This morning, a solo survey of Changi starting with a stretch that I've not surveyed before. This stretch is special because it has both rocky shores and seagrassy and sandy areas.
Today, the seagrasses were lush, with lots of sea cucumbers of various kinds. But some signs of distress among some cnidarians. I also had a glimpse of an otter. It saw me and disappeared into the water.
I started from a stretch of shore that I've not surveyed before. It is small and further away from the shore we usually survey, and the tide is usually high by the time I get there in the past. So today, I started there. There are lots of seagrasses here. Mostly
Spoon seagrass but also
Needle seagrass at the low waterline. I didn't see any dugong feeding trails today.
I saw a good variety of sea cucumbers. In the seagrass meadows, the most abundant were
Pink warty sea cucumbers, next most common were
Thorny sea cucumbers. I also saw one
Orange sea cucumbers, one
Purple sea cucumber, one
Beige sea cucumber and one
Plasticky sea cucumber.
Some sea cucumbers were burrowing. I saw many many
Ball sea cucumbers, one
Smooth sea cucumber and one
Garlic sea cucumber.
I didn't see many sea stars. A few medium sized
Sand stars, and one large
Biscuit star. There were also a few
White sea urchins.
I saw a few large
Noble volutes, but not many other kinds of snails.
The
sea fans are still growing near the rocky shores in deeper water. Smaller colonies near the high ground and larger ones in deeper water. But these are only found in areas far from the boardwalk (and line fishing from the boardwalk). I saw much fewer sea fans compared to our last survey here in
Jul 2015.
The most abundant sponge was
Melted chocolate sponges all over the rocky shores. There were small patches of other kinds of sponges. But there was still many patches of
Button zoanthids here. Not very different from what we saw during our last survey here in
Jul 2015.
There are hard corals on this shore too. They are
Zebra corals, encrusting on hard surfaces natural and artificial. I didn't see any that were bleaching.
Most of the
cerianthids I saw looked rather ill. They had short of no tentacles. The little black
Phoronid worms that live with them seemed alright.
More cerianthids with short or no tentacles.
I saw a few
Flowery sea pens that also don't look quite right. Rather pale. I saw one large and one small
Haddon's carpet anemones on the rocky shore and not in the seagrasses. Both were not bleaching.
Fishing goes on at every part of the boardwalk that overlooks the water at high tide. Below these spots, lots of tangled fishing lines. While I was there, a man was using a cast net in deeper water.
There was a thick layer of sediments on much of the rocky areas. That's my footprint. This shore that was affected by
nearby dredging for the six months last year. It remains rather quiet.
I enjoyed a dry and glorious sunrise!
I hope this beautiful mainland shore stays well until we have a chance to survey it again.
