First Come First Serve

Traditionally, monsoon period also means that is good time to go for bird watching. Lots of migratory birds will stop over here for the next 3 months to re-fuel their energy after long journey here to avoid the cold winter from the north. Other than Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve, Central Catchment area, neighbourhood parks are all good place to start. I head to Pulau Ubin last week end to try my luck.
The first thing that I notice is that lots of grey heron (Ardea cinerea)here are changing to the breeding plumage, with their bill changed to orange or reddish colour such as the one on top.
This grey heron first perch on this tree but was fast facing unwanted guests - flock of crows! This poor heron took quite some times to get some peace! However, before the heron able to rest, here comes another guest - a competitor!Unwilling to share this prime area, the heron protest to this uninvited guest by raising up both wings!

Both heron trying to fight for this prime area and unwilling to give way.
Looks like both are really serious and a fight is unavoidable!

The heron on the left seems to be gaining ground, so far no physical contact yet.

For the next 2 minutes, the stand off continues and both heron are trying to scare opponent away without any physical contact.

The saga continue for another minute and the heron on the right show sign of retreat...

The heron on the right finally gave up and flew away and end the saga.

It is very common for birds to fight for 'prime area' especially branches that with good vantage point.

Night Trip to Semakau

I was back to Semakau yesterday for the Project Semakau Hunting Seeking Survey. It was raining almost island wide while I'm on the way to Marina South Pier to get on board the boat to Semakau.

It was still drizzling when we starts the survey and soon clear up and the survey can starts as planned. I partnered with Eliza and managed to finish our survey around 7.30pm. It was already total darkness and we need to rely on our torch light to walk around. We have about 30mins before the schedule time of pick up, so we explore the area not in the survey.
I saw this real tiny Crown fish hide in this anemone. Can you spot it?

Looks like the Nobel Volute (Cymbiola nobilis) is very productive, seen them laying egg through out the year.
I saw another Volute that also busy laying egg, this one is bigger in size.This Telescopium shell was larger than 10cm! Wow!

Look carefully on the pincers, not the usual sharp end but a spoon shape instead. This is a Spoon tip crab (Etisus laevimanus). Although we are at the inter-tidal area, we saw this snake usually found at the mangrove area, a Dog Face water snake (Cerberus rynchops).

A close up look at the snake and too son it was time to get back to the meeting point. It was a nice trip to walk in the cool weather!