Nature Walks

1/4/24 - Hindhede Nature Park and Ulu Pandan Park Connector

My parents visited the Ulu Pandan Park Connector yesterday and spotted quite a few local animals (see below), most of which are very common residents. However, There are two species that have been introduced by humans and, in particular for the javan myna, been hindering the survival of endemic species. 

Today we went to Hindhede Nature Park (bordering Bukit Timah Nature Reserve in central Singapore) to try and spot aquatic birds such as Anhinga melanogaster (oriental darter) at Hindhede Quarry, however the quarry was pretty much empty except for some red-eared sliders. I'm sure that it was just the wrong timing today-- Hindhede Quarry is known to be the habitat of many kingfishers and other aquatic birds, which is really impressive as it's actually a man-made body of water (carved out from old granite mining) that has slowly filled up after the mines were abandoned. I'm glad Singapore doesn't do any granite mining anymore, however it is notable that local organisms have pretty much reclaimed the area and taken advantage of it as a habitat. 

In Hindhede Nature Park's more forested areas, we did manage to find other species hidden in the trees, including my first spotting of a colugo! I've always been more successful with birdwatching so I haven't paid enough attention to local mammals (previously spotted: otters and squirrels), but colugos are very unique and even more difficult to find in the daytime as they are nocturnal. In my more familiar realm of birds, I spotted a long-tailed parakeet in what looked to be a nest hole. Long-tailed parakeets have been struggling to compete with introduced red-breasted parakeets for resources, so I'm glad to see my first individual in a long time (the last time I saw one was at Jurong Lake Gardens in 2022) thriving and (assumedly) trying to reproduce. Given that it's right next to one of the most conserved nature reserves on the island, I wasn't expecting much human trash pollution at Hindhede, and was satisfied to see that the area, bar footpaths, has been largely left to generate on its own. 

Being somewhat unsuccessful with wildlife sightings at Hindhede, we visited Sungei Ulu Pandan again, and we spotted around the same organisms that my parents found yesterday. Sungei Ulu Pandan is pretty much a green corridor and river cutting through Singapore with infrastructure on either side, which was interesting to walk along and see how animals that usually stay in nature areas were right next to residential buildings. 

3/4/24 - Kranji Reservoir and Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve

We were hoping to catch the white-bellied sea eagles or ospreys hunting for food at Kranji Reservoir today, however they were nowhere to be seen (we did spot a commonly-spotted collared kingfisher though), so we thought the nearby Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve might be a more backable choice to find wildlife. I've been to SBWR's Migratory Bird Trail three times since Janurary as part of my research field data collection, so thankfully we went on the other footpaths today. 

Sungei Buloh has always been a pretty polarizing nature reserve for me, as there is no much human involvement that can be seen but also an incredible amount of biodiversity. The migratory bird season is coming to an end, so only local bird species were there today, however there were still many species to be identified. Mangroves do such an important job of keeping ocean trash pollution from going further inland, and I'm glad that Sungei Buloh is well-known and appreciated locally. I'm thinking of getting some friends together to volunteer and do rubbish cleanups here when we have the time. 

With regards to the species we spotted, it was my first time seeing a pacific swallow! Thinking about it now, it might be one of the bird species I saw during my official fieldwork at SBWR that I struggled to identify. The white-bellied fish eagle nest near the Visitor Center has been in use since pretty much 2020 at this point, and fortunately there is a new sub-adult that will keep the population going. I've spotted white-bellied fish eagles across Singapore: SBWR, Pulau Ubin, Pasir Ris, and even atop the office building outside my window-- they seem to be a very resilient and adaptable species, and most of the species in Singapore probably are as well. 

