LaughingDove Goes Travelling - SE Asia and Australia

Phew, that's a lot of zooing

I decided today to visit Singapore Zoo and do the bird park tomorrow l, primarily because one of my top targets for the zoo was not captive, but I wanted to see one of the wild colugos that live there and I didn't know whether I might need to visit again later of I missed that.

There seemed to be lots of ways to get to the zoo, including various direct buses on MRT and then bus options (but no nearby MRT) and the easiest seemed to go to the Khatib MRT station from where there was a direct shuttle bus. The latter part of the MRT ride was above ground and through the apartment-filled suburbs.

Although I had been warned that this was not advisable, I decided that I would do the zoo, night safari, and river safari all today. Furthermore, I was only able to get an entry slot to the river safari at 8:15. This was going to be a long zoo day, especially given the humidity and over 30 degree temperatures. Given than Singapore Zoo opens at 8:30 and Night Safari closes at midnight, you could have 15.5 hours in zoos in a day and the three zoos are all right next to each other and can pretty much be considered a single place.

Singapore Zoo is a general zoo with a distinctive mammals focus and a fair few reptiles, River Safari is themed on rivers obviously and Night Safari is a zoo with nocturnal animals that only opens after dark. The lack of birds in these three attractions is excused due to the presence of Jurong Bird Park which I'll be visiting another day, probably tomorrow.

Singapore Zoo was the place I visited first, and their main thing is being an 'open zoo' without bars. I found this distinctly unimpressive. It's a beautiful zoo with amazing planting and very pretty exhibits, but they're pretty from a human perspective and most of them, especially those for the larger mammals are actually quite small. They may be 'open' and 'without bars' but replacing bars with glass isn't exactly revolutionary and big moats and masking the boundaries of exhibits may make them look open and very pretty and natural, but doesn't necessarily improve them for animals.

However having said that, many of the primate enclosures generally seem very good with lots of rope bridge type things connecting different sections of enclosure. Most of the enclosures looked ok, but on the small side and I think Singapore Zoo ought to do better. I'm not sure how much space the zoo actually has access too, but the enclosures mostly ought to be bigger and a lot of time, money and effort has been spent making them look pretty. It's impresssive certainly, and it's good that exhibits look good, but it's difficult to say that the zoo is much better than average from the animal's perspective. I also didn't like a particular sign describing the four main primate groups of 'prosimians, monkeys, apes, and humans'. Hmm.

Another major attraction are the wild colugos that live in the zoo and night safari. These are quite difficult to find, and I wouldn't have found any without binoculars. The first one I found in the zoo near the elephant area, but it was really far away, on the other side of the enclosure from where the path is, and not visible at all without binos. The second one I found after I exited the zoo before going to the river safari when I checked the trees outside Night Safari. This one was closer, but awkward to view because it was on the wrong side of the tree. Extremely cool though and a long-awaited lifer as I've been in Colugo range countries for so long on this trip but didn't see any in Malaysia or Sabah (apart from an untickable probably one seen in Sepilok gliding but lost before I could check properly). Also of interest on the wild mammal front was a colony of Dog-faced Fruit Bats roosting in the shelter of the Sumatran Orangutan House as well as a wild Slender Squirrel. I also saw a 'wild' Prevost's Squirrel which I think was an escape.

I headed into the river safari at about 2:30 giving me a very long time to do the zoo slowly until the closing time at 7. There was no reason to be out any earlier since I was staying for the River Safari and had missed being able to get the first entry slot at 7:15 and had to wait until 8:15.

The first part of the zoo has exhibits with species from various large river systems, and a large Giant Panda building as well with the Yangtze River. There is a pretty good setting too next to a river and reservoir which is very green and leafy. There is then a boat ride for the Amazon River, and I got a boat to myself because there was an animal show in the area just before the boat ride and I left just before the show ended to get there before the masses.

I had heard that the boat went around too quickly, but seriously? It was at least 3x faster than it should be, the whole thing lasts a few minutes and gives you literally seconds to look at each enclosure. The focus species of the ride is a jaguar and you get maybe 20 seconds to find and look at the jaguar. There's an announcer going too that tells you the animals as you zoom past. 'if you look to your right you'll get three seconds to look at a giant anteater (with a baby) and if you only spend two seconds looking at the anteater, you might be able to see a maned wolf'. Surely they could just slow down the boats? Even after the show it didn't take them long to process the backlog.

