Love Our Mother Shores: visit baby mangroves in the East!

In the shadow of Marina Bay Sands, a small patch of wild mangrove has settled on top of the seawall. With animals commonly seen in mature mangroves.  As well as some rare mangrove plants.

These are the babies of vast unseen Mother Shores in the west. Anyone can visit this amazing mangrove at almost any tide! Even at 2m high. Where and what will you see? More details below.

Sungei Pang Sua mangroves and other neap tide meanders

A lush back mangrove is growing high upstream of Sungei Pang Sua!

A few volunteers check it out on a neap tide and found tall healthy Critically Endangered Berembang! As well as other common mangrove trees and plants. Rui Quan also checked out some mangroves during the neap tide period, his sightings are consolidated here.

Other surveys: Changi and Pasir Ris

Thanks to Marcus, Richard and Rui Quan for checking up on additional shores this low tide cycle.

Collage of photos by Marcus, Richard and Rui Quan
Links to their albums below.

Such a relief that a variety of sea stars remain abundant at Changi. And the usual colourful sea cucumbers, fishes, sea anemones, crabs and other fascinating marine life. At Pasir Ris, Rui Quan saw a mud lobster as well as interesting crabs, mudskippers and more. They also saw snakes! And on the high shore, colourful insects and cute spiders. Links to their albums below.

See these shores for yourself! They are easy to visit and are fun for the whole family. 

More details on visiting
Changi - an easy intertidal adventure for the family
Pasir Ris - Perfect intertidal getaway for the family
Pasir Ris Mangrove Boardwalk - 24/7 fun for the family

Mangroves at Ah Mah's Drinkstall

The community came together to help rebuild Ah Mah's Drinkstall!

We hope to have some posters about the interesting mangroves around the Drinkstall. So Chay Hoon and I had a quick look this morning.

Love durians? Then love mangroves!

If you love durians, then you must love mangroves! How can this be?

First, let's think about what might pollinate durian flowers? Durian flowers are pom-pom shaped and open at night.

How will the new Punggol SIT campus affect wild habitats?

Yesterday, it was announced that the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) will become Singapore's university in the north-east.

Graphic from the Straits Times 24 Aug 2015.

Overlaying the graphic on Google Earth, it appears there will be new roads (blue). The northern road appears to cut close to a tiny sliver of wild mangroves there (yellow dot).

I last visited this mangrove patch in Feb 2011.

Return to Mandai mangroves

Beautiful Mandai mangroves! I'm back for the first time since I broke my foot, and my first attempt to try to survey in soft mud.

Thanks to Sivasothi and Delicia for letting me join the Marine trash sampling exercise at Mandai today. Kwan Siong also checked on the Berembang at Woodlands Town Park, and it's crown had fallen over. Oh dear.

Secret lagoon on Seringat-Kias

There is a secret lagoon just across from the Central Business District on mainland Singapore.

I explored it for the first time and discovered mangroves!

What do baby mangrove trees look like?

I was privileged to be allowed a sneak peek at the amazing native mangrove seedlings that have been magically sprouted at Uvaria Tide.

Here, with love and a 'secret sauce', a wide variety of mangroves trees are being grown from Singapore's own native stock. Above are lots of sprouting Bruguiera parviflora, a mangrove tree that is uncommon on our shores.

Singapore's mangrove plant included in Dr Norm Duke's mangrove app!

Thanks to Dr Norm Duke and Shantala of MangroveWatch, Singapore's humble mangrove plant is included in Dr Duke's latest app for mangroves of the world!

This photo of Climbing sea holly or Jeruju (Acanthus volubilis)
taken at Pulau Ubin was included in the app!

The ‘World Mangrove iD’ app is an e-book, and a living expert guide to all mangrove plants worldwide. It is just like having your very own mangrove expert on call!

You are also invited to contribute to the resource by helping fill remaining gaps revealed in the guide. It could be a new image, or just a better one, or, it could be more information on peak flowering and fruiting periods, or even a new species! An Android version will soon be available.

