homing.....to jurong bird park

i was at one side of the pang sua canal, across from warren country club, when i saw this flock of egrets resting on the railings. at around 5.30 p.m. another flock came winging towards them. as if as one, all of them took off and joined the flying flock. it seemed like they were collecting everyone to fly back to their nesting place at jurong.

most of these egrets nest at jurong birdpark but spread out all over the island during the day to find food.

the little egret is the smallest and most common egret in singapore. singapore receives a good concentration of these migrants during the winter (september-may).

i come across the little egrets all over the island, especially the western part of it. they can be found on open fields, near waterways, especially canals, and at the edge of ponds and reservoirs. they can also be found along the coastal areas.

little egrets are the liveliest hunters among herons and egrets, with a wide variety of techniques. they may patiently stalk prey in shallow waters. or stand on one leg and stir the mud with the other to scare up prey. or better yet, stand on one leg and wave the other bright yellow foot over the water surface to lure aquatic prey into range.

they eats fish, crustaceans and insects.

prunus-petai trail @ macritchie

the 3km nature walk along the prunus-petai trail is a good introduction for any newcomer to walking/hiking at our nature reserves. the prunus and the petai trails are board walks.

the petai trail is actually a continuation of the prunus. you can finish your walk by taking the gravel track of the macritchie nature trail. when you come to the end of the petai trail, turn right onto the macritchie trail. taking the left will lead you to the jelutong trail and the tree-top walk.

the 3km walk is correctly graded an easy walk/hike, which can be completed within the hour. at the start of the board walk, you can feed the hundreds of tinfoil barbs in the reservoir. (they have now put up notices to advise people against feeding the fish.) there are so many of them that the crumbs disappear the moment they hit the water.

the tinfoil barb is a fish that is often available in pet shops and sold to the beginning aquarist but it is not the best choice for those beginning in the freshwater hobby. the tinfoil barb requires a very large tank, at least 284 litres because of its potential adult size of 32 cm.

they like to have lots of space for swimming and they are indeed fast swimmers. they also like to jump out of tanks that don't have tight fitting hoods. tin foil barbs will accept most fish food, including flakes, pellets, frozen and freeze-dried foods. they will also go after your live plants and any smaller fish if given the opportunity.

today, i came across a troop of monkeys playing in the shallows of the reservoir. some were on the board walk but a number of them went to play in the water. like playful children, they were having a splashing time in the water.

all along the two trails, there are information sign boards telling you more about the flora and fauna that you will see along the way.

whenever i go for my walk, i do not park my car in the macritchie car park as it is a hassle when you want to exit macritchie and get onto leonie road. i usually park my car along one of the roads in the westlake private housing estate or along the stretch of road leading to the little sisters of the poor.

scenes @ kranji

kranji is one of the few places you can escape to when you need peace and quiet. scenic spots are aplenty although there are also eye-sores like the flotsam at the water edge near the kranji park.
there are also some unusual features like the bus-stop kind of shelter in the middle of the fishing ground and the row of transmitting towers which can be seen in one of the pictures.

kranji is quite similar to lower seletar in that the dam/road separates the reservoir from the sea. so, on one side you have fresh reservoir water and on the other side you have salty sea water.

this nine-hectare park has two designated fishing areas where enthusiasts can cast their lines while watching the colourful king-fishers catch their prey.

constructed in 1979, the park also has a children's playground.

the transmitting towers are used by bbc far eastern service and by singapore's media corp. not many people know of the location of the station at turut track.

among the flotsam that was washed up by the tide and waves were some plastic flower pots, lots of mineral water bottles, containers for packing food and part of a road barrier.

i was curious to know why there was such a structure - the shelter - at the park. the park supervisor explained to me that it was meant for anglers and other park users to seek protection from the rain. i find that it is a nice place to rest or even take an afternoon nap as it is cool and breezy.

upper boon keng/kallang bahru park connector \

the more parks i visit, the more appreciative i am of the work being done by national park board to make singapore a more liveable place for us. it is a pity that not as many singaporeans and other residents are taking advantage of the excellent facilities and amenities provided by national park board.

the upper boon keng and kallang bahru park seems under utilised and under visited in comparison with parks like bukit batok nature park and macritchie reservoir park. at eight in the morning, you find the odd joggers and isolated groups doing calisthenics type of exercises.

then there are residents who use the jogging or cycling track as a short cut to the bus stop or their work place. much unlike at bukit batok where you can hardly find a parking space at the car park - which has around 124 parking lots.

