Monday, 26 November 2007

Mucking around @ Berlayar Creek

Spent last evening with 4 fellow guides at the newly done up area at Labrador Park, at the mangrove area lining Berlayar Creek (as well as the intertidal flats at the creek mouth).
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Unlike most of my low tide posts, this one actually has more people photos than nature photos! Been about a year since I last explored mangroves, and sure enough, I got stuck at one point. Left leg was stuck knee deep and my two heroes (July and Andy) promptly whipped out their cameras for shots before coming to my rescue, resulting in Andy getting a turn immobilised in mud.
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Berlayar Creek is actually quite a nice airy stream to walk up (if you don't mind getting your mud treatment for your skin at the same time), but alas, you can still see "civilisation" encroaching into this little idyllic patch of nature with our multistorey buildings peeping over the trees.
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Walking slowly in mud definitely pays off (less chance of slipping, though you have to take care not to sink too far in) in the form of these snails! The red ones are really tiny, measuring a few mm!
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Horseshoe crabs seem to also frequent this area since we found a few that got entangled in some abandoned? nets. The mangrove patch and the intertidal area in front of the stream mouth had quite a number of large nets, most likly abandoned. Probably need to organise some cleanup effort during the next spring low to clean those nets up. And keep our fingers crossed that in the mean time, no more animals get trapped and die there...
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After a short exploration (maybe about a quarter way up the creek), we decided to whimp out play it safe and make for more familiar grounds rather than risk getting stuck in mud with the tide coming in. Any guesses to who belongs to which bootie?
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Time to hit the intertidal shore!! First time on this portion of Labrador, and the substrate ranges from sandy to rocky with some Halophila ovalis stretches and Ulva spp. patches here and there.
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Markings of a sand bubbler crab. These rather common residents of sandy shores are really neat making all those little balls of sand, this one looks like a giant stomped on a picture of Singapore giving it a more banana looking shape! These sand balls are a result of the little crabbies sifting through sand for bits of food.
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And of course, since this is an informal NHC guides exploration, we had to be welcomed by our "relatives" like this striped hermit crab here! And it now bids you goodbye~~
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2 comments:

Kok Sheng said...

i want to visit! haha

Justin Sng said...

Kok Sheng, I was there too... blah...