More about the app in this write up and screen shots kindly provided by Dr Norm Duke and Shantala.

Mangroves on Singapore's artificial seawalls!

Large mangrove trees have settled naturally on Pulau Hantu's artificial seawalls right next to massive petrochemical plants at Pulau Bukom.

Checking the mangroves on the Pulau Hantu seawall in Mar 2013

I also observed similar natural regeneration on artificial shores near the Marina Barrage in 2008. Can we encourage similar natural regeneration on other stretches of artificial seawalls?! These details are part of City in a Reef: my feedback on the Draft Master Plan 2013

Are there dead fishes at Mandai mangroves?

Andy Dinesh blogged about lots of dead fish at Sungei Buloh and Lim Chu Kang. Did this happen at Mandai mangroves too?

Today was the first chance I got to check it out on a beautiful haze-free day. Although I didn't see any dead fishes, I saw many freshly fallen large trees, and I didn't see any Beccari's seagrass (Halophila beccarii)!

Checking up on Kranji mangroves

There's a thin sliver of mangroves at Kranji behind heavy industrial sites. I wondered how it is doing since I last visited in Feb 2011.

So I headed out this sunny morning to the mangroves overlooking Johor Baru across the Johor Strait. Alas, there's still a lot of rubbish on this shore.

Inspiration at Mandai mangroves

I've been feeling down since the 7 million population Land Use Plan came out. The best cure for this, I thought, would be go on a field trip!

So this morning, I joined Rick and Wei Kit at the beautiful Mandai mangroves. And regained some perspective and enthusiasm for the work ahead of us.

Finlaysonia fun at Mandai

Funny furry Finalysonia blossoms! With strange curly things in the middle.

I saw several of these on the Critically Endangered climbing Kalak kambing (Finlaysonia obovata) climbers at Mandai mangroves this evening. A quick mizzly trip (miserable drizzle) and yet we saw interesting stuff in this special mangrove.

'Panda' of the mangroves discovered, Neil Humphreys writes on Chek Jawa and more

The ‘Panda’ of Mangroves, Bruguiera hainesii, has been found in the mangroves of Pulau Tekong! Here's more by the person who found them, Koh Kwan Siong of NParks.

Also an article by renowned author Neil Humphreys about his daughter's joy at Chek Jawa, work by volunteers at Pasir Ris, and a review of the "Wild Singapore" book. All in the latest issue of My Green Space Oct-Dec 2012 a newsletter of the National Parks Board.

6 Oct (Sat): Mangrove talk by Dan Friess at Sungei Buloh

How does sea level rise and other threats affect our mangroves? What is the importance of mangroves?

Dan Friess (right) with Rick Leong at Mandai mangroves.

Dr Dan Friess from the Department of Geography, the National University of Singapore will share more with us in his talk on "Mangroves of NorthWest Singapore - their threats and management".

Rick shares about Mandai mangroves

Today, I learnt a lot about Mandai mangroves from Rick's talk about his work there.

Rick's talk on "The creation of a whole-mangrove species distribution inventory for a threatened mangrove in Singapore" shared some of his findings from the hard work he and his team put into Mandai mangroves.

Mandai mangroves: Lessons for Southeast Asia’s mangroves

What can we learn from Mandai mangroves? Lots!

There were communities living at Mandai until until the late 1980s

A fascinating paper "Mandai mangrove, Singapore: Lessons for the conservation of Southeast Asia’s mangroves" has just been published in the Raffles Bulletin of Zoology that is packed with information about Mandai's past, present and future. And how lessons from Mandai can help us understand threats to mangroves in Singapore and beyond. PLUS find out how you can make a difference for Mandai and other mangroves!

Another side of Mandai mangroves

This morning, I finally made the stream crossing to get to another part of Mandai that I've long wanted to explore.

Here I am on the other side, looking at the rest of Mandai mangroves. The area turned out to be larger than I expected!