Cycling trip to Punggol End

Decided on a cycling trip to Punggol End for a walk where I met with L today.

Some development on-going here. Think this should be the artificial river the cuts through Punggol estate.

An exotic climber that has escaped cultivated and practically engulfed this sea almond tree, the Drunken Sailor, Quisqualis indica.

The droopling flowers is probably the reason why it is ‘Drunken’.

We bashed into the rubber forest, but only for awhile, as there were too many mosquitoes biting me. So much love for me =.=’’

Some kampung remnants in the forest.

Fruits of a common climber, Fibraurea tinctoria.

While looking at this Cacao tree, Theobroma cacao…

I spotted a flash of bright green and realised that it was a whip snake! Cool~

Lastly, we took a walk along the developing promenade at Punggol End beach and saw two Chinese collecting nerite snails. Looking at the size of the bulk, they probably got more then 50 snails…

A sky diving caterpillar

Being irritated from entangling in the silk threads of caterpillars sky diving from our urban yellow flame trees, Peltophorum pterocarpum. I collected one caterpillar to rear and see what moth species it is.

Here is the caterpillar ‘sky diver’. Caterpillars lay safety threads when they are crawling so that in case they fall off, they can still climb back up to their original position using their thread.

A close up shot of it.

After a week, the caterpillar pupated and morphed into a nice moth. If I’m not wrong, this should be Chiasmia emersaria, from the family Geometridae.

Alas, after taking some pictures of it in my room, it flew off and I can’t locate it to release outside…

Plant survey at Semakau

KY, L and I were over at Semakau for an overnight trip to help with a flora survey for Project Semakau over the weekend.

It wasn’t easy surveying Semakau and a big factor is due to its infamous swarming mosquitoes. Even though I covered myself from head to toe, they still managed to bite through my clothing.

Here are a few of the plants we found during the trip.

Yummy looking fruits of Cayratia trifolia.

A young sapling of Guioa pleuropteris. Pretty common here.

What we thought was an interesting remnant of a Syzygium flowers actually belonged to an exotic tree, Syzygium malaccense.

We came across these 2 ponds. Prefect breeding place for mozzies!

Derris scandens, another coastal climber besides our more common congener Derris trifoliata.

RY found this Tussock month caterpillar feeding on an Acacia auriculiformis leaf.

The rare seashore bat lily, Tacca leontopetaloides.

Here is RY taking photos of the flowers of Derris scandens. Unfortunately, a lot of my photos were screwed because of my camera settings.

Lots of Guettarda speciosa fruiting.

The female Caesalpinia bonduc, another rare coastal plant was fruiting. The attractive pearly seed inside need to be scarified before it can germinate.

Lastly, RY found a sapling of Xylocarpus rumphii!

Before and After

High Tide~

Low Tide~

@ Pulau Semakau~ More about our trip coming up soon~

Mangrove ‘Alba’

Its been more than a year (or perhaps more than that) since Sungei Punggol was dammed.

A view from Anchorpoint community centre. Many dead trees, that I remembered as Avicennia alba, now stood as a ghostly reminder of their past presence. This is to be expected, since this tree is not known to be freshwater tolerant.

‘Alba’ means white, referring to the white underside of its leaves. Now, I guess we can refer to its barren white trunk and branches.

The good old days~

 

Dated 1970, selling at 60 cents~

When Ministry of Law and Ministry of National Development is of one entity~