Guided Tour in Sungei Buloh

Hello! This is Xiao Pang! Two days ago, I went to Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve. It was part of the Green Carpet Awards activity so there were two tour guides with us. One of them had a Winnie the Pooh key chain and a lion key chain. The eyes of the lion were huge! We took the Kranji Countryside Express Bus from Kranji Station to Sungei Buloh. It was impossible to walk there because the roads were full of heavy vehicles and there was no proper footpath.

I'm at Sungei Buloh!

Look at Sungei Buloh's mailbox! Isn't it nice?

The latest bus's schedule. The one online wasn't updated!

The lion key chain with huge eyes on the guide's bag.

A poster with a picture of a snowy owl at the entrance.

Another poster! But this time the picture is a puffin! So cute!

When we reached there, our two tour guides were already there waiting for us. Before they brought us into the mangrove, they talked about nature and migratory birds and migration routes and etc. Most of the birds come to Sungei Buloh between October and February. So we were there at the wrong time of the year. Then, the two guides led us to the mangrove and they told us about Fishtail Palm, and how to tell whether a leaf was eaten by a caterpillar or a beetle. A leaf with jagged holes is eaten by a caterpillar. A beetle leaves holes with smooth edges. 

The nine migratory bird routes!

I'm in the picture! Can you spot me?

Look at the beautiful pond behind me!

Next, we came across a pile of poop and our guides explained that the male monitor lizards mark their territories by piling their poop, so that area was a monitor lizard's territory.

Then we continued walking until we saw many, many, many crabs in a tiny puddle of water. The crabs were tiny and they camouflaged very well so sometimes they were quite hard to see. After continuing to walk for a while, we saw a mudskipper! It was brown and muddy and its eyes are little white balls stuck on its head.

Little crab!

Another little crab! But this one is red in colour.

Fat little muskipper. This mudskipper is big compared to other mudskippers.

Next, we continued our way and saw more mudskippers, more crabs and Bakau, also known as Rhizophora, and other plants and animals. We even saw a BIG mudskipper that was very long. We saw the place where the tide comes in and I saw lots of trash in the mangrove. It made me very unhappy to see the mangrove polluted. We also saw horseshoe crabs and the tour guide explained that horseshoe crabs aren't crabs; they belong to the scorpion family. He also said said that the crabs and mudskippers and other animals are food to the birds and that without these animals, there would not be any birds in Sungei Buloh. So, it is very important to protect these animals.

Two mudskippers in the mud!

Bakau has four types of roots - pencil roots, knee roots, stilt roots and loose roots hanging from the tree to absorb oxygen directly from the air as the soil contains a high level of salt and low level of oxygen. There were also some atap trees! Later at dinner time, we ate ice kachang for dessert and there were tree atap seeds in the ice kachang. Some atap seeds are soft, whereas some are hard, the soft ones taste better. Our tour guide even spotted a cicada! The cicada was very noisy! We also saw a red dragonfly and a ginger plant. I don't like the taste of ginger because it tastes horrible! But the ginger plant's flower was very beautiful and its leaves were huge.

Wow, look at the interesting roots behind me!

The sign says Bakau, or Rhizophora.

Do you know those are actually roots?

Pencil and knee roots! Weird names for roots!

Just a bunch of pencil..... roots, again!

Plank roots have a unique snake-like structure.

The stilt roots look like real stilts, curved stilts, that is.

The beautiful mangrove.

Look! There are roots everywhere!

Where the seawater will come in and flood the whole place.

This is where the seawater flows in.The opposite side is Malaysia. I never realised Singapore and Malaysia were so close!

Poor fallen tree due to weak roots.

This is the atap tree's leaves, they are much taller than me!

Atap tree's leaves! Look how tall they are!

The atap tree doesn't have any trunk, weird.

Look at the cicada!

Small little red dragonfly!

Look at the ginger flower! Isn't it beautiful?

The colourful ceiling in the pavilion.

We then left the mangrove area and went to a pavilion which allows people to go birdwatching. There, we wrote a short journal about the tour and submitted them to the tour guides for competition. After that the tour guides led us outside and on our way out, we saw monitor lizards! The tour guides said they needed to go so we bade them goodbye and then after a while we left too.

This river cuts through Singapore!

The monitor lizard is swimming! But the picture is a bit blurry, because it swam very quickly, hard to get a clear picture.

I'm a monitor lizard! Look at my long tongue!

Do you see the trail? It is left behind by a mudskipper.

We took a long time to get home and we stopped to eat dinner on the way back. I learnt from this trip that we should not take nature for granted and to not waste food, water and other things and we should also help save the earth and plants and animals by not littering and keeping this place clean. I don't have anything more to say but remember to read my blog again!

                                                                                                                    ~Xiao Pang 

Dusk at Sungei Buloh.