Jawa’s conservation was by sheer luck (that it was stumbled upon and so much media hype was created), but we should now be more pro-active and make conservation efforts even before a place is threatened by development.

Okay so a number of us were lamenting the absence of ecology and biodiversity in our secondary and tertiary curriculum/syllabus (even the little bit of evolution taught was about the molecular clock and was more about genes than relationships). As a kid i used to memorise names of organisms (both common and scientific, and till an extent that i earned the nicknames little prof and walking ecyclopedia) simply because i was so fascinated (and almost obssessed) with animals and plants. It also helped that ecology and the food chain etc were covered back in primary school. However upon entering secondary school, I was caught in a flurry of assignments and responsibilities and since the syllabus did not include ecology, I had little time to expand on this interest, and during this time there was a lull in passion. The passion was rekindled in JC, though it was mainly because of research projects and opportunities like enrichment programs provided. However even these had to be done mostly in our own time and it was hard to balance my study workload with this passion, so there were quite a number of others who had to pull out from their projects/programs. I continued doing what i loved, but my results were kinda lousy :/ (no excuse i know ><). Perhaps because of biopolis and an expanding field and increasing opporunities in biotech, genetics and microbio, MOE, together with cambridge i think decided to focus the curriculum more on those subjects, thus giving ecology and biodiversity less air time, which is sad. To illustrate how sad it is, during one of Dr Adrian Loo’s evolution lectures, one of his slides showed a picture of a sea turtle. This conversation was heard:
” wait, sea turtles are mammals right?”
“no! they’re amphibians!”
Well i suppose (hope) most people would know sea turtles are of course, reptiles. In this case I am not lamenting the lack of education in local biodiversity, but an education in biodiversity at all (it has to start somewhere!).. How can some people live till 18 without knowing sea turles are reptiles, or that seashells are living creatures? It’s quite terribly sad.
On the bright side.. it seems ecology will be making a comeback in the secondary curriculum, so that’s definitely a start. There’s hope yet! (:

So it seems the overarching theme of the symposium was “Singapore got <insert habitat/ecosystem/species>, meh?” Well a large proportion of our population either witnessed the rapid development of our nation, or were born and raised with it already largely developed. Thus since most of their lives are spent in urban areas, especially if they have no inclination or reason to head into the outdoors, it would be understandable that what they know of Singapore is what they see in their everyday lives (which are rather hectic so they may not even observe diversity found in urban areas), and thus do not know how rich a diversity we have. This trend may be increasing, withe the new generations born digital natives, an indoor generation.  Interest has to start young, outreach is important! i can’t think of anything else to say aaah.

During his talk, Marcus Chua spoke of numerous discoveries and rediscoveries of mammals and big things, which i am still astounded by. If we could miss all these big things (like the Sambar Deer o.o), imagine how many of the smaller things we could have missed and can be missing out on! There could be so much left to discover, and that gives me hope (:

This is more of a personal thing for me, to find a balance between academia and education. I realised that passionate teachers and educators  are extremely important in planting the seeds of interest in the younger generation, and hopefully infect them with the same amount of passion present in themselves. For people who love biodiversity, they could either go with academia, doing their own research and contributing the the body of science, or they could go on the outreach and convert educate others. I suppose both are important and necessary.

kinda sleepy now, apologise for the incoherence and i’m sure there were lots more discussed during the symposium which i cannot recall at the moment, but for now these are just some things that got me thinking yep. ah i do miss thinking. dang NS.

On writing and keeping nature journals

I recently got my hands on a copy of “Field Notes on Science and Nature” , published by Harvard University Press, and it made me think back and reflect on my methods and my attitude towards my forays in nature. I always thought i was passionate and a keen observer, but looking at how some of the contributing writers took their field notes (intentionally or unintentionally) with such detail (for some even at such a young age) made me realise that there is a lot more i should do to improve myself.

Note keeping and diary writing were not habits practised in my childhood (albeit my short stints with blogging back in secondary school, but looking back most of it were just shallow, emo rants of no consequence anyway) and that is something i try not to regret, but i do lament to a certain extent.

My interest in biodiversity and ecology was evident in my childhood, but while tracing back i realised there weren’t many physical reminders of my experiences, observations and feelings which i feel are now unfortunately lost. The rather weak powers of human memory makes events in the past sadly impermanent.

Take the most memorable buggies i’ve raised so far – Jade and Leaf, a pair of leaf insects which were given to me by Dr Francis Seow-Choen (colorectal surgeon by profession, phasmatologist by passion) back in primary three. The most i remember of them was that Leaf (the male, which ironically looked more like a grasshopper than a leaf) died shortly after mating, while Jade (the more leaf-like female) became a lot less active after she had laid her eggs and died soon after as well. The eggs hatched after about 36 days, and that’s pretty much all i remember. No notes on their feeding, preening or courting behaviour, and sadly not even any photos.

