There was a lot to do! Seagrass monitoring for most of the Team, while Andy led some Team members to remove the driftnets we last saw on this shore on our Dead Fish Patrol.I tried to catch up with Andy after I finished with monitoring, but missed them. Instead, I had a quick look at this shore. Next to House No. 1 and overlooking Pulau Sekudu are broad expanses of intertidal flats, with two large Perepat (Sonneratia alba) trees.
These two Perepat have Heritage Tree status. They sure are large! According to the Heritage Tree register, one has a girth of 5m and height 14m, the other with girth 4.25m and height 16m.
The shore in front of House No. 1 seems to be well. The tide wasn't very low and was already incoming, but I saw a lot of zoanthids (Order Zoanthidea) near the water line.
There were also several Haddon's carpet anemones (Stichodactyla haddoni) which looked in good health (not yellow or bloated).
The tide was too high to check out the marine life near the jetty.
But on the way back to the high shore, I saw a small Garlic bread sea cucumber (Holothuria scabra). There were lush growths of Spoon seagrasses (Halophila ovalis) too.
I caught up with the rest of the Team and heard of some other special sightings such as Sand stars (Astropecten sp.), a few Common sea stars (Archaster typicus), a Lined moon snail (Natica lineata). There were also lots of Noble volutes (Cymbiola nobilis). Kok Sheng did a much more thorough survey of the main shore and shared what he saw on his Chek Jawa project blog.
It was a very windy day full of shorebirds zooming about on the seagrass meadows. They looked fat and sleek, probably getting ready for their long migration northwards for the summer breeding season.
And we also saw a pair of raptors circling high above Chek Jawa as we started our work.
A last look at the shore as the sunset.
TeamSeagrass allows ordinary people to make a difference for our shores and see the shores for themselves. The annual TeamSeagrass orientation session is planned for March, so this is a great time to join the Team. More about the Team on the TeamSeagrass blog.How to join? Simply email these details
(a) your full name
(b) your age
(c) your email address
(d) your contact number
(e) any previous experience
to Ria at hello@wildsingapore.com, please put "TeamSeagrass" in your subject header.
Other blog posts about this trip
- Chek Jawa on the teamseagrass blog.
- 3 years after the mass mortality event by Kok Sheng on his Chek Jawa Mortality and Recruitment Project blog.
- Chek Jawa by James on his Singapore Nature blog.
