Punggol Waterway - Walking Session.

This is a continuation from an earlier post.

From Changi Point Village, we decided to drive over to Punggol Waterway - before heading home. This is not the first time that we went over. I am from the Sembawang area, and I always feel that Punggol is one of the better managed neighbourhoods that blends the urbans with nature rather well.

What wildlife would be shot for today?

Needless to say, we saw plenty of tortoises and the usual red-eared sliders. This terrapin was just lazing in floating mode. This semi-aquatic turtle has the best of both worlds capability, unlike their tortoise cousins.

When you have a waterway - you will have snail eggs. This is just one of the hundreds of batches of apple snail eggs. It is noted in the scientific area that the "P. canaliculata" apple snails have toxins that protect the eggs from being eaten. I am not sure if the "P. canaliculata" apple snails are even found in Singapore.

This group of Javan Mynahs really reminds me of the good-cops and the bad-cops scenarios. Hope you can see the differences!

Changeable lizards are not just plentiful in Singapore, they are also very "character" in look. This reptile looks very majestic, assured and confident. It probably is getting just the right dosage of sun energy, I guess.

Here are two red-eared sliders. Are they twins or siblings? Have they eaten? Are they going for a swim later or they are going to call it a day? At least, food is not a major concern here.

A scarlet darter dragonfly. These extremely thick-red dragonflies are common here. They lend some excitements and dashes of colours to an otherwise monotonous afternoon.

If you stared at this picture carefully, you would have spotted a greenish, gentle and thirsty butterfly quenching its thirst. Those dark "markings" are actually the groves between walkway bricks. Somehow, something or someone poured water at a short distance away, and the water sort of seep its way to this walkway.

Another changeable lizard doing a camouflage alongside a young tree trunk. Almost invisible. I am sure that since I can see it - the birds might have seen it too.

And, more red-eared sliders. I was thinking if the one behind was urging its friend not to jump and if it wants to, to wait for the water to reach a bit higher ,to reduce the falling impact.

A Long-tailed Shrike (Lanius schach). Beautiful bird. Looking from the back. It knows that I was just two meters away, and let me take all the time to examine it. 

It is the occasional spotting of beautiful birds like this that make walking along the Punggol Waterway a nice experience.

A changeable lizard taking shade, and probably about to take a nap?

And, of course, when your significant-half is also a keen outdoor person, the walking around is more like taking a leisure stroll of younger days.

A pair of brown butterflies taking shelter from the hot sun.

It is good that we have the "address" of where we were at various stages of the waterway.

 An elusive white-breasted waterhen skirting around the edges of the waterway. This makes it the first time that I have seen one at this location. And, its presence is certainly a good sign that wildlife has taken hold firmly, apart from the monitor lizards!

Plenty of directional signs to help lost souls find their way, or at least to know how "lost" they are. At least, I know that this area is called the "Punggol Waterway Park".

And, yes - shared bicycles. Lots of them. A sight of wonder and bewilderment, all at the same time. I made a detour and turned right! :D

A Short Walk at the Changi Village / Changi Point Promenade

Earlier this afternoon, we did a weekend walk at the Changi Village area. Of course, we walked along the beach and checked out the planes that came in every minute or so. It has never failed to amaze me how large the planes always look and, as usual the loud sound that comes in before you even notice the planes themselves.

Okay, actually, it was the walk that we were more interested in and the food that we hoped to try. Here are some of the more interesting shots of the walk.

A changeable lizard taking in the afternoon sun. Though this is a cropped image, in its entirety, it was truly sitting on an open space boulder, oblivious to whatever danger that might come swooping down.

As we were walking towards the hawker center, up popped, rather slowly, a monitor lizard. This is clearly a juvenile being about a foot long (body). Monitor lizards, though tend to stay close to the shoreline, for food, habitat and escape reasons, will not hesitate to venture farther out for reasons only they know.

The little ferries or bumboats that never stop. Today is a busy period. Could it be that it is also our June 2018 school holidays?

This is really an interesting "finger-pointing" sculpture. Of course, taken from the other side, it creates a totally different impression. I will probably include that angle of view at the end of this page.  

If I am right, this is a warty sea cucumber. I spotted two of them, at different parts of the beach. I understand that it is an Asian delicacy as well as its use in medicinal areas. For me, I decided that it should be able to continue its slow journey into the sea.

Here it is - FREEDOM. I am not so sure if it could make it. The sun was pretty hot. The beach was drying up fast. So, when the waves came again, I just gently gave it a nudge.

A sea urchin's shell. It is so intact and light. An empty shell that tells a long story. The wikipedia mentions that sea urchins can live far more than 30 years. Somewhere, it also mentioned a "200". What longevity! It is also a delicacy in Japan. 

The Oriental Pearl, a bulk carrier. This ship is 186m long, with a beam of 30m. Built in 1994 and has a tonnage of 26065, as per vesselfinder.com's page. In 2017, Usain Bolts ran the 100m in 9.58 sec. If he has an unobstructed path on this ship, it will take him 17.82 sec to complete!