After the boat ride is the Amazon Flooded Forest with a squirrel monkey walkthrough, small Amazonian aquaria, a nice underwater viewing for Giant Otters, and the large manatee tank which also has redtail cats and arapaima. It's certainly a big impressive tank, but if I'm honest my expectations were too high and I expected far bigger. There are a lot of manatees, 12 in total including youngsters and a massive one, but the aquarium isn't so ridiculously big. It doesn't seem all that much bigger than Wroclaw Zoo's and Singapore does go on about how their's is the biggest in the world. An absolutely stunning tank, sure, just not quite as stunning as I had expected. The only particularly impressive thing was the number of animals.

You could easily do the River Safari in two hours, but since I had time to kill at this point, I sat and watched the manatees for a while. I didn't need to rush to get to Singapore Zoo early as it turns out (I got there for 9 - I did have to traverse the nation, which took an hour - which felt like I was behind but actually wasn't a problem).

I relaxed for a while after I was done with River Safari. It's a long day, but I think all three zoos is perfectly doable. 100GB of data and very fast 4G speeds meant I didn't get bored.

Unfortunately, I did have to buy a full and expensive meal from by the zoo as I had brought my usual zoo snack lunch but not really enough for a satisfactory dinner. I'm quite shocked actually at how much I've managed to spend in Singapore in 48 hours. I've spent several hundred dollars and I put the accommodation as well as a couple of bits and pieces on the visa card...

The problem while I was waiting however was that there was literally nowhere to sit. Nowhere. I had to eat standing up and then sit on a rock in the corner. I don't understand why it was so busy. Is the Night Safari always this insanely packed? The queue for 7:15 entry started to build at 6:30. There were an obscene number of large tourist groups which was a large proportion of the people and just severe overcrowding.

At about 7:20, while I was standing by the man letting people in, he said that 8:15 tickets could now go in and I was able to get straight into the zoo. The set up of Singapore Night Safari is that there are three walking trails that see all the smaller species, and a tram that goes around to see the larger animals. The queue to board the train was obscene since pretty much everyone seemed to go straight to that, so I went for the walk instead.

The zoo is lit by moonlight-immitation lights which certainly look effective. Not sure on the effect on animals, and the animal enclosures all looked very good at least superficially, and although it's difficult to tell in the dark, most of them did seem to suffer the same problem as the Zoo of being too small.

It's a really cool concept though, and apart from overcrowding it seems to have been pulled off extremely effectively. There are a number of cool species too like Hog Badgers, although Tarsiers seem to be a recently lost species and I don't know what the situation is with the flying squirrels because they're on the map but not signed in the enclosure which seems to just hold a barn owl.

The trails were not busy either and really a great zoo experience to walk around. Once I was done with the trails, I went to watch the 9:30 showing of the Creatures of the Night Show. I don't normally bother with zoo shows, but this one seemed like a big deal and I wanted to see what it would be like and do the tram ride afterwards. I stationed myself as close as possible to the exit because if I could get out first, I would get a tram quickly.

The show was quite entertaining. Slightly fake and theatrical, but that's to be expected, and it was entertaining to watch with some quite cool species that wouldn't work as well in a day show. They also got to play with the lighting since it was night of course.

My tram strategy was very successful and I got straight to the front of a queue that rapidly built up behind. The tram ride was very well done from an immersiveness point of view with cattle grids and such to make an effective experience that can definitely be described as a night safari. The highlight of the ride though was not part of the designed experience where opposite from the Asiatic Lion enclosure (with nyala? Something like that?) I saw a Colugo fly across right where I was looking then land on a tree and look around, rather silhouetted but nice and clear. Amazing!

By the time I got out of the zoo it was 10:50 and I was quite tired. In pleased I did do all three in one day though because I don't feel like I rushed anything or had any lesser of an experience by doing them all together. 14 hour zoo days? Easy. I'm no lightweight.

I had by this point however just missed the last direct shuttle back to the MRT so would have to take an ordinary bus, and I just wanted to get back to my pod so I called a S$20 Grab. No regrets. I've already spent a fortune today anyway.

The Grab I got was actually a taxi who did Grab as well when convenient, such as today to skip the taxi line, and we had an interesting discussion about the economics of Grab and normal taxis. Tomorrow I intent to go to Jurong Bird Park but I do feel like a good rest now so don't know that I'll be shooting off. I can have another day or half day at Jurong if I need it too since I've got four days left in Singapore which are looking like they will be Jurong, Pulau Ubin, Bukit Timah + Gardens by the Bay, and one extra day for revisits or to do some of the several sites that are on my secondary priority list. (If anyone wants to suggest what other sites are the top ones to fit in, please do).

