Guided walk at St. John’s

Today was really a very busy and tiring day for me. I went to a NSS guided walk by Dr Shawn Lum at MacRitchie in the morning, before heading out to guide at St. John’s Island. I will blog about that former trip later since I will need more time to assimilate the information first. Guess this post also probably save my nature blog from turning into a 100% botanical blog. Ha~

Anyway, straight after the morning walk, I immediately headed back home, had my lunch and rushed out to Marina South Pier. Unfortunately, I overslept in the MRT and ended up having to take a cab from Tanjong Pagar. So much for me trying to save up after buying my DSLR and IPhone 4.

Above shows our participants listening attentively to Jun’s brief talk about this island. They are a group of  scouts from a secondary school in Clementi (Sorry for forgetting the name).

They were subsequently brought to the Tropical Marine Science Institute where ML guided them around the facilities.

Thereafter, I was ‘arrowed’ to do a last minute guide at the mangroves, of which I just quickly lead through, since the main attraction is at the intertidal shore.

During the shore walk, we split the group into two, and I was tasked to lead the guys. Here is my lovely assistant guide, Michelle, telling them more about the flower crab moult in her hand.

There were lots of acorn worms pushing hard to get the processed sand from their butt.

An definite attractive for them is this common sea star. Many Sea stars feed by pushing out their stomach and engulf its prey before bringing back in again. At least for this sea star, they are not predators but just feed on the detritus.

Our hunter seekers found this minuscule fish which I have totally no idea what it is. Apparently they also don’t but guess it just looks interesting to show. :P

Snapping shrimps are pretty common today. These animals have an enlarged pincer, and used that to fire a jet of shock wave to stun or kill their prey.

Well, its has been usual practice for me to forget taking enough photos to really give a comprehensive account for my participants to recap here. But I guess what was most important is that they enjoyed themselves, and I think they did. :)

It has been really quite a long long time since I last led a group for a nature walk (the last one was in March). A bit rusty but I think I still have some juice left in me to do a decent walk. Guess I do miss it terribly! And its always worth it to see the smiles of my participants enjoying the nature along with me.

Thanks to Jun for organising the walk~