The Flying Saucer At Sunset

Lenticular clouds (Altocumulus lenticularis) are stationary lens-shaped clouds with a smooth layered appearance that form in the troposphere, usually above mountain ranges. One was spotted in Singapore recently...

Eyes Of 30,000 Honeycombs

With 30,000 individual facets, dragonflies have the most number of facets among insects. Each facet, or ommatidia, creates its own image, and the dragonfly brain has eight pairs of descending visual neurons to compile those thousands of images into one picture...

A Kaleidoscope Of Colours, Shapes And Patterns

Spectacular and innovative in design, the Flower Dome replicates the cool-dry climate of Mediterranean regions like South Africa, California and parts of Spain and Italy. Home to a collection of plants from deserts all over the world, it showcases the adaptations of plants to arid environments...

Lightning Strikes, Not Once, But Many Times

Unlike light, lightning does not travel in a straight line. Instead, it has many branches. These other branches flashed at the same time as the main strike. The branches are actually the step leaders that were connected to the leader that made it to its target...

Are You My Dinner Tonight?

A T-Rex has 24-26 teeth on its upper jaw and 24 more on its lower jaw. Juveniles have small, sharp blade-shaped teeth to cut flesh, whereas adults have huge, blunt, rounded teeth for crushing bones. Is the T-Rex a bone-crushing scavenger?

The Day After The Full Moon

Singapore
15 February 2014
 
14 February 2014 was the night of the full moon. It was also the night of the Chinese Valentine's Day, falling on the 15th day of the Lunar New Year.
 
The day after the full moon was one full of clouds. For an usually cloudy and windy February, wisps of dark clouds covered a still very bright moon, dulling its pale lemon glow...

  

More photos are available on Merlion Wayfarer Goes Green's Picasa at :
Natural Phenomena - The Moon


  

Lower Peirce Reservoir - The Playful Pitta

Lower Peirce Reservoir
North, Singapore
March 2014

Lower Peirce Reservoir welcomed an uncommon visitor last weekend. It was a visitor that drew droves of bird photographers tracking its every move after a posting on a bird sighting forum.

There were two of them - One near the reservoir and the other near a stream. Each photographer was patiently still, moving only to click the shutter for yet another perfect shot.

And being the performer that it was, this Pitta moluccensis (Blue-Winged Pitta) played around with everyone, first hopping about in enjoyment, looking at everything around it, then pecking playfully at a log.


The photos are taken off a scope with a mobile phone camera, 
generously lent by a friendly birdwatcher...
(Thank you, my friend!)




More photos are available on Merlion Wayfarer Goes Green's Picasa at : 
Aves - Passeriformes - Pittidae (Pittas)