tree shrew and squirrel

just like the case of the water monitor lizard and clouded monitor lizard, i am quite sure that a number of adults have mixed up the tree shrew with the squirrel. i have. each time i saw a small creature scampering about on the tree, i would conclude that it was a squirrel until i came upon this information board during one of my walks. it depicted the differences between the tree shrew and the squirrel.

i am positive that i have come across both the tree shrew and the squirrel but i had no inkling that they were two different types of animals. actually, the tree shrew is not a shrew. neither is it a squirrel. there is more information on the tree shrew here. the tree shrew can be distinguished by its pointed snout and its less bushy tail.

it seems that there are three species of squirrels in our parks and forest reserves but so far i have only encounter one species - the plantain squirrel. the other two species are the slender squirrel and the variable squirrel.

this blogger managed to photograph both the squirrel and tree shrew on one of his nature walks.

this morning, i was at sungei buloh wetland reserve with my regular kakis. we came across five or six squirrels but did not see any tree shrew.

two common types of monitor lizards

all along i had thought that the monitor lizards that i have encountered during my nature walks actually belonged to the same species. i have come across monitor lizards, usually of a smaller size, during my walks at forested areas and the larger ones are usually found in the water or near the water edge at mangrove swamps or water bodies.

i only realise that there are two common types of monitor lizards - the water monitor lizard and the clouded monitor lizard - when i saw an information board, similar to this, at the lower peirce reservoir boardwalk.

the two species of monitor lizard are similar in appearance. those found in forested area, away from the water, have yellow spots on a brown-grey base. they are usually smaller in size. the one distinguishing difference is that the nostrils of the clouded lizard lie midway between the eye and the snout; whereas, in the case of the water monitor lizard, the nostrils lie near the tip of the snout.

incidentally, while searching for more information on the two species, i came across this very informative nature blog with very good pictures.

pink necked green pigeons

i first came across the pink-necked green pigeons at sungei buloh wetland reserve. they usually make their appearance on the trees next to the pond, near the entrance of the reserve. when they fly, they make a distinct flapping sound. most times, i will see a pair of them but sometimes i may see as many as five.

today, i saw as many as thirty of them on a single tree at the zhenghua park. they were not roosting but feeding on the same berries found on the tree. pink-necked pigeon are quite well camouflaged. there are about six of them in the above picture. can you spot them?

as with most other animals, the male pink-necked pigeon is more colourful (attractive) than its female counterpart. unlike the common pigeon, this species of pigeon normally do not come to the ground; they are always perched on shrubs and trees.

the little grebes at the s'pore quarry

picture from another source

today, i visited the s'pore quarry, a part of the newly opened dairy farm nature park. there are a few ways to get to this enclosed disused quarry. most people would park their cars at car-park 'a' and walk past the moe adventure camp to get to the road leading all the way to the quarry. a shorter route can be had by parking your car at railway mall and walking to the end of jalan asas, which will eventually join up with the road to the quarry. a third way is to follow the mountain bike trail till you come to the tunnel. above the tunnel is the same road that leads to the quarry. you can actually get to the s'pore quarry from the bukit timah nature reserve by following the mountain bike trail.

besides enjoying the serenity of the place, we also indulged in a bit of bird-watching today. i have read about the precious little grebes that inhabit the shallow waters of the quarry pond. some visitors pointed them out to me and i realised that i had seen similar birds somewhere, though i am not able to put a finger to the place.

the little grebe was too far away from me. if you follow the streak in the water, you can visualise the bird at one end of it.

there was another majestic bird we saw - the white bellied sea-eagle perched high on a 'matchstick' tree. according to another regular visitor to the place, two young eagles are often seen in the vicinity. i am familiar with the eagles because i always hear and see them from my bedroom windows, though the same ones.

i also managed to spot another medium-sized bird on a raft-like structure. i was told that it was a common sandpiper. the sandpiper has this peculiar habit of bouncing a few times when it lands on the ground or any surface.




however, what really captivated me was the playfulness of the little grebes and their ability to disappear and reappear somewhere else. from my two visits to the quarry pond, i have observed that this bird is very fond of diving. the birds build their floating nests among the reeds. you can tell that there is a family among some reeds when you hear their distinctive trill.

if you visit the singapore quarry, you should armed yourself with a pair of binoculars otherwise you may miss the sight of these beautiful birds. a lot of people miss this attraction because the little grebes tend to keep far away from humans and they hide themselves by diving into the water the moment they are disturbed by loud noise.

most visitors notice the kois, tiger barbs and other small fish in the water. unfortunately, a lot of them miss seeing the liitle grebes. they may also notice the'sausages' on the reeds sticking out of the water but not the birds hidden among the reeds.

the smooth otters of sungei buloh

you can read about the smooth otters here.

i have seen the otters in various parts of the sungei buloh wetland reserve. the first time i saw them was at the sand spit, at low tide, near platform one. at that time, the soldiers were still on the lookout for the famous fugitive. i asked one of the soldiers and he told me that the otters usually made their appearances at low tide.

the second time i saw them, they were frolicking in the sungei buloh besar and later chasing one another on the river bank. there were six of them, two adults and four kids.