But overall a great day of zooing in three great zoos. Night Safari in particular is a really interesting concept that I enjoyed seeing. And, of course, wild colugos too!

New mammal:
Malayan Colugo

 

I actually got a picture which I hadn't reviewed properly and it is actually Lesser Sulphur Crested not Tanimbar. I probably would have noticed it eventually, but thanks for bringing that up.

 

Yes, that one. Is there supposed to be an owl as well as the flying squirrels?

 

Jurong Bird Park

To get to the bird park, I decided the easiest option was to get the MRT to Boon Lay station and from there I could get an ordinary bus to the bird park.

This wasn't super-quick, but was probably the quickest public transport option and it's very straightforward. It wasn't too long after opening time that I got to the zoo, and I had a good nine hours to see everything which is plenty of time. I had heard that one day wasn't quite enough, but if you don't spend long periods of time resting and keep moving through, it's plenty of time even at a slow photography pace. It was extremely hot and humid today though, and I was more tired than yesterday.

There are lots of very impressive things at Jurong with a very large number of rarities as well as some very impressive enclosures. The Waterfall Aviary is a big impressive walkthrough with a 100-foot waterfall in it, and the Jungle Jewels and Wings of Asia aviaries were both very good with lots of rarities. The latter exhibit was very Walsrodeish reminding me of many of the exhibits at Weltvogelpark Walsrode with a free flying middle bit and lots of aviaries with the small birds around the outside. Jurong doesn't have a huge number of long rows of aviaries with small birds like Walsrode does. It certainly has a lot, just not the vast unending rows at Walsrode that take a very long time to move through. The big walkthrough aviaries take a lot of time to find inhabitants, but I think the zoo is doable in a full day, unlike Walsrode. I'll avoid comparing it to Walsrode too much though, although it is an obvious comparison.

The highlight species at Jurong for me, as well as the many smaller species that were new for me, especially in Wings of Asia, was the Blue Macaw exhibit. They hold Hyacinth Macaws, and, wait for it, Lear's and Spix's Macaws. SPIX'S! These are two species I've wanted to see for a very long time and I'm ecstatic that I've seen them. Great birds.

My main criticism is probably the signage which was terribly incomplete in many areas and mostly lacked distribution maps or information and was short on general facts in my opinion. The other main complaint is that very often mesh aviaries had quite dirty and metallic mesh, making photography tricky.

I got around the whole place by 3PM, not rushing at all but also not really stopping at all, and watched the bird show which was not bad, but nothing particularly amazing. I caught the raptor show a bit later too, which I would describe similarly, though more theatrical than average. There were things I wanted to go back to look at again as well as to spend longer looking for other free-flying birds that I had missed and I had enough time to do that because I had done it at a slow pace the first time around. There are just so many rarities and really impressive aviaries at Jurong, not quite on the scale of Walsrode but setting Walsrode as the bar for bird collections is an impossibly high standard and Jurong is excellent.

One can, of course, criticise husbandry: some of the enclosures could have been larger - although not many thanks to being in Singapore so being able to keep tropical birds in aviaries that would be orders of magnitude more expensive to build in Europe - there were a lot of clipped/pinioned flamingos and pelicans that would obviously be better off in aviaries and I feel that is within Jurong's capacity for development.

But the entire bird collection of Jurong will be moving soon and within a couple of years should be located at an entirely different site with the other collections, and I feel very fortunate to have seen Jurong before it moves. (Well I visited when I was much younger, but that doesn't count) My instinct is that the move will not be an improvement because I expect they will go more Singapore Zoo style with open things and looking pretty. Just change some of the mesh for newer, cleaner, black painted stuff, give some things a scrub and patch, and they'd be all set to continue as they are. We'll see I suppose.

Although hot and tiring and fueled by overpriced ice cream and cold drinks, I very much enjoyed my day at Jurong, as expected, and left for closing time. I don't feel like I rushed at all though and it can comfortably be done in a day in its current state, I know they had more rarities at some time in the past.

So I headed out for closing time at 6 and went back via the bus and MRT route, getting back in about an hour. Tomorrow, I think I will visit Pulau Ubin.

 

Is This Really Still Singapore?

I've been thinking about the existence of the nation of Singapore. The whole country is built entirely on caloric surplus. Very little of what the country does, pretty much nothing, has inherent value for people, and it depends entirely on the caloric surpluses of the world allowing these inherently worthless and intangible things to be given extreme value. It's a very interesting route of thought to go down that leads to some difficult and unanswerable questions about much of modern society, and Singapore really epitomises this whole concept and idea. A lot of this thought is inspired by John Green's excellent new podcast The Anthropocene Reviewed which is inspiring and deeply troubling at the same time and mixes a positive tone with an extremely depressing one. Well worth a listen.

