A beautiful sunrise at Changi while Yikang and I left for Ubin.
Near the entrance of Jetty, we were enthrilled to see four of such Oriental Pied Hornbill (Anthracoceros albirostris).
And after a streneous and panting cycling for 20 mins, we finally made it to Chek Jawa. First stop is to check the coral rubble out and see if there's any changes.
The sponges seem to be coming back, more and more. Yay.
Look what's on YK's hand, a biscuit seastar. Let's hope the knobbly seastar will make a quick comeback.
The tubeworms are aplenty, Dr Dan :-)
Did not take many photos because it is a working trip. Checked out the cyanobacteria, they are still there. Yes, Ria, the oval thingy in between are mussels... thus the carpet of mussels like those found near Commando Jetty.
I wonder how come why they are still there? Do we have a lot of rain or freshwater input nowadays? Salinity checked today was around 27 plus. Hmmm...
This looks like the rare seagrass, Halophila beccarii, and also not. Can someone help me?
Update: Yes! Thks Ria for the confirmation and other info in the comments section :)
And that's a return ride back mainland after a hard day's work. Thanks to Yikang especially for his help. Appreciate it a lot!!! And also Choon Beng and other Nparks people.
4 comments:
Wow, wish I was there with you. Alas, today was somewhere else. Too many shores too few low tides :-)
Yes, that seagrass is beccarri. You can tell because it appears in a rosette of five leaves, and the leaves are small and long and narrow. And often have a barred pattern that makes Siti want to call them 'Tiger seagrass'.
When I was last at CJ on 16 June, the Tiger seagrass was doing very well and covering large areas near the Ribbon seagrass, Cymodocea rotundata (which wasn't doing well at all).
Siti has some interesting information on Tiger seagrass. It appears that this seagrass LIKES freshwater input! You might want to ask her for more details? Btw, we are trying to confirm sighting of this rare seagrass at Buloh.
Re the bed of tiny mussels, I'm not sure if the Changi ones are still there too. Another case of too few of us, too many places, too few low tides.
Dr Dan will probably know what's going on. My layman's guess is that these little guys tolerate freshwater and when the other marine life got wiped out, they settled in quickly and are now hanging on. The way they blanket the surface probably means very little of anything else can colonise the area for a while.
Dr Dan I'm sure will have wiser words on this and about intertidal succession etc.
Thanks for sharing the trip!
Thank you Ria for sharing your insights!
Glad to see beccarri for the first time too.
:)
Ria and I are trying to popularize the common name "Tiger seagrass" because its more fun than Beccari's Seagrass because not many of us know Odoardo Beccari whose name it takes after. But everyone knows what a tiger is and what it looks like and it has bands the same way H. beccarii has bands.
I'll post more details on H. beccarii on the teamseagrass blog soon...-ish.
Thanks Siti!
Tiger seagrass is indeed a nice call to these cute seagrass.
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