SUNDEWS - the carnivorous struggle

I was given a small pot of Drosera, also called common sundews, by my sister-in-law a few weeks ago. Sundew plants are carnivorous and so far this plant has trapped a few very tiny insects and made mince meat of them. One interesting fact from Wikipedia: They can achieve a lifespan of 50 years!

At other times, when too many milk ants invaded our kitchen, some of them would be thrown to this plant. But, this afternoon, something else happened.

A small spider, with length of about 2.0 mm from head to end of abdomen, accidentally touched the ever-reaching tentacles of these sundews. Garden spiders have been a good friend of mine as they prey on unwanted insects. Yes, my heart dropped. I spent a while observing how it is going to get itself out of hot soup.

It seems like its leg (1) and leg (2) have been glued into the tentacles. This is the first time that I actually see for myself how strong the sweet, sticky mucilage is. Tried as it did, the spider just could not pull its legs out of the stalked glands.

After a while of struggle, it takes a rest. Then it tries to turn outward and at the same time, pulls its legs. Nope, they are not coming out of the glue of death!

Here is looking at the situation from another angle. The spider has gone in a little bit forward, leading to a more precarious position than before.

Finally, with two legs trapped and the rest of its body outside, it just stopped. I believe it has expended all its energy and in due time it will die of starvation or exhaustion. Depending on what comes next, the sundews might just be able to lift the spider up and bring it deeper in for a fuller hold.

So, what I did was load a pair of tweezers with a small piece of tissue paper and use that to lift the spider up. Then I use another very damp tissue paper to dilute the sticky juice from the legs. Eventually, I put the spider down on a small cactus plant.

Did the spider make it? I think it did as a few minutes after I left it on the cactus plant, it disappeared. I certainly hope it makes it to its home, with all the limbs intact. 

By the way, I don't normally intervene in nature's progress. This one was an exception. Anyway, I was hoping for mosquitoes, fruit flies and the pesky milk ants.

Here is a picture of a fruit fly that met its doom. No way I could have saved this one. Truly a formidable organic "flypaper" trap.

New Birth - House Gecko from Changi Aviation Park

About 20 days ago, I was at my customer's premises at their work site office. A CCTV camera was down and we went over to see what the problem was. In the process, we did some clean up and as usual, the presence of house geckos (also known as house lizards) were plenty. Their droppings were present. And, they laid their eggs along the crevices of the false ceilings.

We cleared all of them, except for one that I brought home to monitor. Unfortunately, there were two days leading to today, that I did not monitor the egg. A baby gecko was born between this morning and two days ago.

Here are some photos I took. Do enjoy these sights of the baby house lizard!

House lizards are not cute, as far as my wife is concerned. But, this baby house lizard seems innocent and cute. Even then, it is a no-no to my wife. She won't want to touch it.

Here is the little one looking outside of the incubator, alongside its egg.

The egg is 8 mm by 9 mm in diameter. Its shell is hard and for a week after I got it back, I was wondering if the egg has even been fertilized at all! Fortunately, it turns out good.

Here is another angle of view between the baby house lizard and where it emerges from.

Here is a frontal shot. I looked at the underside of this house lizard and from what I get, it is a male gecko. So, it is a boy!

It is understood that house geckos are non-venomous and harmless to humans. The big ones are expected to bite if you handle them in a panicky manner - just like how they would chump on crickets and then proceed to swallow them whole. 

It was cleaning its face with its tongue, thus accounting for this open-mouth shot. Anyway, just look at the teeth of this baby.

Backyard MACRO

Well, I actually do not have a backyard per se, since I stay in a government-subsidised HDB flat. However, there is a PCN (Park Connector Network) about 80 meters from where my flat is located. I do my jogging here, and if I could not find time travelling afar, this would be a good place to look for miniscure insects and bugs for macro photography.

The best time to photograph insects is the upper part of the morning. Being cooler, they are much slower in making an attempt to move away. Here are some specimens, including plants, that crossed my path this morning.

This stigma has some pollen on it (I hope I got this part of the flower anatomy right). Imagine a tube growing from these pollen into the base of the style, and eventually the male gametes (sperm cells) start travelling down to fertilize the ovary. The marvels of nature.

This weaver ant, together with many others are guarding their portion of the service road, where a few bright-yellow flowers are located. Obviously, they are up to something and I have to be careful not to step on them.

A close-up of one of the worker ants. This one with its abdomen up is definitely gearing for a fight. I think it spotted my lens and is all ready to protect its food source at all cost.

Another weaver worker ant on a dry leaf coming by.

These two ants are actually having a meal of pollen! It seems like these pollen are really sweet.

Yes. You guess it right. They are cutting up this petal and feasting on the sweetness of the petal, and the pollen of the flowers. It is really amazing to see their co-operative spirit in making sure there is food on the "table"!

A tiny snail on an equally small leaf. This snail is about 2.5mm across. It is just lazing about. Not moving much. Not tilting as well. Just staying still.

Close-up of a  yellow creeping daisy flower. This flower is about 15mm across its petals. The stamens are about to open up completely. I just love seeing the intricate design of flowers.

Another great-looking yellow creeping daisy flower that is ready for the fertilization process. Here, we can see the anthers, as compared to the picture above.

A close-up of a flower from among the grasses on the grown.

Lynx spiders like to hide underneath leaves. This one is just across from another one that is twice its size. It is about 10mm from head to tip of the tail. Lynx spiders are known for being good hunters.

This looks like a meadow spittlebug. I am just guessing as I did not want to disturb it just to have a better view. A real tiny fellow, though.

Spider on a dried leaf.

A blooming flower.

A resting Genus Gesonia moth. The ends of the wings look beaten up but it can fly off quickly!