5/4/24 - Ghim Moh and Ulu Pandan-Clementi

There's been quite a buzz in the Singapore Birders community about some more urban birds as it's the breeding season, and we went to an HDB complex (not even a nature reserve!) to see if you could catch the coppersmith barbets feeding their chick(s). It was quite surreal to see around 30 photographers gathered in the carpark to take pictures of the birds-- I'm not quite sure what the residents were thinking when they saw us. I'm once again very impressed by the birds' ability to adapt to urbanized landscapes, to the point where they could use a half-chopped branch as a nesting site. They're very colorful as well, which could be due to sexual selection and lack of natural predators (Singapore's larger predatory species don't tend to eat birds, so that might be why a lot of smaller birds have survived her despite having very vibrant plumage). 

Nearby, next to the Clementi residential neighborhood and along Sungei Ulu Pandan, there was another pair of barbets and their chick, but lineated barbets rather than the earlier coppersmith barbets (same genus, different species). The chick looks to be a lot bigger, so it is probably  not going to remain in the nest for much longer. Like the earlier nest, these birds have managed to build their nest in a small patch of greenery between housing complexes, which is very impressive. Lineated barbets are an introduced species, though, and since they're a lot bigger in size than the local coppersmith barbets, I'm not quite sure how to feel about them reproducing so successfully. We also spotted a black-naped oriole nearby, which seems to be quite a common bird in Singapore (and, thankfully, is local). 

7/4/24 - Lorong Halus

I haven't been to Lorong Halus and nearby Coney Island since around 2020, back when the island was full of red-breasted parakeets. My dad has also been spotting weaverbird nests in the nearby Park Connector this week, so earlier today we decided to see if we could spot any other birds in the surrounding nature park. Unfortunately, there is a lot of construction going on on, which has prompted the birds originally living there to migrate to other areas in Singapore. Upon some further research, it's one of Outward Bound Singapore's (OBS) new campuses, which will occupy around 10% of the island. Thankfully it isn't construction of a luxury hotel or a very polluting building complex, as I have had the pleasure to do camp with OBS in the past (at Camp 1 on Pulau Ubin), and they're big on promoting environmental stewardship through all their activities, including leaving no trace and educating us on the importance of biodiversity and conserving Singapore's ecosystems. 

Nevertheless, the construction will undoubtedly have adverse effects on the surrounding ecosystem-- at the same time, it seems that the lack of space in Singpaore has prompted OBS to build a new campus somewhere else, and unfortunately it had to be on Coney Island. All I can hope for is that once construction finishes, I can visit the island again and see that wildlife has returned.

On the way from the main road into the Park Connector, we spotted a scaly-breasted munia in the tall grasses by the side of the road. It's one of the smallest birds I've personally spotted, and very finch-like in apperance, which made me recount adaptive radiation in Darwin's finches in the Galapagos. There are quite a few munia species in Singapore, all of a similar size and physical build, so I'm definitely interested to do some more research into the evolutionary pathways taken between these similar looking species. From some more basic taxonomic searches on Wikipedia, munias and finches don't seem to even be from the same family, but I'll have to find some cladograms for more convincing evidence of convergent or divergent evolution.

There is a small pond to the side of the park connector, with a small tree nearby that houses a lot of weaverbird nests. Singapore has the endemic baya weaver and introduced golden-backed weaver, both of which were building nests and feeding their young on the same tree. It's not the only case of endemic and introduced species living in close proximity in Singapore (e.g. red-breasted and long-tailed parakeets), which is definitely interesting, although it is disappointing to see just how well introduced species are doing here-- likely to do with tropical ecosystems and how productive they are. 

On the other end of the pond, we also identified a male-female pair of lesser whistling ducks-- they may not sound particularly noteworthy, but Singapore only has two species of ducks, the other of which hasn't been spotted since 2020. The Singapore Bird Group lists the lesser whistling duck as uncommon, so I'm glad to have found what looks to be a breeding pair. 

June 2024 - Biodiversity sightings from Project Week

During 3-7 June, I was doing Project Week with three of my schoolmates. Project Week is a mandatory project that we do as part of the IB Diploma's Creativity, Activity, and Service (CAS) requirement, which we could do either overseas or in Singapore. We decided to stay in Singapore, as it gave us the freedom to plan out our itineraries independently and make Project Week something that is an enjoyable and meaningful use of our time. 

