A small team check out Pulau Tekukor on the last evening low tide for this cycle.
Kelvin Yong's awesome drone videos and photos give us a new perspective! Pulau Tekukor's western shore is part of the Sisters' Islands Marine Park. It's also close to St. John's Island.
There are lots of huge corals on the southernmost tip of Pulau Tekukor! St John's Island and Lazarus Island are on the horizon.
Today is the first time since
Jan 2017 that I've finally made it to this spot. As before, there remain many large boulder-shaped corals here, and leathery soft corals cram the pool. I didn't see a wide variety of hard corals but none of those I saw were bleaching.
James managed to photograph the Black-tipped reef sharks that are commonly seen on our southern shores, but hard to shoot.
The 30cm
Fluted giant clam is still there. But we couldn't find the larger one that was seen on our last survey in
Aug 2021. There is not a wide variety of animals on Pulau Tekukor, but a lot of a few kinds of animals. These include
Long black sea cucumbers, small ones are only commonly seen here. Also, a lot of
Land hermit crabs - I saw many gathered around a piece of cloth...I have no idea why. There were also many
Giant carpet anemones,
Frilly anemones,
Wiggly reef star anemone. The rest of the team also saw
Snaky anemones for the first time here.
Zoanthids remain the most abundant animals on the shore. Thick
Sea Mat zoanthids and carpets of tinier
Button zoanthids continue to cover large stretches of the eastern rocky areas.
Pulau Tekukor's undeveloped eastern half has some of the last natural cliffs cloaked in natural coastal forests in Singapore. They seem to be doing well. With many large patches of
Raffles pitcher plants.
Kelvin took a lovely drone video of the forest and natural cliffs.
This very rocky shore is just a few hundred metres from Sentosa! I find this juxtaposition of natural rocky features against Sentosa Cove at the northern tip of Pulau Tekukor quite intriguing...
The western shore of Pulau Tekukor is part of the Sisters Islands Marine Park.
There are good growths of seagrasses on the shore that faces the Sisters Islands.
Sickle seagrass covers a large area of this shore, with fresh green leaf blades. There were also sprinkles of
Spoon seagrass with small leaf blades. The patch of
Tape seagrass had male flower bracts (I didn't see any male flowers) and leaves were longish (about 20-30cm). When I last saw it in
Mar 2022 and
Nov 2020, this patch was also producing male flowers. Overall, the seagrass situation is very similar to what I saw in
Mar 2022.
Usually, there is a long line of plastic trash on the high shore. What I saw in
Mar 2020 is typical. Today, I saw hardly any trash on the entire high shore. I hope whatever changed the situation continues to keep trash off the shore.
Let's hope this special shore stays safe until we can return next year.
Photos by others on this surveyKelvin Yong's awesome drone videosKelvin Yong's
photosJames KohChe Cheng NeoLoh Kok ShengTammy Lim