there are a few nice bridges here that span the river. along a certain stretch there are barbeque pits. rounding the bend, i came across this attractive chinese temple. it is called chwee kang beo (in hokkien) or shui jiang miao (in mandarin).

the water in the river is so clean that, on a warm day, you will be tempted to have a dip in it if bathing facilities are made available at the park. it is also teeming with fish. as you walk along the path beside the river, you will come across schools of fish. i saw a large fish - about half a metre long - swimming in the middle of the river. even the cat and the birds seem to know that there is food in the river.

tulous - hakka's earth buildings

my friend victor samuel and his wife helen, both retired, went with their church friend jason, who retired when he was in his forties, to yongding county in southern china. they made the trip together with 16 members of the s'pore adventurers' club.

they flew tiger airways to quangzhou. from there, they took the night train to yongding. helen complained that she could not sleep a wink during the ride.

i was at victor's place for dinner on friday. after dinner, he showed me all the 600 pictures that he had taken with his digital camera.

a lot of the pictures showed the tulous which the americans had mistakenly thought were missile launching silos.

each tulou will usually house around 20 families with about 100 people in total. the houses are built around a main courtyard to allow in light and air, and to house livestock. they have wells and complex drainage systems so they can be completely self-sufficient for long periods of time.

the walls are about a metre thick and the doors are bolted. the ground floor has slits for rifles, the second floor is for storing grains or rice, and the third and fourth floors are inhabited. they are effectively fortified villages.

from his pictures, i could see that every tulou has a stream or river flowing in front of it. it seems that the hakka people believe water will bring luck to them, especially if the water is flowing in front of the house.not all tulous are round.

in fact, there are more square tulous than round ones in china. most young people have moved out of their traditional homes. those who still occupy the tulous are the elderly people and young children

reflection in kallang and lake matheson

(in new zealand)

this reflection of buildings in the kallang river reminds me of our first trip to new zealand. we had been so excited about the view to be had at the mirror lake that we did not mind the forty minutes walk from the road to the viewing platform.

however, we were thoroughly disappointed because all we saw was the dull water of the lake sans the refections of the southern alps. the conditions that particular day were not suitable for any picture perfect image in the water.

about 6km from the fox village on the gillispies beach road, lake matheson is a tiny lake well protected from the wind. this means the waters are often incredibly still. not everyone who goes there get to witness the spectacular sight.

it seems the best chances to see the reflections is in the morning. at lake matheson, nature has combined exactly the right ingredients to create truly stunning reflections of new zealand's highest peaks - aoraki (mount cook) and mount tasman. the waters of lake matheson are dark brown, so on a calm day they create the ideal reflective surface.

the colour is caused by natural leaching of organic matter from the surrounding native forest floor. by a happy coincidence, the mountains to the east are perfectly positioned to reflect in the lake.

i captured this reflection of the buildings at bendemeer in the kallang river when i went for my morning walk at about 7.15 a.m. today.

maid in the wrong toilet?

i was very sure that i had entered the correct toilet. still, i was taken aback when i saw this young woman in the men's toilet. she was holding onto this feeble old man who walked with the aid of a walking stick.

i proceeded to do my business at one of the urinals with my back turned towards them. another person who came in after me decided, out of modesty, to use one of the cubicles.

wonder if the maid had to help the man unzip his fly since he was so weak as to require the assistance of the maid in the toilet.

getting into the wrong toilet is not an uncommon experience. it happens to all of us. sometimes ladies go mistakenly into a gent's toilet and vice versa. i remember a lady colleague of mine who made this kind of mistake. when she told us about it, we asked if she had seen 'the firing range' in the gents. she said she did but went ahead to use it anyway as there was no one inside.

i have entered a wrong sex toilet more than once. the moment i realised my mistake, i would make a quick exit. but there was one instance when i realised the mistake only after i had finished using the toilet.

disused quarry at bukit timah nature reserve

today, i parked my car outside the moe dairy farm adventure camp - the only moe camp of which i have not seen the inside - and walked the disused road. sometimes, i think, i tread without realizing the danger i may be getting myself into.

just like the kranji nature trail, this road was totally deserted. i did not meet a single soul along the entire walk. the walk took me to a disused granite quarry. the quarry was fenced up and the gate was padlocked. there were certain areas where the water appeared to be quite shallow.

