This Changi shore is one of the nicest, with seagrass meadows and amazing marine life.
Large beds of mussels, which we first noticed in
Feb 2019, still dominate this shore. I notice less seagrass in many parts of the shore. But seagrasses are still lush in other parts, and we still encounter our favourite anemones and sea stars.
Horse mussels still dominate the shore at the low water mark and below. We first noticed this during our
Feb 2019 survey and the clams were still there during the Fish Expedition in
Aug 2019 and on our last survey here n
Nov 2019.
I saw some large dense patches of living mussels, although there were scattered empty shells of dead ones. And a cluster of empty shells washed up at the low water mark.
On our last survey in
Nov 2019, there was lush seagrass growing among the mussels. Today, there were some patches with some seagrasses growing among the mussels.
But some only had sparse seagrass growths.
And many patches of mussels were bare of seagrasses.
In some areas where there were no more mussels (although there were some Fan clam shells), there was also no seagrass. The ground here was soft and silty. Hopefully, the seagrasses will grow back here soon.
Aside from that, the seagrass situation seems similar to what I observed in
Nov 2019. Nearer the high shore, there were dense growths of
Spoon seagrass with small and large leaves, and
Needle seagrass with narrow leaves. I only saw very few
Fern seagrass today. Further away from the high shore, there were many patches of Needle seagrass with broad leaves, which I first observed in
Feb 2019. I found the small patch of
Smooth ribbon seagrass near the high shore, but did see any
Noodle seagrass that I saw in
Aug 2018.
There wasn't a bloom of Ulva seaweed on the shore. But there was a wide variety of seaweeds growing on the shells of the mussels. I noticed a large patch of
Y-branched brown seaweed.
Today, I saw the Scaly sea star that I've not seen for many years. There were many small and medium sized
Biscuit sea stars. And I saw three small
Knobbly sea stars, one small and couldn't find the
Common sea stars.
There are much fewer colourful sea cucumbers today, with a more or less equal number of
Pink warty sea cucumbers and
Thorny sea cucumbers. I also saw a few Orange sea cucumbers, but no other large burrowing sea cucumbers. It was good to see many White sea urchins, but not in such dense numbers (yet?).
There were also many medium sized
Haddon's carpet anemones, some Swimming anemones, a few Flowery sea pens. There are still a lot of
Fan shell clams,
Window pane shells and
Hammer oysters on the shore. I also saw many tiny to small
Ribbed turban snails and three
Miliaris cowries. The shore is still lively with lots of
Orange striped hermit crabs of various sizes.
It was good to see a Seagrass pipefish, which I haven't seen here for some time. There were also a lot of Longspined waspfishes. As well as many small fishes of all kinds.
Just as the tide was turning, Kelvin found this skeleton of a heart urchin. We're not really sure what kind it is.
The tide turned at sunrise and I couldn't even take photos of the mussels in daylight before the water rose to cover them.
Hope these shores stay safe until we can visit again.
Photos by others on this surveyJoleen Chan
Kelvin Yong
Other shores surveyed today
Jianlin Liu surveyed Sentosa Tanjung Rimau
