Spider Hunting
I love going for Joey's spider hunting field trips. Her post on Instagram prompted me to write a post here too, before I forget. No such chances to go for field trips once I start working. I must say, EVB students LOVE field trips. We could do it for a living, while we're still young at least. Rachel Leng used to tell me stories of her class trips, both to terrestrial and aquatic environments. And she showed me selfies she's taken while measuring corals for her UROPS. Imagine going to lab in FBTs and slippers, for convenience when you put on wet suits later! Or taking the MRT with fellow students holding insect nets taller than yourself! Only EVB and Geography students get this experience.
So anyway. The first trip with Joey was to Pulau Ubin in Year 2 Sem 1. The Thursday/Friday before, a few of us were in Utown on the way home and Joey was asking if anyone was free to go Macritchie with her and I expressed interest. So on Saturday we went to Pulau Ubin (which was even better because back then, I missed that place a lot). We walked into random places and hit many dead-ends. I spotted the first one: it was huge and right-in-my-face quite literally. Then we caught a few small ones nearby, before we started heading into the forest. There, we found so many Golden Orbs!!! They were mostly juveniles and young adults. And lots of mosquitoes and sand flies as well, so we were waving them away from each other. Got a little lost trying to head back to the jetty, but along the way we saw birds eating grass-seeds and a possibly-Taoist temple with colorful streamers.
And I teased her about not researching on her spiders before going on her field trips hahaha.
Where else did we go? Mm after Joey's last paper, I joined Joey again and Tricia came along. This time I did the research (on Argiope) and how to get there and which direction to walk. We went to the Green Corridor stretch between Rail Mall and Bukit Timah Reserve entrance, but we caught an insufficient number of Argiopes, and some weren't even the same species. Towards the end of the trek, Tricia and Joey were singing Frozen songs. Tricia's high voice really sounds like Elsa. But I found out that I'm really bad at spotting spiders or any stationary thing. Really bad.
Then during the holidays, Tricia, her friend Serene and I went to Lorong Halus while Joey was in Japan. Other than a Changeable Lizard (my first sighting!!), we saw nothing and found nothing. Meh.
I can't recall when we went to Sungei Buloh. Sungei Buloh is really REALLY nice to walk now, it's so beautiful! There were so many Nephila there, not just pilipes but antipodiana species as well. Very few Argiopes though. We saw a few monitor lizards, stopped to watch the shore birds, laugh at the mudskippers, point out the vinegar crabs to passers-by, take in the sights, smells and sounds. It was amazing being surrounded by nature, on a beautiful day.
During Science Retreat, Joey and Gracie came with 10 spiders in her bag. Somehow, the adult spiders that she sees only get bigger with each field trip. We spent 8am to 9am sitting on the stairs landing, giving the small ones some air and looking through all her photos with Jaclyn. Hahahaha strange things Life sciencies do.
And again, I can't recall when Joey, her RI friend Huijun and I went to Clementi. We went to a Green Corridor stretch opposite Maju Camp and SIM. It was SO. SO. SO. Muddy. You can sink up to your ankles with each step in the tunnel. And there was no through-road, so we back-tracked and headed north instead. It was a really interesting trip, because there was some deadfall after previous day's storm and on both sides were slopes, which the iron supports were barely holding back and most of the time you could only see one side of the old train tracks. We played with the web of a spider we caught and found out how strong and elastic their web is. It's really amazing how something so light can withstand tension. I think that was the best field trip, when we were really immersed in Nature.
After that, we headed to Bukit Timah by bus (after cleaning up our muddy shoes and using desperate measures to hold my shoes together). But at Hindhide (sp?) park and the mountain biking trail at the edge of BTNR, we only saw one juvenile Argiope and a monitor lizard (not the water one). It started to rain, so we headed to Ameen for prata and butter chicken. ^^
Just on Monday, the first day of school, we went to Mandai Road! But no Nephilas. We did see some small red spiders, with webs that have a white disc in the middle. And we saw a thorny spider in its star shaped web, whose supporting lines were alternately white and transparent dashes ("---"). Pretty. ^^ And we saw a wild boar in the distance (my first sighting!!!) standing at the entrance of a burrow and staring out at the road. At a distance, it looked like a log, but with white tusks hahaha. We didn't get a chance to see it up close because it saw us and headed back into its burrow. Then she headed to Dairy Farm and found 10 spiders while I went for lecture in my trek-pants. Hehe.
Of course, Joey has gone to many other places too, these are just the ones I went on. But exposure to these small patches of forests has really taught me to appreciate the complexity of rainforests and the immense diversity of flora and fauna out there, even within our small island. How important it is to keep these patches undisturbed and forgotten by the general public! And how little exposure we have, compared to the expanses of mangroves and mudflats and forests other countries have.
