With kind permission and company of NParks friends, we surveyed this
interesting shore next to Labrador MRT station
with mangroves, rocky shore, seagrass meadows and sandy shores!
The sandy area at the mouth of the Creek is still large and very much alive. We
saw hints of Button snails and a large buried fish! Seagrasses remain lush and
the small clump of Tape seagrass had regained long leaves! There was no sign of
bleaching.
Sandy shores may look boring and dead, but they are
interesting to me. Singapore has lost most of our sandy shores, so animals that
live in such shores are less commonly seen. They are mostly buried, so you need
to look for tell tale signs of their presence.
For example, I saw a few dead
Button snail shells
(taken over by tiny hermit crabs). I looked but couldn't find live ones. There
were, however, many live
Weasel olive snails
on the sand bar, busily burrowing as night fell. They eat Button snails, so
perhaps the Button snails are in deeper water?
Sand bubbler crabs are common on sandy shores. Today, I spotted this pair that
was clasped face-to-face in mating position and couldn't quite fit into their
burrow. So cute!
The most amazing sandy shore sighting was by Darren, who spotted this fish
buried in the sand with only the tip of its head above ground. Is it the
Evermann's snake-eel? Snake-eels have tubular nostrils, and the Evermann's has a yellow chin.
Sandy habitats are indeed fascinating!
There are slivers of rocky shore here. The rocks were covered with lots of
snails. I saw many
Lightning dove snails,
Turban snails and
Top shell snails, while
well camouflaged
Onch slugs crept about in cooler wetter spots.
Many colourful
Nerite snails too. Under the stones, there was a
Wandering cowrie. But
the special mollusc find was by Arjun who spotted the
Jewelled chiton in a crack
in a rock. This chiton is listed as 'Endangered' in the Singapore Red List.
I didn't see any signs of bleaching on the shore. There were still many
Haddon's
carpet anemones. I saw one
Frilly sea anemone. And even one
Pore hard coral.
While the team saw
Flowery soft corals growing in the big concrete cylinder that retains
water at high tide. None of them were bleaching.
Spoon seagrass
(with tiny leaves) are still growing lush along the eastern bank of the Creek,
closer to Keppel Club. Similar to what I saw in
Feb 2020. Among the seagrasses were many tiny
Orange-striped hermit crabs,
tiny Swimming crabs and small fishes like a juvenile
Brown sweetlips
spotted by Darren. Seagrasses are indeed great nurseries for marine life that
eventually move to deeper water as they grow up.
The patch of
Tape seagrass
has long leaf blades again! This is probably the first time I've seen a patch of
Tape seagrass 'recover' from a cropped state. I hope this bodes well for the
Tape seagrasses elsewhere which have been suffering from this cropped state for
nearly 10 years.
Here's the patch in Feb 2020, when the leaf blades are cropped short. At that
time, one of the rings of seagrass had three female flowers. Today, I didn't see
any flowers. Although Tape seagrasses seen over the last few days elsewhere were
blooming.
There were still blooms of
Small coin green seaweed
at the seawall area as well as in the eastern patch of seagrass. This was also
observed in
Nov 2018. Spoon seagrass was growing among them. Not sure if the seaweed allows the
seagrass to settle or visa versa. Similar to what we saw in
Feb 2020 and
Nov 2018.
A Great billed heron was also hunting on the shore during our survey! Arjun took
this photo of it. There was also a pair of Collared kingfishers loudly calling
as they patrolled the shore.
As we walked, we also picked up trash and abandoned fishing lines and bits of
fishing nets. There wasn't as many golf balls on the shore as in the past (these
come from the Keppel Club golf course on the northern bank of Berlayar Creek).
The saddest sighting was of this fishing lure in a carpet anemone. I learned
from Darren that this lure has sharp backward pointing hooks at the end that was
in the carpet anemone. So we shouldn't yank it out as this will hurt the animal.
So we left it there and hoped the anemone will eventually get it out on its
own.
The tide wasn't as low as predicted today, and turned at sunset. Hope it stays
safe until we return to check up on it again.
Due to COVID rules, a separate group of volunteers surveyed Labrador at the same
time. Thanks to NParks for permission to survey the shore. Special thanks
to Darren and Pin Chong for looking after us and for taking care of these
precious shores.
Others on the Berlayar survey
Arjun Sai KrishnanJoleen Chan Others on the Labrador survey
Richard KuahVincent Choo
Parizad NasheerOther shores surveyedLoh Kok Sheng
was at Changi Carpark 7
Marcus Ng
was at St John's Island
