Adventures with the Naked Hermit Crabs

2012 - Free Chek Jawa Boardwalk trips on the 2nd Saturday of each month

2012-01-09T22:55:00.001+08:00

We concluded our Y2011 Chek Jawa Boardwalk trips on a high note in December with a record number of more than 80 visitors. What a wonderful time we all had, and for a good cause too! The visitors enjoyed visiting one of Singapore's natural shores with a trained guide, while we, on our part, are happy to play a part in raising awareness of the ecosystems found in Chek Jawa.

Visitors at our Dec 2011 walk (Photo credit: Kok Sheng)

The Crabs are pleased to commit another year to run these free monthly walks for the public. Yay!!! We have done these free Chek Jawa Boardwalk trips for about four and a half years now. Time flies! Our very first Chek Jawa Boardwalk trip took place on September 8, 2007, and we have probably taken about nearly 2000 people out on our trips.

For 2012, we will hold our monthly walks on the 2nd Saturday of each month with the exception of January and June. These are the dates:

January - No walk. The Crabs take a break!
11 Feb (Sat)
10 Mar (Sat, school holidays)
14 Apr (Sat)
12 May (Sat)
16 Jun (Sat, school holidays) - we switch to the 3rd Saturday just for this month.
14 Jul (Sat)
11 Aug (Sat)
8 Sep (Sat, school holidays)
13 Oct (Sat)
11 Nov (Sat)
8 Dec (Sat, school holidays)

Meeting Time: 9:30 am
Meeting Place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk, Pulau Ubin
Duration of walk: Approximately 2 hours
Cost: No charge still
Pre-registration is required.

If you wish to sign up for our walks, please write to us at nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com and tell us how many people are coming. We welcome small family and friend groups. If you are organising a corporate or community project, we recommend that you engage the professional nature guides.

Additional information for first-time visitors, please read on:

How to get to Chek Jawa?

1) Take the bumboat to the island of Pulau Ubin from Changi Village.

2) Once you arrive at Ubin, you can find a lot of island taxis (vans) near the jetty. Tell the taxi driver to take you to Chek Jawa.

Give yourself 45 minutes to travel from Changi Village to Chek Jawa.

Useful Information:

More about Chek Jawa and Pulau Ubin and how to get there and what to see and do on the wildsingapore website.

To get a better idea of what a typical trip is like:
Read this post by KS for the trip in November 2011.

And enjoy the rest of the photos taken during our trips....

Meeting place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk

Encounter with wild boars

Jejawi Tower

On the mangrove boardwalk

Male and female flowers of the attap palm

A giant mudskipper found in the mangroves

Thousands of fiddler crabs can be found on the inter-tidal mud

Grey herons seen feeding on the mudflats at low tide

Visitors on the coastal boardwalk

Visitors signing (and drawing) on our guest book at the end of the trip

Friends visiting Chek Jawa

Young families visiting Chek Jawa

Chek Jawa Boardwalk during high tide

2011-11-23T22:44:00.004+08:00

We're back at Chek Jawa for our November guided walk! And this time during a high spring tide!

One of the best ways to orientate yourself at Chek Jawa will be to climb up the Jejawi Tower to have a bird's eye view of the whole surrounding. And of course it is the perfect spot to have a group photo! :)

We were fortunate to spot a couple of the white bellied sea eagles perching on the branches. This was soon followed an excellent view of them soaring in the sky. We were awe-struck!

At the back mangroves, we witnessed how the water slowly seeped in as the tide continues to turn higher. Nevertheless, we still managed to spot some of these colourful tiny fiddler crabs before the water came in.

During the high tide, many of the Gold spotted mudskippers can be found "anchored" on the surface of the mangrove roots. Both of them were raising their colourful dorsal fins at the same time in this photo!

The kids totally enjoyed spotting the mudskippers in all sorts of positions and places, such as this pair that looks like they are queuing up for something haha.

Here is another pair found high and dry up on the surface of a rock boulder.

How apt it is to spot several hermit crabs during the Naked Hermit Crabs walk. Thankfully, they are not exactly naked as they each have a shell as their home and are clinging onto the mangrove roots as well.

As we were walking along the mangrove boardwalk towards the coastal boardwalk, we had another look at the eagle.

Here is a closer look! :-)

What's there to see during high tide at Chek Jawa Boardwalk?

With the high tide, we had more opportunities to spot fishes swimming happily in the water such as this huge garfish that thrilled our group when we saw it!