It's certainly a complicated route of thought that I've been going down these last few days while on MRT trains etc. about the existence of Singapore. A strange sort of country. (The other thing I've been pondering is Singapore's mandatory National Service which I find deeply, deeply troubling in a lot of fundamental ways but I won't get into that now).

Anyway, I left early to head to Changi Point Ferry Terminal to go to Pulau Ubin which is an island off the coast of Singapore that is much more rural and undeveloped than the rest of the country. I was slower than expected getting across, which is unfortunate because I wanted as long as possible on the island. I still got there in what you'd call early morning of course, but not crack of dawn like I wanted. This was due partly to me being over optimistic about how quickly I could get to places on public transport and also because a bunch of university stuff came up last night that I had to deal with so I wasn't able to get to bed quite as early as hoped. The issue is that I'm doing gap year type travel in the summer holiday between finishing school and starting university.

Around Changi before getting the ferry, I looked at the many Red-breasted Parakeets flying around, and I also located a few Tanimbar Corellas on one of the large trees. Since my white bird on Sentosa turned out to be a Lesser Sulphur Crested Cockatoo not a Tanimbar, both of these species were new. I then took a $3 bumboat ride across to Pulau Ubin. The boats hold 12 people and after presumably called bumboats because that's the sort of person who would ride one. They're very unsingaporean in apparent safety given the number of cable ties holding exposed wires together and the about-to-fall-apartness of the wood. The driver was also seemingly just a private guy who left when he felt like it or the boat was full and sat on the boat smoking at other times. Is this really still Singapore? Upon arrival on Pulau Ubin I was mobbed by people loaning out bikes for day hire. Chronic oversupply meant the original $8 price dropped to $2.50for a day. No helmet either of course. I decided to hire a bike to cruise around the island for the day which was a good move. The paths are pretty much all paved and there are fair distances that would take a long time on foot. The whole island is covered in rainforest and mangroves with occasional small shacks for the small number of residents. There were lots of birds in the rainforest as well as some reptiles like a cute little Green Crested Lizard and even wild boar and macaques! The wild boar were actually really common and I even saw a group of stripy little piglets.

The whole place was so incredibly far removed from Singapore and my phone agreed because I got a message welcoming me to Malaysia since I was obviously picking up a cell tower on the other side of the strait. The whole place felt much more Malaysia than Singaporean and I really enjoyed cruising around slowly on a bike. There were very few other people around so I could just stop anywhere in the middle of the road if I saw or heard anything interesting. For a $2.50 with no deposit bike, it worked extremely well. The gears didn't quite do what I would have expected and the bike changing gear seemed largely unrelated to when I pulled the lever, but it went where I wanted which is all I need.

Luckily, it was a relatively cool day today too, although completely overcast and it did rain a fair bit which does get you soaked when you're on a bike but it's not too bad. At one point in the late afternoon after quite a heavy shower and while there was still thunder and the sky was completely dark grey, but it was not actually raining, it all of a sudden got so obscenely humid. I don't think I've ever felt such high humidity. It was next to a reservoir too and everything was soaked but the air was totally and completely saturated. The birding was good though even in the day with woodpeckers and drongos and Oriental Pied Hornbills, and the forest had loads of fruiting rambutan.

I biked to the Chek Jawa Wetlands to have my lunch of boiled eggs nicked from the free breakfast at the accommodation. This was a good move for staying out in the forest longer, although seven boiled eggs in a day is quite a bit. Anyway, the wetlands are an area of mangroves and rainforest on the far Eastern tip of the island with some nice boardwalks and a historical house thing. Just across from the viewing deck is Changi Airport and the city, and it feels like a completely different country. Unlike Singapore which shouldn't exist and is built on caloric surplus as vaguely discussed above, Ubin feels like a normal place with an orchard and fish farms and village huts surrounded by rainforest. Not that I find the city of Singapore a particularly unpleasant place, but it is an odd country. Ubin seems much more normal.

There were lots of Red Junglefowl in the nearby woodland, real Junglefowl rather than chickens, the numerous White-bellied Sea-eagles were very impressive, and a Malaysian Plover on the mudflats was a long overdue lifer.

You can tell that Ubin is a very different place from the main island because the tap water is not potable here, unlike the rest of Singapore, so a drink dispenser at the wetlands entrance was very handy.