subsequently, i saw them twice in the muddy pond near the visitors' centre. again, it was a family of six i saw. they were playing in the water and abruptly, on a given signal, they all got out of the pond, clambered onto the land and proceeded to the river where they swam upstream.

i have also seen a solitary one at the pond between stations 5 and 6. it was hunting for fish on its own.

today was the first time i saw the otters on the track. at first, i thought they were puppies but when they looked up, i recognised them as otters. if they are from the same family - they must be - they have really grown. the kids are now as big as the adults. four of them were on the track and three others were in the pond on the left. again, when the leader gave a signal, all of them moved quickly to the pond on the right. they soon disappeared into the water.

one of the staff members at the reception commented that i was lucky to have had so many sightings of the otters. my explanation was that because i moved about alone, there was minimum noise to scare them away.

not many have seen baya weaver's nests

in the wild

i think not many singaporeans have seen baya weaver's nests in the wild but actually these beautifully weaved oval or conical-shaped nests suspended from trees are quite a common sight in waste lands and secondary forests in singapore. you can sometimes see as many as 10 nests on a single tree - as is the case in the above photograph.

if you are lucky, you can even see the tiny birds that weave these nests. the male baya weaver looks like a sparrow but has yellow feathers on its back. you can read more about this bird here. when the nests are abandoned, other birds or creatures may use them. (there was actually a baya weaver in the above photograph but it was hidden by the foliage.)

the nests are usually constructed by the male baya to attract the females. one male may build two or three partially completed nests; after succeeding in getting one to lay (eggs), he goes in search of other females to woo and get them to lay eggs in his other nests. this bird is polygamous.

because of the uniqueness of the nest, there seems to be a demand for it. some people believe that these elaborately woven pendulous nests are good luck objects. so, they get them and hang them in their garden or in the compound of their house.

at this farm in lim chu kang, the farm workers have collected quite a number of nests from the nearby waste land and they are selling them at $12 each. i have also seen this type of nests at ivy singh's bollywood farm.

i shall not divulge the whereabout of these nests in the wild, otherwise some people may try to look for the baya weaver to learn something from it. no, not to weave the nest but how to court two or three partners at one time!

an encounter with a snake of the dangerous kind(?)

if each time i came across a snake during my nature walk and i had to call the police - like what one woman did when she came upon a mangrove snake resting on the branch of a tree at macritchie - i would have disturbed the police about a dozen times. i think my encounter with snakes are greater because i choose to walk around places where few people choose to tread. these are usually deserted places where i hardly meet any fellow walkers.

yesterday, i was at neo tiew lane 2, walking towards the kranji reservoir pumping station when an auxiliary policeman shouted to me: bang, watch out, there is a black cobra near the barrier to which you are walking. i stopped in my track and looked around. there was no sign of the snake. if i know snakes, it will have slither away quietly to avoid humans.



coincidentally, today, along this deserted stretch of road leading to, or rather away from, the singapore quarry pond, i happened to stop and saw something by the side of the road. it appeared to be a small snake but i was not going to take chances. i wanted to wait for it to disappear before i proceeded. i think the snake was as wary of me as i was of it. it retreated into the undergrowth before appearing further ahead.


as it started making its move to get to the other side, i realised that it was much longer and larger than i had thought. the snake was at least two metres in length. it was slimmer at the head and tail but its middle portion was quite thick. it looked like a cobra - those i had seen the snake charmer worked with - but it was not agitated enough to show its hood. then again, maybe, it was not a cobra but a harmless snake.

here's so information on snakes in general.

"snakes are listed here first, not because they are a great danger but because so many people fear them. in general, this fear is overblown. contrary to common myths, snakes have no desire to bite people. in fact if given the chance nearly all will avoid us. they swallow their prey whole and we are too large for them to eat."

"the only reason a venomous snake will bite a human is because it thinks it must defend itself. either it was startled or someone appears to be threatening it. indeed the great majority of snakebite victims saw the snake but failed to take common-sense precautions, such as simply moving away. many of those victims were deliberately teasing or trying to catch the snake, often under the influence of alcohol or some other form of chemical stupidity."

"if you are careful in snake country there is no reason you should ever be bitten. snakes like to hide in holes and under logs or boards. be careful about turning over rocks, boards or logs or reaching blindly into anything."

"snakes feel vibrations in the ground better than they hear sound, so walking heavily will warn them of your coming. wear solid shoes or boots. going barefoot, especially after dark, is associated with many snakebites since that neither protects the feet nor warns the snake as shoes or boots do."

stay alert and take the necessary precautions and you will have no problem with snakes.

is the woodpecker a big bird?

our perception of things are sometimes shaped by what we watched in the reel world, like the cartoons that we watched when we were kids. as a kid, all of us enjoyed watching the animated cartoon 'woody woodpecker'. my formed idea of a woodpecker had been: it was a big, loud bird which was not afraid of humans. in reality, it is so different.

