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?

Lower Peirce 2012

12:02 AM  ,  

Originally known as the Kallang River Reservoir, Singapore's second reservoir was impounded across the lower reaches of the Kallang River in 1910. In 1922, it was renamed Peirce Reservoir in commendation of the services of Robert Peirce, who was the municipal engineer of Singapore from 1901 to 1916.
 
In 1975, a major water supply project to develop new water resources was undertaken to support Singapore's rapid housing and industrialisation programmes. A dam was constructed at the upper reaches of the Peirce Reservoir, forming the Upper and Lower Peirce Reservoirs, and was officially opened by then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew on 27 February 1977.
 
It is 6 hectares in size and contains many trees that are over 100 years old. There is a Lower Peirce Trail, which is a 900-metre boardwalk that takes visitors through a mature secondary forest. The reservoir is the source of the Kallang River, the longest river in Singapore.
  
Lower Pierce Reservoir Park has long been my favourite nature spot, having spotted a flying lemur, a two-tailed skink, and many different interesting spiders, centipedes and fauna here over the years.
   
March 2012
Conditions : Damp
Cloud Cover : Overcast
Time : Mid-Late Morning
A well-hidden lizard was sprawled on a tree trunk near the entrance. 
Had thought it was a draco, but it had no tell-tale flaps. Tail looks new though...
  
  The Common Flashwing, a forest damsel, was near the entrance too, steps away from the lizard. 
Note how the wings appear to glow with the use of the flash...
 
 
 Spotted a variety of beetles today, including a "leopard print" one!
  
 
Could not identify some of these creatures I saw - an insect with waving horns and a caterpillar nested in a tree trunk...
  
Saw a mealy bug with its ant buddies, some termites still out near mid-day, an orb-webber near the forest floor and one of those notorious centipedes, once again near the railings. When I told one of the passers-by about the centipede, she firmly told her children not to "hold the railings any more"!

 
 Most amazing find today was a Daddy-Long-Legs with a width wider than my outstretched palm! See the spike on its back? When a droplet of water collected on its body, it lowered its incredibly long legs to land the water on the tree trunk!
The full albums are available at:
  
Source


    Read More
    Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)