Starting the work day with a smile! :D

Sometimes friends/acquaintances ask me why I can tahan working on an island (no, they are NOT referring to Singapore) and despite the extra travel time (and the occasional risk of being stranded), I can say that my work place is pretty special. Whilst literally living the island life (living in an island city state, working on a small island off the "mainland" ;p) I sometimes do lose track of the uniqueness of our workspace, and today we were pleasantly surprised as the boat berthed at St John's Island......

As usual, most of us were catching our 40 winks on the boat, and as the boat was coming alongside the jetty, someone exclaimed "Dolphins!" "Huh? Where?" The few of us who were awake quickly looked out the window to try and spot theses charismatic marine mammals, and sure enough, we saw a sleek grey body breaching the surface of the tranquil waters. And then it was gone again. And then it appeared, further away. Not much surface activity but at least we saw one or two of these strong swimmers as we arrived at work ^_^ Who else can boast of seeing WILD DOLPHINS greeting them near their workplace every once in a while? Unfortunately, they were a bit far for my C905 to be of any use so no photos from me. Will update if I come across any colleagues who managed to take any.
Have marked out on this Google Map the rough location of this sighting.

Click on my "dolphins" tag on the left to read about some of my previous sightings (or just click here)

Click for the rambling...

Ghostly encounters and a little fisher

First off....
HAPPY WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY EVERYBODY!!!

Am starting to feel that I'm getting too old to be doing intertidals for a stretch of 5 consecutive days and heading to work immediately after.... And it sure doesn't help that the sun has been utterly relentless for most of the mornings this week! So here's a couple of highlights from my week of mornings spent in the sun~


(1) Horned-eyed ghost crabs (Ocypode ceratophthalmus)
Generally more often seen at night/dusk/dawn but the ones at St John's Island were rather active during the day! The first few ones that we came across were half buried and very well camouflage, and we literally stumbled upon them as we were walking around. Here's one "winking" at/for the camera even!

The ones higher up on the shore were busy digging out their little burrows, popping out every once in a while to throw out a messy pile of sand. The little black dots scattered around the burrows are actually little Casuarina fruits.



And a closer view of these little ghostly critters. Guess it's a good thing that we saw quite a few adult individuals scurrying around, as well as a number of smaller holes with the same messy "thrown sand", even though there's regular beach cleaning around the area?

For more information about these crabs:
http://www.wildsingapore.com/wildfacts/crustacea/crab/ocypodoidea/ceratophthalmus.htm
http://www.wildsingapore.com/wildfacts/crustacea/crab/ocypodoidea/ocypode.htm
http://www.wildsingapore.com/wildfacts/crustacea/crab/ocypodoidea/ocypodoidea.htm


(2) Collared kingfisher (Halcyon chloris)
There were also at least 2 collared kingfishers out and about with us on almost all the days. Feel so lucky that I managed a quick shot of one of them perched on the pipe, and the next shot on the right even shows a small fish that it caught! Usually only manage to catch them while they're perched up on one of the trees on the island.

For more on this commonly seen kingfisher:
http://www.naturia.per.sg/buloh/birds/Halcyon_chloris.htm

Do click on the photos if you would like a look at the larger sized images.

Click for the rambling...

Good Friday on St John's Island

Sorry that this post is coming way late. The coral workshop is some what logistically challenging and there's not too much free time for me to do up this post. Least ways not after I have grabbed my photos and gotten some off other photographers. >.< Boy was the beach on St John's crowded on Good Friday! My Geography teacher from secondary school, Mrs Chua, contacted me about arranging for a guided nature walk for her friends and their family. Interestingly enough, Mrs Chua also facilitated my first ever visit to St John's Island for a geography fieldtrip. That trip stuck in our memories mainly due to the fact that after visiting the mangroves, we were caught in a rather heavy downpour at the rocky cliffs. At least this time around we had better luck with the weather.

Since I was in the middle of the SECORE workshop, and we made the arrangements in less than a week, it was a rather informal affair with Abby (who also happened to be on St John's for the workshop) kindly helping to guide half the group. It was nice sharing to a group of enthusiastic family group. Lots of questions asked, and a couple of them were also pointing out some of the raptors that were flying around the vegetation on the rocky cliff!

The group kept us pretty busy with their zeal for nature, and we were constantly talking and sharing stories with the group, so much so that I actually didn't take many shots of the organisms.

In fact, we stayed out until the tide was starting to look like it would cut off our route back! Some of the group was still heading further along the rocky shore at this point, and we had to quickly start ushering people back to the entry point.