however, it is quite difficult to tell just by looking. concrete steps and slopes have been constructed just outside the fence. i think this is to facilitate water overflowing from the pond. the water would cascade down the steps and flow down the slopes to the drains.

i took a different route to get back to the dairy farm campsite. i walked alongside the railway track and managed to get to railway mall.

since then i have gone back to this disused quarry a few times. i found out that the name for it is the singaore quarry. at the moment, some development is taking place here as the singapore quarry will become part of the dairy farm nature park. a platform is being built over the edge of the quarry pond.

recycling aluminium cans

you may be wondering: in these hard times, why aren't more people rummaging the bins for aluminium cans. the reason is simple. the price of scrap metal has plummetted to such a level that it is not worth the effort to collect these cans. aluminium used to fetch s$2.00 a kilo. today, it is about $0.70/kg.

anything made of aluminium can be recycled repeatedly: not only cans, but aluminium foil, plates and pie molds, window frames, garden furniture and automotive components are melted down and used to make the same products again.

used aluminium cans can be recycled to make new aluminium cans, aluminium windows can be recycled to make new aluminium windows and old aluminium engine blocks to make new ones. the recycling rate for aluminium cans is already above 90% in countries like brazil and japan.
the aluminium industry has set up various schemes to encourage recycling in many countries.

aluminium beverage cans can be recycled by individuals and groups and most countries have a national can recycling association which offers advice, support, and can put collectors in touch with purchasing organisations.

process scrap at all stages is meticulously collected and sorted by alloy by all aluminium companies and most customer organisations. unlike other metals, scrap aluminium has significant value and commands good market prices.

in the case of beverage cans, the process uses gas collected from burning off the volatile substances in can coatings to provide heat for the process. every last bit of energy is used.

used beverage cans are normally back on supermarket shelves as new beverage cans in 6-8 weeks in those countries which have dedicated can collecting and recycling schemes.

the recycling of aluminium beverage cans eliminates waste. it saves energy, conserves natural resources, reduces use of city landfills and provides added revenue for recyclers, charities and local town government. the aluminium can is therefore good news for the environment and good for the economy.

the aluminium can is 100% recyclable; there are no labels or covers to be removed. today's aluminium can requires about 40% less metal than the can made 25 years ago; hence the need for less energy and less raw material per can.

cans made from aluminium used to be worth 6 to 20 times more than any other used packaging material. aluminium is the only packaging material that more than covers the cost of its own collection and processing at recycling centres.

chemperai-jering-lornie trails

today, walked the boardwalks of chemperai and jering trails and returned by way of the well-used lornie trail. the distance of this route is slightly longer than the prunus-petai boardwalk, about 4.8km.

this stretch hugs the water-edge all the way. however, it does not seem to be as popular as the prunus-petai trail. the chemperai trail is longer than the jering. along both walks, you will come across the tinfoil barbs; at chemperai, they are found near the start of the boardwalk while at jering, they are found at the end of it. in the shallows, i also saw a 45cm aruan -snakehead fish - swimming about nonchalantly, with no fear or regard for humans.

along the chemperai, there is a tree overhanging the water and they have modified the walk to accommodate this leaning tree. they have erected supports for the trunk of the tree and because it is so low, they have lowered the height of the boardwalk at this point.

somewhere, in between the two boardwalks, there is an old chinese tombstone built right at the water edge. some chinese characters carved on the vertical slab reveals the year of death as 1876 and the surname of the deceased as fan. it has been there for around 130 years.

bidadari christian & muslim/hindu cemeteries

under the 1998 master plan, the bidadari cemetery sites along upper serangoon road would be developed into high-density housing and was projected to yield about 12,000 public-housing dwelling units. there would be modem amenities and facilities to complement the housing, including a park and other open spaces. the bidadari cemeteries were opened in 1907.

"bidadari" was derived from the sanskrit word "widyadari"; meaning a nymph or fairy. these cemeteries are multi-ethnic and religious burial grounds where protestants, catholics, singhalese, hindus and muslims were buried. the cemeteries were officially closed in 1972. on the christian side, near the beautiful ornate gate at the central entrance, there once stood a small chapel where services were held. it was torn down in the 1980s.

today, all the graves have been exhumed. it is now an open park with the woodleigh mrt station saddling the one-time divide between the christian and muslim cemeteries. the authorities have left many of the trees in tact; you can see quite a number of elegant mature trees. there is also this interesting 'clump' where two different types of trees seem to have merged into one.