There are otters (Smooth Coated) here too which I kept my eyes open for, and I saw a trail of otter tracks, but didn't see any otters, despite looping back around to the wetlands again before leaving to look around. It was certainly an enjoyable day on Pulau Ubin and an excellent very different day trip from the city. Quite tiring too, because I covered quite a long distance on the bike and my body's not used to biking.

On the way back I looked around Changi Village again briefly for the introduced parrots and saw the Red-breasteds but not the Tanimbars, and took the same bus+train route back. I should probably have had dinner at Changi before going back but didn’t and I ate in Chinatown instead. I only mention this, because just down the road from where I’m staying I found a really particularly good place to eat which was probably one of the best meals of the trip of a sweet and spicy tofu hot plate and salt and pepper battered sweetcorn which was especially good.


Tomorrow: Bukit Timah + Gardens by the Bay

New birds:
Red-breasted Parakeet
Tanimbar Corella
Malaysian Plover
Red-whiskered Bulbul

 

Colugos and Vipers and Flowers, Oh My!


In addition to rainforest on islands around Singapore, Singapore has one (relatively) large area of rainforest in the Central Catchment area, referring to the reservoirs in the area that act as a water catchment. Although not as large and biodiverse as similar rainforests in Malaysia of course, it's still proper rainforest and I wanted to visit. There are a number of different sites around the Central Catchment area that one can visit, and I decided to visit Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. This one is actually not connected to the main central catchment area, although it was until relatively recently when a highway was built cutting the two off. There is an 'eco bridge' that connects the two with a forested bridge for wildlife, but I'm not sure how successful that's been. The highly endangered Raffles Langur is no longer found in Bukit Timah for example, but with only about 50 individuals in the central catchment there's very little chance of seeing one anyway. If I was really trying to see one I'd have to go across to Malaysia to look.


Anyway, the main reason I chose Bukit Timah is because there's an MRT station within walking distance so I could get there early without needing to faff about with buses.


Getting to the reserve was quite cool because I emerged from the underground into the city and then up ahead was a hill covered in full blown rainforest. Some rainbow lorikeets seen as I walked up were weird though. Unfortunately it's Saturday today which means the place was rather busy with an organised run taking place, but off the main central trail was quite quiet. It is proper primary rainforest though, and the only reason for the missing species compared to similar forest just across the border in Malaysia is the small size and isolation, which makes it an even bigger shame that the Bukit Timah Expressway cuts off Bukit Timah from the Central Catchment.


It quite soon became extremely hot an humid. Of course being inside proper rainforest, especially after it has rained as it did, increases humidity significantly. It also takes ages for my lenses, camera and binoculars, to clear because the accommodation is rather excessively air conditioned by a central system so it's probably up to a 15 degree temperature difference. Yesterday, a Russian guy staying in there went to reception to ask for more blankets because he was too cold at night.


Bird activity at Bukit Timah today was very low unfortunately, but there were quite a few birders around (to the point actually that I wonder if some rarity had been reported) which suggests that it is indeed quite a good birding spot. The whole morning there did eventually produce some interesting things once I got away from the main trail like treeshrews and a Banded Bay Cuckoo (which, surprisingly, is actually new for the trip).


By far the coolest thing though was seen around midday as I was heading out, because right along the main path about 4m above the ground on a tree trunk was a Colugo! Just sitting there quietly, right in the open! It looked much bigger this close than it had from a distance at Singapore Zoo and I think this one was bigger too. The patterns really are super cool and I could just watch it really up close. There were people taking photos of it with their phones, it was that close. Stunning animal and amazing to see so close.


And when I thought it couldn't get any more awesome, just down the path and almost at the car park in a tree overhanging the edge of the road was... A Wagler's Pit Viper! So cool! I noticed it as there was a group of people taking pictures, you may recall my complete inability to find snakes on my own. This was directly above and only about 3m up the tree. I can't believe it, a WAGLER'S PIT VIPER! Such a gorgeous looking animal, absolutely stunning, amazing colouration and that incredible viper shape. Definitely the nicest reptile I've ever seen. Wonderful, and I was not expecting it at all. This one was a female with the much more striking female colouration


Prior to leaving, I decided to go back up and have another look at the Colugo and I'm pleased that I did because I discovered why it was looking so big. Out of its side poked the head of a baby looking around! The baby was on the underside between the mother and the tree and was completely under the mother the first time but was now looking around. It had the biggest cutest eyes ever. Such an amazing little thing!