my first encounter with a woodpecker was at bukit batok nature park. i was alerted by the 'tok tok' sound made by the bird when it pecked on the trunk of an old tree. what i had imagined to see was different from what i saw. yes, i was thrilled to see a woodpecker in singapore but the size of the bird was kind of a disappointment. it was about the size of a mynah.

today, i came across another woodpecker on a tree near the main bridge over the sungei buloh besar. it was not making any sound with its beak. i noticed it because of the colours. it had yellow, black and white feathers; more yellow than the other two colours. like the bukit batok's woodpecker, it was not a big bird.

i think there are bigger ones, even in singapore. it is just that those i have come across so far are the smaller ones.

from what i can gather, the woodpecker that i saw at sungei buloh wetland reserve was a lesser golden backed woodpecker.

is it a brahminy kite or a white-bellied eagle?

they (first and second pictures) are the same and yet not the same. they are the same in the sense that they are both eagles and they are not the same as they are different species.

i had mistaken the brahminy kite for the white-bellied eagle when i first saw it flying near the shore at west coast park. today, when i was at the marsh garden, i saw it close-up and realised that it was a different kind of eagle. (by the way, at the marsh garden, nparks have put up two information boards and one of the boards, the brahminy kite is featured.)

usually when i visit the west coast park, i will head first for the marsh garden to look for the family of lesser whistling ducks. today, i could not find a single whistling duck at the marsh. instead, i saw this eagle flying over the water, trying to catch some small fish. soon after, it was joined by another eagle. when they rested on a nearby tree, i recognised them as brahminy kites.

the brahminy kite is slightly smaller than the white-bellied eagle. like the white-bellied eagle, the brahminy kite snatches it prey with its talons; it does not dive into the water. their habitats are quite similar.

habitats best suited to brahminy kites are broad mudflats such as those found in mangroves, estuaries and coasts. they are also found in freshwater wetlands such as ricefields and marshes. in sngapore, they are also found inland near water and even in cultivated areas (gardens, parks). they may roost together in trees along the coast.

like the white-bellied eagles, the brahminy kites prefer to nest in mangroves, usually in tall emergent trees. some use dead trees (perhaps the tree was alive when it was first used as a nest site). on swampy sites that are more secure from land predators, they may nest as low as 5-6 m. but on dry land, usually at 20-25 m. in singapore, they also nest along the coasts in casuarina trees, and near reservoirs. although they do not share nesting trees, pairs may nest less than 100 m apart.

tree climbing crabs of sungei buloh

if you go on the mangrove boardwalk at sungei buloh - just behind the visitors' centre - when the tide is high, chances are that, along the way, you will see these tree climbing crabs. today, when the tide was unusually high at about 10.15 a.m., i saw quite a number of them clinging onto the trunks of a few trees in the mangrove swamp.

they appear to have quite good eyesight because when i moved closer to them, they would quickly disappear to another side of the trunk, away from my view. they seemed to be enjoying playing hide-and-seek with me. when i moved right, they would moved left and vice versa.

these crabs, i think, are the 'buak kee' which my friend nah referred to in one of his comments. the crabs, marinated in black sauce and vinegar, were eaten with porridge by chinese people of the teochew dialect group.

according to him, the crabs were hairy but these tree climbers did not look hairy. maybe, i was not close enough to see the details. they also looked bigger than the 'buah kee' that i remembered from my kampong days.

another type of crab that climb tree is the coconut palm crab found on christmas island. i have only seen pictures of this crab.

however, christmas island is well-known for another type of crab - the red crab. these crabs crawl from the forests to the coast every year, usually in the month of october. a friend, who used to work on christmas island, often talks about the phenomenon of the migration of the red crab; about how the whole place was carpeted by these red crabs. you can read about it in this blog.

you can read more about the sungei buloh crab here.

a docile snake at dairy farm quarry

normally, my encounter with any snake is one of the 'hello-goodbye' kind; you go your way, i go mine and we shall not stay to antagonize. i am actually scared, no, terrified, of snakes and when i see one, i will try to make myself scarce. that is because i am awfully scared of this slimy reptile. however, i also found out from previous encounters that snakes do not choose to confront the human kind; when they see a human, they normally slither away.

today i met one which actually appeared to be the friendly and docile kind. i came upon it in an open field. at first, i kept my distance because i was afraid that it could be the striking kind; the one that spits venom into your eyes. as i do not wear glasses these days, i have no protection if it should propel its venom at my eyes.

it took a while for us to size each other up. it must have decided that i was not the hostile kind because it carried on minding its own business and moving slowly from side to side. if it had moved towards me, i would have taken to my heels and left it far behind.

although the snake was about one and a half metres long, it did not appear to be threatening at any time. in fact, after i had overcome my initial fear and moved closer to it, it seemed quite nonchalant and was not bothered by my presence.

i even felt protective towards the snake and stayed with it for nearly 45 minutes before it finally decided to make its way into the undergrowth.

what's the name of this beetle?

i came across this insect during one of my nature walks. i have not been able to identify it. i do not seem to be able to find a picture of an identical insect on the internet.

i think it is a long-horned leaf beetle. it was on a leaf and it has long antennae.

does anyone know the name of this insect?

some other insects and creatures i have encountered during my walks