And of course many other schools of fishes swimming together in security.

And woohoo, we had a special find discovered by one of our sharp-eye visitor!

This long and slender snake is the Oriental whip snake (Ahaetulla prasina). Don't you think it is such a beauty?

The oriental whi is mildly venomous but shy and will prefer to slide away into the undergrowth. If you want to take a closer look at it, avoid disturbing it.

Another lovely surprise would be the family of wild boars that greeted us when we arrived at Chek Jawa!

The mum was actually sniffing the young ones, probably to check on them. It was many of our first time witnessing this special act of love. :)

On this trip, we also had four student councillors from Dunman High School with us as part of their environmental exposure programme. Please feel free to read their reflections and more about what this programme is about on the EXCEL Exposure blog.

Special thanks to Ley Kun, Ria, Daniel, Pei Yan and Kok Sheng for guiding on this trip. We look forward to seeing you all during our December trip!

Read Ria's Wildshores blog post on this trip: http://wildshores.blogspot.com/2011/11/chek-jawa-with-naked-hermit-crabs.html

Fun walk in Chek Jawa during the school holidays

2011-10-26T23:06:00.000+08:00

We have lined up 2 fabulous fun walks in Chek Jawa (Boardwalk) for the next two months, November and December. Registration is now open for both walks. In particular, we welcome families to join us to discover what kind of plants and animals can be found in one of the natural shores of Singapore. With trained guides leading the groups on the boardwalk, we should be able to point out lots of animals such as fiddler crabs, mud crabs, mudskippers, fishes, snails and many kinds of bugs to you. And as I always tell my visitors, if we are very lucky, we will get to see hornbills, eagles, jungle fowl, wild boars and beautiful forest birds too.

It is our firm belief that kids (and adults!) need to learn about the natural world so that they can begin to understand about conservation of animal and plant species. Knowledge first, then love for and protection of the animals will come naturally. Parents, help plant that seed of love for nature in your child.

Dates: 12th November and 10th December (Saturday)
Time: 9:30 am
Duration: about 2 hours
Meeting Place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk, Pulau Ubin
Cost: The Crabs do not charge for the trip but you will have to pay for the bumboat and taxi rides to get to Chek Jawa.

Write to nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com to register. We welcome small family and friend groups.

How to get to Chek Jawa

1) Take the bumboat to the island of Pulau Ubin from Changi Village (more precisely, it is "Changi Point Ferry Terminal" at Lorong Bekukong).
2) Once you arrive at Ubin, you can find many island taxis (vans) near the jetty. Tell the taxi driver to take you to Chek Jawa.

Give yourself 45 minutes to travel from Changi Village to Chek Jawa at a leisurely pace.

More Information

Read more about Chek Jawa and Pulau Ubin, and how to get there and what to see and do on the wildsingapore website.

FAQ

Q: Suitable attire?
A: Comfortable outdoors clothes and walking shoes

Q: What should I bring?
A: Drinking water (important), rain gear. Optional: hat/baseball cap, change of attire, camera, snacks.

Q: Age restriction?
A: None as long as the participants are prepared to walk 2 km, climb a 6-storey high tower, able to tolerate the hot sun or wet weather, and be responsible for their own well-being during the walk.

Q: How do I recognise the organisers?
A: We will be the ones doing a roll-call at Chek Jawa Information Kiosk. So, as long as you make it to Chek Jawa, you will definitely see us.

Q: What if it rains?
A: This is a rain-or-shine event. The Crabs will be there at Chek Jawa regardless of the weather. Usually we are able to resume the walk once the rain stops. Please come prepared with rainwear. You make your own decision whether to come or not in the event of bad weather.

Meeting place: Information Kiosk at Chek Jawa

An encounter with nature

Fiddler crabs on the inter-tidal area

Stingray and hornbills

2011-10-17T22:23:00.001+08:00

We had a small turnout of visitors for the 8th October walk but that didn't dampen the mood of the group. Jael brought her family and friends, 7 in total, while KP brought his friend's son who has just finished his PSLE exams and needed some nature therapy!

The wild boars (Sus scrofa) were there at the Information Kiosk to welcome us. It was a sow with her 4 piglets. They seem rather tame and were lingering around the information kiosk apparently hoping to get food handouts from us. We did not feed them since we knew that it is better for the wild boars to forage for food in the forests than to receive sugar and starch-rich food from us. But they were really cute, and all the visitors were happily snapping pictures of them.