But of course, spending Good Friday out at the shores would call for a group shot, and Abby was quickly loaded with an assortment of cameras to help with that. Really couldn't resist sneaking in a shot of her managing at least 5 cameras!!!!!

At the end of the walk, Mrs Chua and another geography teacher took over for the geography portion of their outing. The students in the group did a little exercise in beach profiling while Abby and I headed back to TMSI to check on the preparations for the first night of expected coral spawning before the group came up to TMSI.

Dr Michael Laterveer (Rotterdam Zoo) was kind enough to do a quick presentation for the group, introducing them corals, mass spawning, and the work that we hoped to get done during the ongoing SECORE workshop.

The visit was wrapped up with a quick peek at more marine life in the TMSI touchpool before the group headed back to the beach for a picnic lunch. ^_^

It's also heartening to read that the visit to St John's turned out pretty well in spite of the rushing here and there! Certainly hope the group would come back to St John's for another visit!

Click for the rambling...

SECORE workshop - setting up

A continuation from my previous post, the folks involved in the our first ever coral spawning workshop aka SECORE workshop here in Singapore came over to the Tropical Marine Science Institute facilities on St John's Island yesterday, and Manon has done up a real quick photo blog of yesterday's orientation and settling in.

Settling in including having a quick intro to TMSI, as well as round 1 of talks/presentations by the various partners. Dr Paul Erftermeijer (Deltares) gave an intro to some of the research that Deltares does, as well as the research areas that Singapore Delft Water Alliance covers. Dr Mary Hagedorn (Smithsonian Institution/HIMB) followed that with talking about some threats to coral reefs and how freezing coral sperm may help in preserving some genetic diversity. Dr Michael Laterveer (Rotterdam Zoo) wrapped up the series of talks with a summary of what was done in the previous 4 SECORE workshops that were conducted in Rotterdam and Puerto Rico.

So on to today.... Or at least the first half of the day. Our shopping crew headed back to mainland Singapore to get piping, hardware, tubing, liquid nitrogen, more drinks and snacks, etc. that would be required to tide us over the long Easter weekend as we get busy with the spawning. Here you can see one of the DBS students in discussion with Michael on setting up rearing bins for the coral babies. Our many thanks go out to Abby, Ned, Mark, Roy, and Juward who spent the morning rushing around for the stuff that we needed, especially for getting everything in time to meet the mid-day ferry back to St John's!


The other (luckier?) team went out to Kusu to get some coral colonies for spawning in the tank. (Yes, Jamie's in the back of a vehicle again XD) Hopefully Mei Lin or Siti would share what happened during the dive. We should find out further tonight if the colonies we have in the tanks spawn. Can't wait!


And what about the rest of us who stayed on at St John's? Here's Dr Mary Hagedorn looking pretty cheery as she prepares for the talk on coral reproduction and spawning that she's currently giving as I'm quickly finishing up this post. And me? I was hoping to get this out before lunch in between troubleshooting here and there. Time to give today's talks my full attention, and we still need to sort out the dive roster!

Click for the rambling...

Dolphins in Singapore!!!

Back to work dives with the lab. Today was supposed
to be spent helping the Honors kids get fragments and recruits for their experiments. You can see how excited SY was at the start of the day...


Of course, at ard 12:15h we did indeed find something REALLY EXCITING!!! Indo-pacific humpback/Chinese white dolphins! (also know locally as pink dolphins) Not just a few but an entire family group of possibly 10 or so near the linkage between St John's Island and Lazarus. There were the smaller, grey juveniles as well as the larger almost white-pinkish adults. So cool!! My first dolphin sighting in Singapore!! Enough said, here are the photos and videos that Marco and I took ^^

The photos can only be described as a gallery of random dolphin body parts, but amazingly enough, Marco managed to take shots of just about every part of the dolphins!! Dude, you rock!!



And of course, if a picture paints a thousand words, videos portray a gadzilliong more ^^ Do excuse the Blair Witch feel of the videos since we were on the boat, putting our digicams to their max zoom....Enjoy!!



At least we know that some of our marine mammals still frolick in our waters despite developments like the connection between St John's Island and Lazarus. Now, if only mantas and whalesharks would appear in Singapore too~~~

SY has more photos and videos here. And below are the Wiki links to Humpback dolphins and Sousa chinensis chinensis:
(1) Humpback dolphins
(2) Chinese White dolphins

Click for the rambling...