Gecko For Lunch.....

I was shooting this beautiful Oriental Whip Snake.....


when suddenly it made a forward jerk. I taught that it was pissed off with this "paparazzi" shooting away. I jerked back and then I realised that it has caught a Gecko! Oh.....lunch time!


then it moved away and climb higher up the bushes as if it was afraid that I would steal its lunch. :p


the Gecko did not struggle for long before the snake's venom kick in and was slowly swallowed head first.

Great Day Out At Our Nature Places.....

I was out the whole day on Saturday visiting our nature spots.

In the morning, met up with AA heading to the North to have a walk at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve. As there's no bus alighting at the Reserve on Saturday, we trekked through Kranji Nature Trail to get to the Reserve.

Along the trail, we came across these;







Then we came to the boardwalk along the trail. I was looking at the seaward side when suddenly I heard a sound of something diving/dropping into the water behind. I turned and checked, but did not see anything until I noticed some bubbles coming up to the water surface.

So I waited.....then there was this little head popping up underneath the water!


It's an OTTER! Finally I get to see one! :o) So CUTEEEEE!

Here's it showing its teeth when it noticed us on the boardwalk.


After which, it just ignored us and continue diving in and out of the water. We spent quite sometimes observing it. It caught a fish and after sometimes, disappearing into the deeper part of the mangroves.

Haha.....and by the time we reached the Reserve, I had little time to walk around as I had to rush off. So I just make my way to the main bridge and just before the bridge, came across this beautiful Oriental Whip Snake.



And after Sungei Buloh, I was on to another exploration of the day. This time to one of our Southern islands, Pulau Hantu, for an intertidal trip.

The tide, however, was not going down much as predicted. Thus, we spent most of our times at the high shore.


On the Solitary Fan Green Seaweeds (Avrainvillea sp.), several such Sea Slug can be found on them. These could be Costasiella slug (Costasiella sp.).


We also came across a few of these Anemones. Some of them were very sensitive to my light and retreated into the sand very fast when my torch shine on them. We were wondering if this could be the Anemone that was named after this island, Pulau Hantu?


Came across this Gymnodoris nudibranch. Looks like Gymnodoris citrina.


And the mission of the trip was accomplished when the Giant clam was spotted for our Giant clam researcher, ML.


And the highlight of the trip is this Basket Star found by James! Wow.....and this is my 3rd time seeing one after Big Sisters and Keppel Bay.

It was a great day with great sightings!

No Allied Cowrie Sighted.....

On Sunday, I joined The Hantu Bloggers' monthly dive at Pulau Hantu. Before the dives, I was asked to look out for Allied cowries on the Sea Fans/Whips.

But alas, unlike last month's dive, I did not come across any despite searching high and low on every Sea Fans/Whips that I came by.

Nonetheless, it was still a good dive with sightings like these and a turtle coming up to the surface for air when we were doing our surface interval!

Night Dive @ Mainland Singapore.....

On Saturday, we were back to the dive site that we have checkout two weeks ago. This time it was a night dive!

So here are my sightings;


Cave corals are aplenty! I love the pretty yellowish polyps!



Fishes are so much easier to shoot at night!

We were told that Seahorse has been sighted at this site before. We did not get to see one during the day dive but we saw at least 3 of them on the night dive. And here one of them that I have sighted.


This Tigertail Seahorse was hanging upside-down on the sponge when I came across. I only managed to take 3 shots before it swam away. And here's a close-up;

Sea Cucumber can be seen on the wall or tuck away between the encrusting creatures like Sponges and Ascidians.



And some of them were feeding. Trapping food particles in the water using their tentacles.

On the Sea Fans,


Small Decorator crabs can be seen moving about.


And little Shrimpy too!

For more sightings of the dive, see The Hantu Bloggers' post.

Nice Checkout Dive @ Mainland Singapore.....

Was invited by Debby of The Hantu Bloggers to do a checkout dive at a mainland site yesterday. Quite impressed by the stuffs that we saw in this kind of man-made structures environment.

So here what we came across;



Lots of Soft Coral!



Sea Fans are in abundance here!



So are the many types of Sea Squirt and Ascidians!