Well, most people would show the whole plane but I was thinking that showing this shot with the tree on a peek-a-boo style would really bring up the closeness of the plane to where I stood. Guess which airline this plane belongs to?

We were back at the hawker center for some drinks and a bite before heading for home. I recalled this arrangement has been around for quite a while. Will they add one more?

A Javan Mynah. This bird was very keen in getting onto some food that some people left on their plates. Mynahs are great food "getter" and will never starve. Needless to say, they have since long ago kicked out our native common mynahs.

Yes, there is another group of birds that makes its presence felt strongly, and is always on the "Do not feed the birds" warning sign. The feral pigeons. They are so used to human presence that, like the Javan Mynahs, are gaining good population growth. Unfortunately for the pigeons, due to their propensity to create health havoc for humans, they are more "wanted" than the Javan Mynahs.

As promised, here is the "finger-pointing" sculpture viewed from its front side. That is my wife, Julie - just to give us a measure of the sculpture's size.

I recycle my silica gels by frying them over a used frying pan (given to me by my dear wife). This allows me to re-use the gels many times over.

I usually start off with a very small, slow fire, as can be seen here. Once I get the pan heated up (with the silica gel already in the pan), I will monitor and stir the content in a slow circular manner. Of course, you could stir in any manner that you want - so long as you keep that hand of yours moving.

This picture shows the original state of the silica gels. Actually, there are all brands and type of silica gels here, from all sources. That is why you can see that the content is sort of multi-coloured. The wooden spatula was a gift as well. I found that cutting off the mid portion of the base allows for easier gel movement.

Here is the same lot of gels, just about 25 minutes later. One interesting fact that I found out is that the longer you keep the gels in the hot pan (try not to melt them), the better the absorbent power the gels provide.

From what I know, silica gels (a synthetic form of sodium silicate) by themselves are harmless. The blue indicator chemical, supposedly Cobalt (II) chloride, may not be so harmless. In fact, it is deemed as carcinogenic. Now, that puts me a bit on the worrying side.

I did some searches on the internet and everyone else is promoting the re-cycling aspect with the cautionary side note on beware-of-small-beads-choking thing. Poison seems to be a non-topic. Nevertheless, there are some mentioning of poisonous stuff at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silica_gel].

For the moment, to ensure that I do not breathe in fine silica dust - due to all the stirring and heating, I have started putting on surgical mask when doing the slow frying of the gels. Will this help? I hope it does.

Here is a macro view of a wet silica gel!

Sometimes, for many months, you will have peace at home. That is, no lizards having a party at home. No clicking sound from them when you are resting. But, there will be a week or so when these geckos will come visit your home and make their stay obvious.

So far, I have not discovered their eggs but I am sure they are somewhere. They will also leave behind their white-black feces on the walls. My only recourse is to get rid of them - as quickly as I can. At least for that moment.

This is where I deploy, by far the most effective trap, the COCKROACH trap! This trap is being sold at DAISO. I sort of accidentally discovered its "true purpose" when I tried to use it as a precautionary routine pest control for cockroaches.  It is easy to use, and you just discard the trap once it is full!

Here is a picture of what this trap (below) can do. I hope it is not too gory. The two lizards are still alive, as at the point of this post. The smaller one had been there for more than a week.

Here is a tip. Try to determine the travelling path of the lizards. You can do this by the presence of their feces or if you happen to see one scurrying along somewhere. Just take note of their line of travel and place the cockroach trap in the middle of that path. I noticed that the lizards tend to scurry from point to point, being furtive reptiles. Because they are rather fast, most of them would have gotten into the 1/3 or half of the trap before they realised they were trapped. They also like to climb and cross an obstacle (which obscure their front view). This was what happened to the lizard that was in this picture. When you fixed up the trap, you will understand what I mean.

Now, place the trap (with two pieces of 10mm x 10mm thick double-sided tape) on that path - which most likely would be the wall.

If you plan to maximise the capturing process, leave the trap for at least a month. Most likely you will catch all the neighbouring lizards coming over to your home for a visit, and a few resident lizards as well.

My sister-in-law sent this to me via Whatsapp. What a unique situation for this lizard. But, just how could a house lizard be trapped in this manner?

Let's read this bit of information from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_flytrap]

"It catches its prey—chiefly insects and arachnids—with a trapping structure formed by the terminal portion of each of the plant's leaves, which is triggered by tiny hairs on their inner surfaces. When an insect or spider crawling along the leaves contacts a hair, the trap prepares to close, snapping shut only if another contact occurs within approximately twenty seconds of the first strike. Triggers may occur if one-tenth of the insect is within contact.^[4] The requirement of redundant triggering in this mechanism serves as a safeguard against wasting energy by trapping objects with no nutritional value, and the plant will only begin digestion after five more stimuli to ensure it has caught a live bug worthy of consumption."

So we got it now. It was a slow-mo lizard taking its time doing something THERE and eventually the Venus flytrap had all the data-signals it needed and decided that it should clamp down on this worthy prey.