I really can't believe the luck. A whole morning seeing very little and then a Wagler's Pit Viper and Colugo with baby about 50m from each other along the main entry path, just up from the car park. What great animals! And of course with both being so up close and so still, I got some pictures that, on the back of the camera at least, look to be rather good.


My first attempt to leave the park at 11:30 had been a failure since once I was done with the viper and colugo it was now 1PM. That hour and a half just flew by. As I was leaving at 11:30 I was going to get a bus around to a different spot in the Central Catchment reserve but it no longer felt worth doing since it was later now and I decided that the best thing to do would be to go to Gardens by The Bay for the rest of the day.


The infrastructure around the gardens is very impressive, slightly ridiculous actually. Just behind is the Marina Bay Sands, a big shopping hotel complex thing which is three skyscrapers with a big boat thing across the top. Also nearby is the Singapore Flyer, a London Eye type thing, and in the gardens are a walkway that goes between massive metal trees, and two large glass conservatories, the Flower Dome and Cloud Forest Dome. The gardens are free to walk around, but the domes are S$28 for the two of them. The domes are air conditioned too which must be very costly given the very large amount of air and the fact that it's a glass dome in the hot Singaporean sun.


I went to the Flower Dome first because I was keen to see their special orchid display that is on at the moment.The orchid display was certainly very impressive with vast flowerbeds filled with orchids and masses of colour, although it didn't have particularly many of the weird shaped and coloured orchids that are my favourites. Certainly very impressive however. The other stuff in the dome was cool too and it focused on the various Mediterranean climate zones around the world (Mediterranean, SW Australia, S Africa, California) although apart from the big central bed in the middle which has different flowers at different times, the rest wasn't particularly flowery.


Before going into the second dome I went for late lunch/early dinner at a food court called Satay By The Bay and then I headed to the Cloud Forest Dome which was much taller than the flower one and I thought it was really impressive. The central 6-story cylindrical vertical garden in the was by far the most impressive example of such I've ever seen, the planting was really cool and the plant collection: wow! There was a hugely impressive begonia, anthurium, and rhododentron collection. At the top at the 'lost world' carnivorous plant section and the canopy walkway, the dome also afforded views over Singapore through the glass with an incredible variety of carnivorous plants too especially the pictures


I've always been a big fan of orchids and carnivorous plants, but I just can't get over how fabulous their display of begonias and rhododendrons was. I actually find that I am lost of words as to how to describe how much I liked their vertical garden. An that's not something that happens to me very often! It's mainly that I've never seen those taxa displayed like that on such a scale before. Really impressive. I spent quite a while in the Cloud Forest Dome to the point that it was dark when I left, but I had intended to stay in the Gardens By the Bay until after dark anyway to look at the lights.


The lights in the domes and gardens and surrounding buildings were all very impressive, although that's about all I can say about them, big shiny lights. The light show on the Supertrees was especially impressive although also the cheesiest thing I have ever seen with massive ginormous metal 'trees' flashing and twinkling all sorts of colours and patterns in time with clichéd classical music. Very Singapore. More entertaining than I would have expected though, giant metal trees flashing and sparkling to the can-can in a way that's best described as 'mental' is not something you see every day, and I ended up leavinv much later than anticipated. It was quite fun wandering the gardens a bit at night and there were quite a few wee little fruit bats at some of the trees - I think Dog-faced. There were lots of otters crossing signs in the gardens too so there may be a chance of seeing otters here I suppose. So colugos, a viper,


Oh, and with this post, that becomes 100,000 words of travel blog posts so far this trip. Well done to the probably nonexistent person who's read all of it!


New birds:


Banded Bay Cuckoo

 

I'll be the first to say I managed it!

 

I managed it as well, and I don’t regret it one bit. This has been a brilliant thread and I can’t wait to read more.

 

My English teacher used to make regular comments about my 'War and Peace' whenever I submitted any work because it was generally many times longer than anyone else's.

Well, I'm more than a sixth of the way to War and Peace now. At this rate, I'm at one War and Peace every year and a half of travel. That makes me four times faster than Tolstoy!

 

Supposedly there are still pangolins in these forests on Singapore? Even if there are I suppose there would be zero chance of seeing one on a casual visit.

 

I think there's some university in Singapore where pangolins are regularly seen on the grounds of the student accommodation. You can't go wandering around at night unless you live there of course.