As our group had the shared interest of nature walks and Singapore's wildlife, we incorporated many nature walks into our itineraries, often one each day during Project Week. Throughout the week, we spotted many native flora and fauna, including some endemic species that I had never found in Singapore before! We posted sightings in the SGBioAtlas app, which contributes to citizen science and allows everyone using the app to see the location of particular wildlife. 

On the 3rd of June, we walked along the Ulu Pandan Park Connector, which is a wooded corridor alongside Sungei (Malay for "river") Ulu Pandan running through the west of Singapore. Both sides of the park connector are fenced in by industrial buildings, residential blocks, and even major roads and bridges at certain areas, but to our surprise there is an impressive amount of wildlife there. This might be due to the river, as there are fish and other prey animals that can be hunted there, and Singapore already lacks slow-moving bodies of water, which might have influenced aquatic animals to use Ulu Pandan as a habitat. The vegetation right next to the river is also quite dense, which is pretty conducive towards attracting wildlife. It's no surprise that Singapore's most endangered organisms weren't spotted here as the surrounding vegetation is secondary forest, but it was still good to observe quite a number of species near Ulu Pandan. 

Friendly warning, I only had my phone on me, so some of the photos don't have the best resolution-- you'll have to trust me in identifying the organisms!

On the 4th of June, we walked around Bukit Batok Nature Park, one of the "buffering" parks surrounding Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. Interestingly, we spotted fewer species than we did at Ulu Pandan, even though Bukit Batok is older secondary forest and surrounded by other wooded areas. This might be attributed to the weather (thundering and quite dark) as well as the many other people who were walking around the nature park at the time. We also spent a shorter time walking around as it is a smaller nature park (and we didn't want to get struck by lightning), which may have also influenced the species richness we found. Unfortunately we didn't head closer to the quarry due to the lightning warning, however in the future I'd like to visit it again. Singapore has a lot of quarries, particularly around Bukit Timah and Pulau Ubin that used to be mined for granite. Now that they are no longer in use, they've filled up with water and provided some new habitats for aquatic organisms. 

On the 5th of June, we walked around Jurong Lake Gardens. These lakes are actually manmade-- they formed from accumulated water as a result of some dams. It's now home to some swamp habitats and, of course, a very large lake with vegetation surrounding it. Jurong Lake Gardens isn't ecologically similar to Singapore's original ecosystems-- in fact, Singapore doesn't have any natural large bodies of freshwater! We tend to have streams instead, however most of them have been taken over by buildings. There is a small remnant of Singapore's freshwater ecosystem at Nee Soon swamp forest, which is definitely a place I would like to visit. Due to Jurong Lake Gardens' ecological history, it is no surprise that we found mostly generalist species, but I was very excited to spot an aquatic bird species that I have only seen once before (and can't find a picture for, so I couldn't verify it well). 

On the 6th of June, we went geocaching in the Southern Ridges and along the Rail Corridor. We were primarily looking for small things other geocachers had hid in the nature parks, but we also observed some wildlife! The Southern Ridges are a collection of connected nature areas on a rather hilly landscape spanning from Harbourfront to Kent Ridge in southern Singapore, and the Rail Corridor is a small footpath framed by trees that runs through Singapore from Kranji all the way to Telok Blangah-- like the name suggests, it is partially built on the site of old railroads, and often runs through or alongside roads and urban development. 

On the 7th of June, we spent our whole day cycling from Buona Vista down the Ulu Pandan Park Connector to Jurong Lake Gardens, back down the connector, to West Coast Park through the coast-to-coast trail, and then down the new Pasir Panjang Park Connector to Labrador Nature Reserve. As expected, we didn't have a lot of time to stop and take note of wildlife, however we took breaks at each "landmark" and still spotted some organisms!

Usually I go on nature walks alone or with my family, so it was really fun to have a week where we were often walking in nature with my friends from school. It was especially rewarding to observe just how much Singapore still has to offer with regards to nature areas, as well as to talk about what the green areas in Singapore mean to us throughout Project Week.