Even before we started the guided walk, we saw a pair of oriental pied hornbills on a tree near the volunteers hub! There is a local population of oriental pied hornbill on Ubin, and although I've seen them many times, they were usually too far away for me to take a clear picture. So I was really glad that I finally managed to capture a satisfactory one :)
On reaching Chek Jawa, we found another "oriental" animal right on the fence near the entrance - an oriental whip snake! Having seen this snake several times on mainland Singapore, this was my first time seeing it on Ubin! These snakes are mildly poisonous, but are harmless to humans.
Several gong gongs were also spotted on the sand bar. Kok Sheng, here's another one off the list!
And how can we forget the numerous striped hermit crabs we saw, since I'm also a Naked Hermit Crab.
Unlike us, crabs have a hard external skeleton (i.e. the shell). To grow bigger, they need to get rid of the old shell (molt). The above was a nice example of the molt.
And this is a little ball sea cucumber, even smaller than a ping pong ball!
There were lots of sand dollars just by the water's edge.
Wonder what happened to this sea star - one of its arms is missing. Hopefully it can regenerate soon..
We also saw this cute little tiger moon snail.
We saw several soldier crabs too, which disappeared into the sand almost immediately when disturbed.
And here's a group shot of my participants!
The walk soon came to an end. On the way back to Ubin Jetty, I managed to grab a shot of this beautiful scenery.
Certainly a nice way to complete my trip today :)
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