 

Last Day in Singapore


Because I had been very efficient in doing all the things I wanted to do, I had managed to do all of my must-visit places in Singapore in five days, mainly because I had no problem at all doing the four WRS zoos in two days rather than three. This meant I had one more day (today) since my flight out is tomorrow. There was one more place on my list that I thought I would probably drop because it's quite far away and seemed a bit weird to get to on the bus, but I thought I might as well try: Sungei Buloh Wetlands. Seemingly, the bus only runs to the wetlands from the MRT on a Sunday which is today so that's good.


It was quite a long way around on the MRT, basically right across to the other side of the country all the way from near the Southern end of the North-South line to the Northern end. The MRT is very easy and efficient of course though. Also being a Sunday, I was able to get a seat first thing in the morning, typically at this time the trains have been very full.


The bys didn't quite go the way the internet said it would, but it did stop at the wetlands reserve which is convenient. It only stops there on a Sunday and on other days I think it's quite a walk.


I'm very pleased that I made it to Sungei Buloh though, because it's a really nice reserve. There are lots of boardwalks and paths and things along the coast with quite a few really hides too overlooking the tidal pools and the mangroves and there were some interesting animals about. The site is known as a stopover point for migrating waders and I had thought it would be too early for them but there were a few about (5 species, especially Mongolian/Lesser Sand Plover). I suppose it is almost the end of August right now and I would expect wader numbers to be reducing in Poland by this point. There were lots of Sea-eagles (two species - both White-bellied and Grey-headed!) Common Flamebacks too, and on the mud flat I saw something that I had never seen before, a wild horseshoe crab. I'm not sure if they're actually rare or I've just not noticed them, probably the latter, but it was cool to see. Plenty of fiddler crabs and mudskippers and such too of course.


Also of interest at Sungei Buloh are the Saltwater Crocodiles which are fairly common with some big ones too. These became especially visible at low tide which happened around 11. Other highlights included lots of cool fish - plenty of croc food, one croc sat up on the bank with a very large fish in its mouth - and on the avian front were large numbers of Milky and Painted Storks that showed up once the tide was low, quite a few kingfishers, and a triller. It would be really good to visit again in the winter from about late October because I think there will be really large numbers of waders on the mud flats. On the mammal front were Long-tailed Macaques and although otters occur, I didn't see any. Unfortunately, there were also three feral dogs terrorising the wildlife on the mudflats. Hopefully they are removed soon.


It's also worth pointing out that Sungei Buloh is directly across the strait from the city of Johor in Malaysia and it's really very close! You could very easily swim across, except for the massive saltwater crocs of course. The big watchtower in particular provided great views over Johor as well as the mudflats and mangroves. From there, the Malaysian side certainly looked much more Singaporean than where I was, with lots of big skyscrapers.


There were a fair few people about, it is a Sunday after all, but it wasn't crowded. Quite a few birders too, and a rather interesting coincidence was that I bumped into a herper/wildlife person who I met at Bukit Timah yesterday when he was photographing the Colugo and baby and I pointed out the viper to him that he was very pleased about. Apparently in addition to the many crocodiles, Sungai Buloh can often be good for snakes as well.


I really enjoyed Sungai Buloh and in happy that I managed to fit it in. I had anticipated spending a couple of hours there, but in fact only left at 2:30. I had intended to spend most of the day wandering around the city centre being like a normal tourist, but spending most of the day at the wetlands was better of course.


There was, however, one obscenely touristy thing that I wanted to see in Singapore and I'm not sure why I had any interest at all in it, but after the long MRT journey back into town (the MRT always feels longer than the bus because there's nothing to look at underground) I went to have a brief look at Merlion Park.


This visit mainly served as evidence for my claim that touristy sites are boring. The Merlion is a Singaporean symbol created by someone at some time for some purpose, I don't really know or care, and it's a mermaid crossed with a lion. Supposedly to commemorate the symbol, but I think mainly to provide something for people with selfie sticks to look away from (because that's what people who take selfies do of course: look in the opposite direction of the thing), two Merlin sculpture things that spit out water were made and put in a 'park'. This 'park' of course consists entirely of concrete.


Merlion Park is right by the main financial area with lots of massive skyscrapers with the logos of banks on top that are presumably filled with wankers. Bankers. I mean bankers. That was a typo. I would assume the nearby hotels attract a similar clientele. The best thing about the park was a stall just outside the train station selling delicious trays of all sorts freshly cut fruit. I like fruit. A lot. I bought two sharing platters with absolutely no intention of sharing with anyone.


I ate my fruit looking at a massive concrete Merlion as spewed water, being reminded of a rather dull poem about Singapore that's on the GCSE Literature syllabus (I love poems, but I hate to break it to you - writing a poem solely using a thesaurus to pick out colourful language produces a dull poem).


