We return to a narrow Changi shore and find it's still doing well. There were a lot of
Pink warty sea cucumbers washed up on the water line on a large portion of the shore. I have no idea why this is so.
This shore was hit by the
Jan 2017 oil spill and scoured by loose stakes rolling on the shore. It's good to see that things are improving here.
Changi is echinoderm heaven. Today, for the first time on Changi, I noticed lots of
Tiny red sea cucumbers. They are a small species and are not baby sea cucumbers. I saw much fewer
Thorny sea cucumbers, a few
Ball sea cucumbers. I saw two
Sea Apple sea cucumbers, and one medium sized
Garlic bread sea cucumber.
There were a lot of
Biscuit sea stars from tiny to medium sized. And some small
Cake sea stars which still had long arms, these arms become shorter as the sea star grows and makes it look more cake-like. I didn't see any
Knobbly sea stars or
Painted sand stars or
Plain sand stars.
I saw many
White sea urchins. Including this half dead one with spines still stuck onto some of its skeleton. These will fall off eventually, leaving the spherical skeleton. I didn't see any signs of
Cake sand dollars today.
The
Stone crab (left) and
Maroon stone crab (right) are often mistaken for one another. It's easier to tell them apart when they are next to one another. The Stone crab has green eyes ringed with red, the Marine stone crab has all red eyes which are closer together.
I tend to see more weird slugs on Changi. Today, I saw one
Volvatella slug, which is a sap-sucking slug which has an external shell!
It was good to see some (but not a lot of)
Fan clam shells and
Gong gong snails. These animals tend to be heavily harvested on this very accessible shore. I didn't notice any signs of the clam take over that we saw in
Feb 2019 at another part of Changi.
I saw a large
Burgundy anemone on the jetty legs! Is this the same as the small one I saw here during our last survey in
Sep 2018? This is the first large one I've seen beyond Pasir Ris. I also came across one common
Peachia anemones, but did not see any one
Brown peachia, which was described from Singapore! I saw one
Swimming anemone and many
Haddon's carpet anemone. I saw many
Big hermit hitching anemones and some small
Tiger anemones. On the jetty legs, there were lots of
Lined bead anemones.
This shore remains soft and silty in some parts, perfect for sea pens. I saw many
Sea pencils, some
Slender sea pens and
Flowery sea pens, and one
Spiky sea pen. I also saw some
cerianthids,
Many different colourful animals had settled on the jetty legs. Although I did see some
Milliaris cowries and one
Purple-spotted yellow flatworm, there were only a few small sea fans. Today, I didn't see any flowery soft corals or
feather stars or
Onyx cowries.
Near the jetty, there were lush growths of clean seagrasses. Mostly
Spoon seagrass (with small and large leaf blades) and
Needle seagrass (narrow leaf blades). I didn't see much
Fern seagrass, During our last survey in
Sep 2018, I noted that the shore in front of the seawall is rather barren and smells anoxic. Today it still doesn't have much seagrass, although there were some patches of Needle seagrass with very long narrow leaf blades. I didn't notice any dugong feeding trails on this trip, although not much of the seagrass was exposed as the tide wasn't super low.
The tide turned even before the sun rose. Planes were landing in quick succession over us.
The seawall replaced a series of long stakes and large bags that appeared to be some attempt at erosion control. During the
Jan 2017 oil spill, the entire set up was badly covered in oil and remained so
12 months after the spill was cleaned up elsewhere.
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| Oil spill on this shore in Jan 2017. |
In the past, many of the stakes have been uprooted from the high shore and littered all over the low shore. As the stakes move in the waves, they are probably also killing any seagrass or animals that attempt to settle there. A blog post by Jocelyne Sze on this setup in
2014 showed it was still okay. I observed it falling apart in
Apr 2015, again in
Aug 2016. This is what I saw on our last trip here in
Dec 2017.
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| Long stakes litter the shore in Dec 2017. |
It's a relief to see the end to the stake situation. And I sense the shore is recovering.
More photos by
Richard Kuah
Kelvin Yong