Hard Corals growing on the structures are mostly the size of a saucer plate if not slightly bigger.


Hmmm...is this a Corallimorph?





Lots of fishes too. Some swimming in the open while some hiding among the crevices. (Top-down : Kite Butterflyfish, Yellow Pipefish, Scorpionfish and False Scorpionfish)




Couple of Sea Cucumbers.


On the seabed, Gong Gong can be spotted.



Palm-sized Flatworms were seen too.



We didn't see any nudibranch during the first dive. But we came across two kinds during the second dive. Top one is the Black-margined nudibranch (Glossodoris atromarginata) and the bottom one is a pair of Many-lined Chromodoris nudibranch (Chromodoris lineolata).

Last but not least, the highlight for me would be this little Basket Star (I think)! It would be my second time seeing one and my first one underwater!

Mission Failed Again.....

Time is 8pm and Date is 9th October 2009.

I was assigned to this mission when my cousin who live down the street FAILED in the same given mission in August. To increase the chances of getting off the list, I had even applied camouflage like Sponges and Ascidians on myself.

So here I wait patiently for that lovely foot to come down on me. Living up to my namesake, I didn't even move any bit.


But alas! Instead of a lovely foot that greets me, it is a sneering face that come right in front of me and shout "Haha.....I SAW YOU!!! You are not going anywhere but stay on my checklist of things that stung me!!!"

Ahhhh.....Damn! I FAILED!! I failed to inflict PAIN to that foot and get off the list! She sneered at me and said that it was my frowning mouth that gave my camouflage away!!!


Ahhh.....maybe next time I should put on a smiley face and be a smiley STONEFISH!

Sigh, the foot gets to live another painless day! Meanwhile, I shall concentrate on getting the next victim;


Here fishy fishy fishy! Come closer abit.....

Lucky for her and she gets on to see the others living in my Tanah Merah estate;

Sunny & Nice Dive @ Pulau Hantu.....

Unlike the two previous wet wet dives at Pulau Satumu and at Pulau Hantu last month, today's Hantu Bloggers dive was done with Mr Sun smiling over us! It was warm and the vis was a good one of 3-4m!

My volunteer guide was Jimmy and he found couple of creatures that are first sightings for me!

Here's the first one;


It's a Xeno Crab(Xenocarcinus sp.) on a Sea Whip!


Lots of Icon Seastars litter on the seabed.


With a few of them having parasitic Sea Snails on them.


And came across two such tiny tiny little stars! Here's one for the scale of size with my finger (the black thingy).


There were lots of Filefish too!


A small and thin Ocellate Pipefish.


At the shallow end, Acropora crab (Looks like Tetralia nigrolineata) hiding among the branching Stag Horn coral(Acropora sp.).


And on the deeper end, a Sea Pen rooted itself into the soft silty seabed.




Only small Flatworms were seen today.


I was on a lookout for Allied Cowries and was happy to see two such cowries on Sea Whips

And of course, Nudibranch too!


Lots of the Blue Dragon nudibranch (Pteraeolidia ianthina)!



The common sightings of Phyllid nudibranch (Phyllidia elegans-Top, Phyllidiella pustulosa-Bottom)


A grain size Dermatobranchus nudibranch (Dermatobranchus sp.)


Many-lined Chromodoris nudibranch (Chromodoris lineolata).


Saw two Bornella nudibranch (Bornella sp.). This one was crawling on the rubbles and while.....


the other one was hiding among the Hydroids.


The Cuthona nudibranch (Cuthona Sibogae) is another kind of nudibranch that you can find on Hydroids too.



Couple of Gymnodoris nudibranch (Gymnodoris sp.) were spotted. Hmmm....wonder if the bottom one had just lay the egg ribbons (orange stuffs on the top left corner)?


This gotta be the biggest Tritonia nudibranch (Tritonia bollandi) that I have came across at Hantu so far. This individual was about 5cm long. Not very well camouflaged in an orange Sea Fan!


Not far away, a second one was spotted by Jimmy on a Sea Whip. It was as big as the first one.

And lastly, here's the second "first sighting" for me found by Jimmy;


Looks like a Spotted Hypselodoris nudibranch (Hypselodoris maculosa).