The Merlion held my interest for almost exactly the length of time required to eat two sharing platters of fruit and then I left the park filled with all the selfie-stick-holding bankers to spend the rest of the day at the Botanic Gardens. You may recall that I visited here on the evening of my first day, and it's the only place that I'd been to in Singapore where I felt I could do with a bit longer.


You may recall that last time I came here, I was too late in the day to visit the National Orchid Garden which had closed. Since I do particularly like orchids and the garden claims to be the largest collection of tropical orchids in the world, it was of course my top priority and I went straight there.


Although there wasn't as impressive of a mass of sheer numbers and colours of orchids as the Orchid Extravaganza display at the Gardens By The Bay Flower Dome, I much preferred the display at the National Orchid Garden. Of course as a year round display, they can't have such a mass of colour in a small space, but the plants themselves were all much bigger and healthier looking and there were still enough orchids all over the place to make it obviously an orchid garden. There were also far more interesting and unusual varieties of orchids in terms of weird shapes and patterns which is my favourite thing when it comes to orchids anyway. It's S$5 to get into the garden, but it's a fairly big area with lots of orchids and I easily spent two hours there. I think it's about the most impressive permanent display of orchids that would possible.

However, the highly of the Singapore National Orchid Gardens for me was not an orchid. In fact, it wasn't even a plant. As I was walking down a path, I looked ahead and saw stood in the middle of the path... A Red-legged Crake! This is a really cool looking bird that I knew was relatively more easily seen in Singapore and I knew could be seen in the Botanic gardens, but I didn't see it last time and there one was! (I saw another one at dusk as I was leaving so I think they're quite common). The orchid highlight though was the VIP Orchid display with particularly weird looking orchids that were all names after various heads of state. I really like to the prince of Liechtenstein and the president of Iceland ones and there was a Margaret Thatcher and Angela Merkel too. These orchids are all hybrid orchids produced at the gardens which produces a lot of new varieties.


Once I had finished with the orchid garden, I wandered the rest of the gardens some more before heading back the accommodation. Today was my last day in Singapore and I fly out tomorrow. Six days was just enough time for me to see everything that was on my list for Singapore and while it would be nice to spend longer here and relax, it's not very economical to use Singapore for that purpose.


Tomorrow, I fly to... A country that I believe I have not mentioned in this blog at all so far which was added as a last minute addition to the trip for a 15 day visit. Any guesses? (Unless of course I did mention it in passing but have forgotten, in which case ignore this).


New birds:


Pacific Golden Plover

Milky Stork

Mongolian (Lesser Sand) Plover

Painted Stork

Common Redshank

Red-legged Crake

 

As someone who has the pleasure of teaching the IGCSE English Literature syllabus, I'm guessing this is possibly the rather painful "Lionheart":

Centuries, by the sea’s pulmonary,
a vein throbbing humming bumboats –
your trees rise as skyscrapers.
Their ankles lost in swilling water,
as they heave themselves higher
above the mirrored surface.​

Hmmmm. Your lack of enthusiasm is something with which I can empathise!

 

Yes, that's the very one!

I don't understand why that was put in the series of prescribed poems, "Songs Of Ourselves" or whatever pretentious name it was, maybe because it was written by a young person so is supposed to be inspirational to students?

In fact, assuming it's still the same ones as I did two years ago, I found quite a few of the poems in that set slightly disappointing and mostly very samey. Apart from Tiger in the Menagerie of course which I think is great! And then there's a random Blake in there that doesn't make any sense in isolation from the rest of Songs of Innocence/Experience.

Anyway, I must avoid going off on one!

 

How did you do that? I tried to type that the other day and ZooChat censored it!

 

Interesting! When I still lived there (2006-2009) I remember a crocodile at Sungei Buloh (or in Singapore in general) being quite a big deal, with signs around the visitor centre and boardwalks specifically saying a crocodile had been spotted recently etc... How many individuals did you see? I wonder if there are actually more crocodiles now than there were then, or if they just seemed like a bigger deal because I lived there as a child.
I think seeing snakes is indeed not uncommon in Sungei Buloh, as I vividly remember seeing Oriental whip snakes there at least three times, when I didn't even really know how to look for snakes... Same goes for the Wagler's pit vipers at Bukit Timah, I remember those well and have a few pictures from back then too.

 

Having just had a quick look at a map of Asia, and my guesses would be either Burma, Cambodia or Vietnam. The Philippines would be my 4th choice.