Well, how did it go and what happened to the lizard, eventually? It seemed that my sister-in-law was a bit squeamish about letting a lizard stay half-digested and who knows, attract flies, beside emitting horrid smell when it gets damp.

She pulled it out shortly after capturing this shot.

Long Leg Spider - Tiny Sentinel

Just a few minutes earlier, I decided to check on the solitary long leg spider that guards a corner of our hall-kitchen pass-through wall, where we pass utensils from the kitchen to the dinning hall.

I have left the spider alone for the past years, as it is very tiny and fragile - about 1.0 mm body diameter. Since the kitchen is a place where little ants come and go, this spider has been a good pest reducer. Yes, it has been doing a good job.

These are the two shots that I took, from different angle and light output. I did not take more as I did not want to chase the spider away from its home.

As its web is wedged in a tight corner, it is very difficult to get a clear flash-shot, so I have to improvise just a little bit to bring the flash spot on. Everything about the spider is translucent as it is so thin. Yet, we can see that it has a fierce look. It is now hanging on a web, vertically.

This is an interesting shot, with the spider foreground to the black wooden frame (see below picture).  Nevertheless, it is still possible to see its slim legs and brownish abdomen. Considering its size, even the milk ants are much larger than it. So, unless the web gets the ants - this spider might end up as dinner instead.

Here it is - the setup for the above shots. I used an old SLR Sigma AF 20~70mm lens, reversed. It is connected to the Canon EOS 60D by an adapter. In this case, I add a tube in-between them to allow me to get a magnification ratio of 4.96:1.

The usage of the tube makes the subject area very dark, hence the presence of two mini clip-on torchlight. A long DIY flash extender (made of paper, lined with reflective foils within) brings just enough flash output to the subject. If I want more flash power, I increase the Flash-stop or the ISO number.

Busy Sea Lane - off Marine Parade

It was a warm Sunday. I was trying out a borrowed Canon EOS 80D, with a Canon EF 75~300mm f/4-5.6 III USM lens that I bought three months ago. I have not been to this beach for a long time and it was great looking out with a long lens.

They are indeed a distance away. The 300mm lens makes them appear like they are about 200m away! Of course, I like the distance compression! It certainly gives me a positive perspective about seeing far ahead.

Here is a close up. Not all large ships are done-up, pretty boxes. I guess the owners and customers are happy so long as these large ships are doing a good job - shipping!

More of them parking around. Some are just waiting for service boats to come by.

In the midst of the giants, we do have at least one ardent fan of the waters doing what she likes best.

From the end of the Bedok Jetty, a 250m long fishing jetty, a lone angler hopes that those ships will not scare away his potential huge catch. I do wish him great success!

Before I left the nice beach. Such a wonderful sight.

And so I was walking by the Sembawang Park jetty when a smell hit me. Not that I was shocked but it did set me out to find where that came from.

Yes, it was a sad sight. Whose could it be?

The Day A Crocodile Visited An Urban Canal

Recently, while doing my usual rounds of nature and macro photography at the vicinity of our PCN (Park Connector Network), which runs along the Sungei Sembawang (Sembawang River), which has been enhanced to be both a mangrove cum modern canal, I met a few people who told me that they had sighted a crocodile in our canal.

Most of them only managed to see it swimming for a few seconds before it went deeper and disappeared from view. Fortunately, on 8 June 2017, I spotted a crocodile (probably the same one) near a drain outlet just beside Block 469B. It was resting on the concrete slope and slithered away when I got nearer to record it with my mobile phone. Of course, the video came out passable.

After hearing from two latest sources, I concluded that the crocodile should be making its presence at the upstream of the canal as each sighting seemed to point to that direction.

So, with my newly acquired 75~300mm lens, I went out for an afternoon patrol earlier this evening. I was not disappointed. The crocodile has kept to its habit and was found sun basking incognito. You will know why when you see the photos below.

 

At this point in time, I was at the other side of the canal. As usual, weaver ants are plentiful and I have to be on the alert. Spots that were being used by anglers are usually free from these ants, and of course are inevitable potholes for litters. Suddenly, I spotted something that was not normal. The above picture was taken with the lens set to 75mm. It was at the embankment of the PCN just below block 467A. Can you see it?

Bingo! At the 300mm zoom, the crocodile can be seen with its mouth opened and relaxed, without a care in the world. Not wanting to disturb the wild reptile, I decided to make my way to the other side to take some closer shots. 

From above the canal, partially protected by barriers, I took this shot. Actually, it is not possible for anyone from this side of the PCN to have spotted the crocodile, due to the thick foliage. I had to find a small opening for a clear shot. Man, the crocodile is large!

Here is another angle. It was much later that I did some calculations and figured out that this crocodile is approximately 2.7m long.

A few minutes later, it decides that it has enough and gently makes its way into the canal and disappear. It is good that nature has its way around gracefully.

The uncomfortable thing is that, just about 60m downstream, a foreign worker was doing some fishing of his own. I managed to feedback to him about what I saw when I caught up with him later.