On a side note, I saw Leng's post on Instagram and started singing to myself "You Make Beautiful Things" and I fully realised for the first time that the beautiful things God made out of dust are.... us. Or me, rather. We are beautiful creatures.
So anyway. The first trip with Joey was to Pulau Ubin in Year 2 Sem 1. The Thursday/Friday before, a few of us were in Utown on the way home and Joey was asking if anyone was free to go Macritchie with her and I expressed interest. So on Saturday we went to Pulau Ubin (which was even better because back then, I missed that place a lot). We walked into random places and hit many dead-ends. I spotted the first one: it was huge and right-in-my-face quite literally. Then we caught a few small ones nearby, before we started heading into the forest. There, we found so many Golden Orbs!!! They were mostly juveniles and young adults. And lots of mosquitoes and sand flies as well, so we were waving them away from each other. Got a little lost trying to head back to the jetty, but along the way we saw birds eating grass-seeds and a possibly-Taoist temple with colorful streamers.
And I teased her about not researching on her spiders before going on her field trips hahaha.
Where else did we go? Mm after Joey's last paper, I joined Joey again and Tricia came along. This time I did the research (on Argiope) and how to get there and which direction to walk. We went to the Green Corridor stretch between Rail Mall and Bukit Timah Reserve entrance, but we caught an insufficient number of Argiopes, and some weren't even the same species. Towards the end of the trek, Tricia and Joey were singing Frozen songs. Tricia's high voice really sounds like Elsa. But I found out that I'm really bad at spotting spiders or any stationary thing. Really bad.
Then during the holidays, Tricia, her friend Serene and I went to Lorong Halus while Joey was in Japan. Other than a Changeable Lizard (my first sighting!!), we saw nothing and found nothing. Meh.
I can't recall when we went to Sungei Buloh. Sungei Buloh is really REALLY nice to walk now, it's so beautiful! There were so many Nephila there, not just pilipes but antipodiana species as well. Very few Argiopes though. We saw a few monitor lizards, stopped to watch the shore birds, laugh at the mudskippers, point out the vinegar crabs to passers-by, take in the sights, smells and sounds. It was amazing being surrounded by nature, on a beautiful day.
During Science Retreat, Joey and Gracie came with 10 spiders in her bag. Somehow, the adult spiders that she sees only get bigger with each field trip. We spent 8am to 9am sitting on the stairs landing, giving the small ones some air and looking through all her photos with Jaclyn. Hahahaha strange things Life sciencies do.
And again, I can't recall when Joey, her RI friend Huijun and I went to Clementi. We went to a Green Corridor stretch opposite Maju Camp and SIM. It was SO. SO. SO. Muddy. You can sink up to your ankles with each step in the tunnel. And there was no through-road, so we back-tracked and headed north instead. It was a really interesting trip, because there was some deadfall after previous day's storm and on both sides were slopes, which the iron supports were barely holding back and most of the time you could only see one side of the old train tracks. We played with the web of a spider we caught and found out how strong and elastic their web is. It's really amazing how something so light can withstand tension. I think that was the best field trip, when we were really immersed in Nature.
After that, we headed to Bukit Timah by bus (after cleaning up our muddy shoes and using desperate measures to hold my shoes together). But at Hindhide (sp?) park and the mountain biking trail at the edge of BTNR, we only saw one juvenile Argiope and a monitor lizard (not the water one). It started to rain, so we headed to Ameen for prata and butter chicken. ^^
Just on Monday, the first day of school, we went to Mandai Road! But no Nephilas. We did see some small red spiders, with webs that have a white disc in the middle. And we saw a thorny spider in its star shaped web, whose supporting lines were alternately white and transparent dashes ("---"). Pretty. ^^ And we saw a wild boar in the distance (my first sighting!!!) standing at the entrance of a burrow and staring out at the road. At a distance, it looked like a log, but with white tusks hahaha. We didn't get a chance to see it up close because it saw us and headed back into its burrow. Then she headed to Dairy Farm and found 10 spiders while I went for lecture in my trek-pants. Hehe.
Of course, Joey has gone to many other places too, these are just the ones I went on. But exposure to these small patches of forests has really taught me to appreciate the complexity of rainforests and the immense diversity of flora and fauna out there, even within our small island. How important it is to keep these patches undisturbed and forgotten by the general public! And how little exposure we have, compared to the expanses of mangroves and mudflats and forests other countries have.
On a side note, I saw Leng's post on Instagram and started singing to myself "You Make Beautiful Things" and I fully realised for the first time that the beautiful things God made out of dust are.... us. Or me, rather. We are beautiful creatures.