Mushrooms growing from a cut-off tree trunk. This trunk is fully covered by the cow grass and is largely unseen, unless one spreads the grass aside. 

The under layer of a fallen bark.

A Hemigraphis reptans. Such a pleasant-looking little flower. It seems to stay low at the ground.

Close-up of a false daisy (Eclipta Prostrata) flower. It is a species of plants in the sunflower family.

A dead mite? Since it is lying in mid-air, it was probably trapped and killed by a spider. The tree moss is already so tiny, so I suppose the web is so fine that it was not picked up in this shot.

The seed of the false daisy (Eclipta Prostrata). It sure looks like a small version of the lotus flower seed. It is about 6 mm in diameter.

This hoverfly was flying from one flower to another. I waited for it to make a circle back to the nearest flower and took this shot. This fly is about 5mm long.

Found this black snail in the undergrowth of a bed of little plants. It is about 4mm across its shell.

It is morning now, so one can still see the left-overs of the early dew.

I like the pattern of this fallen leaf. This one is found in a perceptually wet grass-area. There are lots of large yellow-band millipedes. If ever my pet wants to change its diet, I know where to get them!

Another pattern that attracts me. A damp but dried leaf.

Looks like a bronzeback tree snake trying to swallow a bloated toad. As I surveyed closer, there were ants running around the toad, and it was bloated up. A bronzeback is a non-venomous snake.

Sentosa 5Km Fun Walk

A funny thing happened about a few weeks ago. My wife applied online and managed to register herself for the Sentosa 5 km Fun Walk, to be held at 5 pm earlier this afternoon. For some reasons, when she sent in my particulars, a minute after her own submission, no *confirmation* email came to me. Yup, she must be the last person to reach the counter limit!

And, so I am here this evening - to hang around and support her walk. We took the MRT train from Sembawang, switching lines at various exchanges, and finally hopped onto the Sentosa monorail to get to the Beach Station (within Sentosa Island). If we had walked by the boardwalk, we would be $8.00 richer.

The goodie bag collection section is super crowded. She gets her goodie bag. We are delighted with whatever that were packed in. I wonder why the sign reads "Registration", when everyone there had already registered online - as we have to pre-order our Tees. Calling it "Collection of goodie bag/Bib" would be neater, I feel. It will be a disappointment if someone were to queue up for the 45 minutes of waiting, just to be told that it is not a registration per se.

My dear wife with her goodie bag! Another strange thing happened. The first person who finished the 5km Fun Walk is a runner. He ran all the way to 1st position and had a good minute of DJ interview for all to hear. 😅 Very soon the gifts for the 1st 1,000 walkers were taken up. Nope, she did not get hers. Must have been a slow walker, 😅. Too bad, she walked for the Fun Walk, instead of ran. 

While the Fun Walk is in session, I went round and took some pictures that interest me.

Three doves casually drop by and do a merry-go-round around me. This one hops up a boulder and walks toward me in a very happy mood. Soon, they too find that there is nothing else for them and walk away into the bushes.

And, so I end up sitting by the coaster water breaker, and notice these fleet of Chinese ships under the banner of "Peng Yuan Ye", each having its own vessel number. A large numbers indeed. I am sure they are not here for just maintenance services.

To the right of the beach, I hear a group of participants screaming as their boat haphazardly skims above the water. A fast speedboat is towing the passenger-laden zodiac boat. Must be fun!

Finally I get to shoot something nearer to the lens ( I had just put my 70-300mm lens on the Canon EOS 60D). This snail has just been buffeted by a rough wave. Of course, nothing bad will happen. It can hang on the boulder better than we can anchor our ships into the seabed, I believe.

One of the weeds that stands tall and mighty. Against the backdrop of the ocean, it certainly gives off a sense of loneliness and yet, when I look at it intently, I feel courage. Courage to be alone and standing.

Ah, I am so thrilled by this changeable lizard. It climbs up this coconut tree and continues climbing even when I am obviously zooming my lens on it. It just could not care less!

Well, it is certainly a brave fellow as it makes its way up slowly. Probably, the sun's energy feels stronger, the higher it goes.

That being the case, I stay around and try to see if it will stop. Nope. It goes up even higher. It takes a pause once a while as if to soak in more sun energy.

"It is not going to stop," I was thinking. Certainly, it proves me right. The climb is nothing for this lizard. Normally, they stay low, from what I have witnessed all these many nature trips out. Probably, it is trying to stay close to the leaves just in case a bird comes by. And, those leaves happen to be located much, much higher.

Here, you should be able to see it somewhere at the mid-point of this frame. Of course, the tree is really tall, which comes to the next picture that I took using my mobile phone, below.

Yes - the coconut tree to the extreme right! Basically, the changeable lizard has the whole ocean view by itself when it turns, and moves to the sea-side of the tree trunk.

This other changeable lizard decides that staying on the ground is a better choice. Probably, it knows how to read!

Here it is, the same ground-level lizard. I love that smug look. Certainly, it has the "I am the king" look! Such a beautiful reptile.

After a while, it comes down from the high-visibility log and moves to a grass patch nearer to the edge of the sea bank.

Here is a close-up. Such tough looking lizard. I am sure Sentosa has been a great host to this one, and his families as well. When I left the green to look for my wife, it was still there.

Here's a selfie from my ASUS ZenFone Max. I really like this "zero-$ StarHub Renewal - Mobile upgrade" phone as it has an incredible wide-angle feature that allows me to take pictures with the front cameras easily!

I like this view of the Reflections of Keppel Bay, taken from the Sentosa Boardwalk. Did not bring my tripod, so had to let the camera sit on the board!

This is how we spend our Saturday evening, as a couple. And with some lizards.