In more recent years, my taking up of photography ensured some form of records of all my wild finds and captive raising, but the most i can glean from looking through my folders now are just dates, locations and sometimes names (usually just common names, scientific names if i was feeling particularly diligent while processing that day), and once again not much description.

When starting out on this blog, i may have missed the entire essence of nature blogging. While the photos are nice, i realise this has mostly been a hobby thing, the minimal details taken down will not amount to much valuable information, and the most i have achieved so far is to.. show-off photos and maybe spread some awareness and hopefully interest in our local diversity. I would like to consider myself a naturalist, but till now i suppose i’ve been a rather shallow one.

So from now, i will strive to not only shoot, but to observe and write more about the subject, what it was doing, and analyse and speculate possible reasons for it’s appearance, physiology or behaviour. At the same time i would record my thought flows and feelings during the encounter, such that every photo of every unique individual whose life i cross paths with in the field will not just be a pretty picture with a label of where and when, but have a nice, valuable story to tell

EDIT: (okay i just did a check back on my previous posts, and i realise i did include some recollections of behaviours and feelings, but i’m sure there were a lot more details lost simply because i was too lazy to carry a notebook or whip it out to take notes )

Venus Drive (X no. of weeks late orz, in slow progress D:)

sooooo it’s been ages since the last post (half a year D:), and i figured posting to facebook without elaboration wasn’t enough, so i’ll be reviving this blog!.. with a two week late post. Last last saturday, i made a trip down to Venus Drive again with bern, sam and cal-vin in tow in search of (well not specifically) damselflies. Around the entrance we were already greeted by these regular treehuggers Treehuggers (Tyriobapta torrida) female on left, male on right. This aptly named species is almost always found clinging to trees or wooden posts, hence their common name. Mystery orthopteran Mystery day-flying moth

Venus Drive – Abuzz with Activity!

Had some stuff on back in school today, and in between i had some time so i decided to drop by Venus Drive  with Abel, Bern and Mark since it’s so nearby.

This time we didn’t even get to reach the bridge, there was just so much going on! Mating, eating and being eaten, there was a flurry of life on both sides of the trail.

Grasshoppers and katydids and their nymphs abound!

 

There were also a number of hemipterans, some of which resemble moths on first glance. While being similar in shape, the wing patterns vary, are they the same species or different ones?

There was a wingless one too! Either its wings aren’t obvious, or it could be a nymph.

 

Spiders were everywhere as well!

As usual, jumping spiders (salticids) were the cutest.

This guy was behaving funny, waving its forelegs like claws and waving its butt in the air, perhaps mimicking a scorpion?

Lynx Spiders

 

Wolf Spiders, who were particularly active

A female individual with an egg sack (ootheca), when the babies hatch they cling on to the mother’s abdomen in a clump ball thing. There were a number of females running around with egg sacks today

This one was feeding on a freshly caught wasp

There were also other spiders i couldn’t ID

This tiny spider has an abdomen that reminds me of a Nautilus shell!

I’m not sure what these two spiders are up to, but it sure looks intimate

And there were other bugs as well

an out of focus wasp

This wasp mimic is actually a fly in disguise!

Mimicry in the animal kingdom serves to help in either hiding from predators, ambushing unsuspecting prey or both. In the case of this fly which is probably a scavenger, it is likely that the former applies here.

A forest fly

A dragonfly i have not yet ID-ed

Lastly, Mark shows us how to beat the mozzies!

Ninjas can hide from anything, even them mozzies.

 

Venus Drive really has so much to offer, we spend more than an hour within the first 50m of the trail, and this isn’t even all we saw!

A new toy and a ladybird

Got a conversion lens today that can be attached to the lens i already have, for either wide angle or macro functionality! Quite useful since i’m on the lookout for bugs most of the time

Testing the lens

Can actually make out the words on that tiny line on the $2 note!

Close up!

Quite handy indeed, lots of bugs whose photos i had to crop to make things out clearly can now be taken straight from the camera! cropping produces even finer detail, but heh don’t really have to spend time cropping anymore.

Seems to be a rather worthy investment so far, though it’s quite a hassle to mount. This will last me till i’m out of NS, when i’ll probably invest in a DSLR and proper macro gear!

Tested it out in Pasir Ris Park’s kitchen garden earlier this evening, but the sun was setting so the images are kinda noisy due to high ISO. Looks like a flash would be really handy..

Tried it on the resident keranga ants, none were in focus though ): need to work on that

Sadly, the photo with the best focus.

One of the many resident metallic green flies. I used to have to crop to see these guys properly!

A nice surprise! I went out really late and wasn’t really expecting to see much, but this guy suddenly popped out from behind a wooden signboard! It’s been a looooong time since i’ve seen a red ladybug, the ones i usually see are either yellow or black with red dots. Too bad i couldn’t get any good shots before it flew away..

Had to crop for this one, i really love how nature is so symmetrical in its design (:

Yay, can’t wait to try the lens out again!