Gardens By the Bay with friends

Now I go to Gardens by the Bay very often but seldom do I venture beyond the two domes. This time, however, was different. My friend had a project she needed to do and we visited the gardens looking for ideas. Of course, for an ecology project, these ideas came from animals. so we tried our very best to look for them. Boy did we find them! I have never regretted leaving my camera behind so much. Now I will have to content with those taken by my camera. But just to give you an idea of what we saw:

- several plain tigers (butterflies)
- yellow vented bulbul
- white breasted water hen
- little heron
- grey heron
- various fish
- pond skater/ water strider
- Water monitor lizard
- Olive backed Sunbird (female usually)
- Golden Pheasant
- apple snail eggs
- spotted doves
- various lizards
- the usual mynahs, swallows and sparrows
- painted Jezebels (butterfly)
- Apple snail eggs
- Several dragonflies
- Damsel flies
- Several butterflies which we could not identify
- Homosapien (Us)

Wow, now that I put it together, that is quite a list. I didn't manage to get a picture of everything of course. But I am glad I saw them. It was a most productive trip. Enough talk now, photos! As poorly taken as they are...

I don't know if you can see it but there is supposed to be a orange gold dragonfly in the center of the photo

 Spotted Dove. This one was slightly injured but we couldn't do anything.

The Golden Pheasant is found in the aviary. A truly magnificent bird. I am not too sure about its camouflage ability though.

 A sunbathing lizard

 Behind the frog statue, on the rocks, is a little heron.

 Water monitor lizard swimming in Kingfisher lake.

 A grey heron standing over a meter tall. We saw it fly out of the undergrowth and it took us completely by surprise. A very pleasant surprise too. But it was so far away. If only I had my camera!

 I think these are morning glories. Whatever they are, they look beautiful in the shifting sunlight.

Homosapien, the most populous creature in GBB. There are too many of them!





It was a really fun day and the amount of wildlife we saw was phenomenal. It was great!

I have to do this again,
May K.

Labrador Park

This was an unplanned visited facilitated by good weather. It was my first time visiting this part of the park. It's nice but if you don't like insects, don't look too hard. You might not like what you find. You have to expect it, the park is a mangrove minus the mosquitoes. (well they didn't bite me at least) The park leads to the sea between Singapore and Sentosa Island so you will see some marine life too. You just need to LOOK.

 I tried to find what this is but there are so many species of beetle. I have no idea what this is.But that brown looking thing also on the leaf is actually a spider. I didn't know until after I took the photo.

Update 6/2/16
My friend just informed me that these are called Cotton Stainer Bugs. Thanks!

 Same insect(s). They were bunching up today, no idea why. My sister suggests that the rain was the cause.

Same insect. I saw this before I saw the above photo. Something similar was happening on other leaves. I will admit, I was more than a little freaked.

 A mud skipper!!!

 A white throated kingfisher according to my guidebook.

 A crab but way too small to be eaten. Found this by the shoreline from the pier. Took it from way above and had to zoom in a lot.

I would call this a Little Heron but the colour is wrong. A Little Heron is dark gray. This is blue...

I might be coming back

May K.

Time for some updates

Woah, an entire year passed without a post? Two semesters and a summer holiday as well as almost two winter holidays? Tut tut, it is time for some updates. I will put up some photos I took recently. But don't ask me to identify everything. Sometimes I have no clue and when it comes to the insects, no idea where to find them. Trust me, I have looked. Really.

May K.

P.S: I have backdated a lot of the posts. Just for reference

East Coast Park

The Sea and the beach, you don't even need animals to make this great.

 Look at that horizon

 So peaceful

 I didn't run away fast enough after taking this photo. My shoes and socks got wet.

 A peaceful bay

Human! Run!












May K.

Spring leaf park, a new years visit

We spent part of New Year's day visiting the Mandai Crematorium. It is a sad place but it's a good place to start the New Year, starting with those who have left us.

After the visit, we dropped by Springleaf park. This was my first time here and we didn't stay long. It is a fairly new park and is connected to the Park Connector network (no pun intended). It's a nice place, very quiet and serene. They have bird watching sites too so I suppose many birds must stop over. I didn't see very many though.

 They have lovely orchids there.

 And this is how you tell if a park is new. There are plenty of these centipedes running around because the soil was disturbed. I haven't seen them for too long. I really didn't like them and I hate stepping on them.

Did I mention that Springleaf park has a....'river'?

 Pretty, do tell me the name if you know what this is.

 I zoomed in quite a bit for this one. I am not sure what it is since my picture isn't very clear but I think it is a Blue tailed Bee Eater. The photo in my guide book looks remarkably like it.

One of the lizards you seem to find in every garden.






Happy New Year!
May K.

UNESCO gardens

I adore the botanic gardens although I visit Gardens By the Bay (GBB) more frequently. The place holds a lot of memories for my family and I and the nation as a whole. I am thrilled that it has been made a UNESCO world heritage site. Who knew it had so much history hidden in plain sight? I had no clue and I visited the place since before I can remember.

The Singapore Botanic Gardens became a UNESCO world Heritage site on the 4th of July 2015 by a unanimous vote.

This is just to remember. 

Congrats Singapore!

May K.

Fort canning

I dropped by Fort Canning after visiting the national museum. This is one of the best parks to find squirrels. You can literally hear them around you. You might mistake their sounds for birds but after a while you catch one. This is one of my favourite parks. The forbidden hill it used to be called, home to the Kings of Singapore in the 14th century. The place is filled with history and wildlife. Can you possible combine two things that fascinate me any better? I should visit more often.

 See, I told you there were squirrels. I am not sure what this one is eating though

 I am waiting for the otters to come eat these too.

 Another squirrel!

The only creature which is not a welcome sight in the park, the parking Uncle.

By the way, that's not my car or I won't be taking the photo







Garden City :)
May K.