Semakau Landfill Trip with SBWR Staff & Guides on 10-11 May 2008

This is another very late post. Was very busy over the past 1 week and hardly had time to do any blogging :P

Anyway, we had an overnite trip at Semakau Landfill with a group of Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve staff and volunteers last weekend. We had some free and easy time on Saturday afternoon followed by a BBQ, and on Sunday morning, we went to the intertidal area for a guided walk.


Here's a quick shot of the SBWR people on the bus on the way to the southern most tip of the island on Saturday.


Along the way, we saw this great-billed heron (Ardea sumatrana), which is said to be the tallest bird in Singapore.

When we went to the southern most point again in the evening for the BBQ, we spotted one of the resident blacktip reef shark (Carcharhinus melanopterus) in the phase 2 lagoon! The last time we saw one was like a year ago, and thus I was really happy!


The next morning on Sunday, we decided to walk to the intertidal area.


Along the way, there were lots of tawny coasters (Acraea terpiscore) on the wild flowers by the road side.


At the edge of the seagrass meadow, I found a dragonfish sea cucumber (Stichopus horrens).


I also found this huge nudibranch nearby, which was probably a Dendrodoris tuberculosa.


There were lots of sand sifting sea star (Archaster typicus)!


The resident gigantic carpet anemone (Stichodactyla gigantea) was fortunately still there. While there were no anemone fishes, I found a pair of anemone shrimps on it.


Found this noble volute (Cymbiola nobilis) wandering among some seagrass.


I've always like sunflower mushroom corals (Heliofungia actiniformis), even though they are so common on Semakau Landfill.


It was a rather hot day, and we only managed to find 1 sandfish sea cucumber (Holothuria scabra).


Fortunately, we still managed to find the knobbly sea star (Protoreaster nodosus). Must really apologise to CK that dunno why he couldn't find it on the left side that day, as we usually found them there. In fact, the one above was found on the left side as well...


The glossodoris nudibranchs (Glossodoris atromarginata) seemed to be in season, as we saw many of them.


The tide was a little high, but fortunately the water was clear enough for us to see the fluted giant clam (Tridacna squamosa).


I managed to find a nice little colony of staghorn corals (Acropora sp.) too.


And somehow, there seemed to be more flowery soft corals. Not sure if by chance I just didn't see them much for the past 2 years plus, or there were really more of them these days.


We found a few flatworms too!


But my personal best find for the day must be this ultra cute and well camouflaged frogfish (probably Lophiocharon trisignatus)!


Yet another great find by our other hunter-seekers was this pretty pipefish (Syngnathidae).


But the find which caused the most excitement must be these few ocellaris clownfish (Amphiprion ocellaris) trapped in a little tidal pool just next to their host anemone.

All in all, it's certainly a great weekend. Thanks to SBWR for preparing the BBQ! :P