Some urban wildlife

While urban areas, when compared with natural ones are almost devoid of wildlife, one just need to be observant enough to spot little critters that managed to adapt to living in this unique habitat. For many people in Singapore, these animals might just be the only ones which they know off considering how little our natural habitats are left. Hopefully they are not even oblivious to these!

A Pink Neck Green Pigeon feeding on the fruits of MacArthur’s Palm (Ptychosperma macarthurii). This exotic palm can apparently survive in shaded areas and thus it is very common to see them in degraded secondary forests, spread by birds like this.

If not for who A told me about the ‘eyes’ of the Turn in the Wind plant, Mallotus paniculatus, I would not have noticed them. Apparently, it can secrete some juicy stuff which attract these ants to drink.

Domestic cats are always common sight. Though they wonder around freely in the neighbourhood, many of them are taken care of by kind souls who feed them everyday. This feline above was especially adorable. It just sat comfortably on my bag when I put it down to take some pictures of a plant.

A pool of water accumulated at a concrete path provided a nice bath for these Rock Pigeons.

I was rather surprised to find a group of Scaly Breasted Munias right in the middle of the oldest estate in Singapore. These birds were poking at the flowers of the Coat Buttons (Tridax procumbens). No idea why though.

Mistletoes and some weird and nice sights

Time for some random but what I thought are interesting plants which I encountered recently.

This is a newly germinated seedling of a common mistletoe, Macrosolen cocohinensis on a wild Cinnamon plant, Cinnamonum iners. The mistletoe is a hemiparasite, meaning that the sucker which is attached to the host will grow its haustoria (its ‘roots’) into the plant and obtained its nutrients from there. It is only partially parasitic (hence ‘hemi’), since it can still make food from its green leaves.

Here is another Macrosolen cochinchinensis, but this time on a starfruit tree.

You can see its trailing suckers. Another very common mistletoe that we can find in our urban environment is Dendrophthoe pentandra. That species one have pink instead of yellow flowers, and more irregularly shaped leaves.

This Syzygium aqueum or Water Apple tree was infested by the Pagoda bagworm moth. This bagworm eats by cutting circles on the leaves, thus making the leaves of this plant seemed to be ‘hole-punched’ many times.

Another Syzygium, this time S. polyanthum are flowering! Looks quite impressive when I stood under the tree and glance up at this sea of small white pom-pom like flowers.

And finally, this was what fascinates me most~ Yellowish white sap seems to be oozing out from this big Khaya grandifoliola tree. However, this has already solidified into hard resin. Quite cool~