We resume surveys as COVID restrictions ease. A small team checks out Cyrene (East) on the afternoon tide.
We saw lots of dugong feeding trails, many large Knobbly sea stars, one Giant clam and more.
The seagrass cover in this Eastern part of Cyrene has grown very thin compared to the past. Despite this, I saw many furrows that look like they were made by feeding
dugongs. There were trails in the seagrasses facing Pasir Panjang Container Terminals, and also those facing the petrochemical plants on Pulau Bukom.
These trails are formed when dugongs chomp up seagrasses including their roots, leaving a shallow meandering furrow of about equal width and depth. I saw similar trails on our last survey here in
Aug 2021.
I was glad to see this small
Fluted giant clam (about 20cm long). But I didn't see any others, nor did the rest of the team. Oh dear. We saw three on our last survey here in
Aug 2021. But it is actually easier to find Giant clams in the dark than in broad daylight.
It is much easier, however, to find
Knobbly sea stars in broad daylight. I saw many near the beacon.
Although Cyrene wasn't super lively on this survey, I still came across the usual animals commonly seen here and on our other shores. Today, there was a lot of
Ornate leaf slugs. Also plentiful in the rocky areas were
Long black sea cucumbers. I saw one
Giant carpet anemone (no anemonefishes), many
Frilly anemones,
The rest of the team saw lots more (see their albums below). Kok Sheng spotted this lone
side-gilled slug just before we left the shore. We usually see a lot of these at this time of the year, when the seagrass cover was better.
There have never been a lot of corals on Cyrene. The few colonies of hard corals and
leathery soft corals that I saw were alright. It's Sargassum season (normal), so it makes exploring the edge more difficult.
The centre of Cyrene is almost completely devoid of seagrass now. In the sand, there remains signs of life. Including
Cake sand dollars,
Common sea stars, Oval moon snails, Sand bubbler crabs and various worm signs.
There was still thin seagrass cover on the Eastern end of Cyrene. Mostly
Spoon seagrass and other shorter seagrasses.
Tape seagrasses were few and far between, with cropped leaf blades.
The deep pool is surrounded by bare sand now. There is thin seagrass cover inside the pool itself.
Although it lies in the middle of
an industrial triangle and major shipping lanes, Cyrene has some of Singapore's most amazing shores.
Photos by others on this surveyLoh Kok ShengChay HoonJianlin LiuJames Koh