Wild boar at the Information Kiosk of Chek Jawa

As we enter the mangrove boardwalk, we heard the loud and penetrating calls of the Oriental Pied Hornbills (Anthracoceros albirostris). The hornbills are back! I missed seeing them for a few months, so as can be expected, I am totally delighted to report this sighting. We saw one perched on a tall palm, but heard the calls of hornbills from two other directions. So there could be three birds present that day. Of course, later in the trip, I was able to show the visitors the artificial nesting box and tell the story of hornbills nesting habits. Do read more about the Singapore Hornbill Project on how conservation efforts have grown the population of Oriental Pied Hornbills in our country. It is a cool read!

Down on the mangrove boardwalk, we spotted the animals that we see on every trip - Giant Mudskipper, vinegar crabs, fiddler crabs, mud crabs, weaver ants and cotton-stainer bugs. The mangrove ecosystem in Chek Jawa is well and alive.

Nest formed by weaver ants

The tide was quite high (2.3m) on that day and so we were not able to see the fiddler crabs. But there were lots of fishes everywhere. Natural shores like Chek Jawa, with their complex and interlinked ecosystems of mangroves, sand bars and seagrass meadows, offer refuge to lots of marine animals. This is one reason why conservationists all over the world continue to lobby for the preservation of natural shorelines. Marine biodiversity is impacted when Man converts natural coastal areas into prawn farms or commercial beach-front properties. This is indeed food for thought for everyone.

Small fishes swimming in between mangrove roots

We were totally delighted to spot a stingray (Family Dasyatidae) swimming so gracefully near the boardwalk. It has a body disc of about 40 cm and has a long tail. I could not id what species it is. It could be the Blue-spotted Stingray. We were mesmerised by its graceful swimming strokes.

(photo contributed by Jael)

The walk ended after 2 hours. It was a fruitful trip, and, I believe, the visitors had a super time (well, they wrote to say they did!)

We look forward to the next 2 trips during the school holidays. Write in early to book your places. The dates are 12 November and 10 December (Saturday). See you!

8 October - Chek Jawa Boardwalk outing

2011-10-02T22:21:00.001+08:00

PSLE is over? What about giving your special kid a special treat this Saturday? Come on down to join us as the Crabs explore Chek Jawa Boardwalk with families and friends. We run this nature trip every month so as to introduce Singaporeans to the amazing shore and mangrove wildlife in our own backyard. Marine biodiversity is often under-appreciated in our very urbanised society, and it is time to get everyone excited about nature and its preservation!

We have tailored our trips for the true blue urbanised fellow citizens. There is plenty of native flora and fauna to observe from the safety of the Chek Jawa Boardwalk. No need to get your feet wet. We should be able to observe interesting creatures like mudskippers, tree-climbing crabs, fiddler crabs, weaver ants, kingfishers, tailorbirds, etc. Sometimes when we are REALLY lucky, we get to see spectacular aerial displays by the White-bellied Fish Eagles.

If the tide is low, we might also observe the shore birds feeding away on the mudflats. We are entering the season when the migratory birds from the far north are starting to fly south, and Chek Jawa is a vital stopover for some of these migratory birds.

So, start planning your trip! If you're interested to join us, write in to nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com

Date: 8 October, 2011 (Saturday)
Time: 9:30 am
Duration: about 2 hours
Meeting Place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk, Pulau Ubin
Cost: The Crabs do not charge for the trip but you will have to pay for the bumboat and taxi rides to get to Chek Jawa.

How to get to Chek Jawa

1) Take the bumboat to the island of Pulau Ubin from Changi Village.
2) Once you arrive at Ubin, you can find a lot of island taxis (vans) near the jetty. Tell the taxi driver to take you to Chek Jawa.

Give yourself 45 minutes to travel from Changi Village to Chek Jawa at a leisurely pace.

More Information

Read more about Chek Jawa and Pulau Ubin, and how to get there and what to see and do on the wildsingapore website.

FAQ

Q: Suitable attire?
A: Comfortable outdoors clothes and walking shoes

Q: What should I bring?
A: Drinking water (important), rain gear. Optional: cap, change of attire, camera, snacks.

Q: Age restriction?
A: None as long as the participants are prepared to walk 2 km, climb a 6-storey high tower. able to stand the hot sun or wet weather, and be responsible for their own well-being during the walk.

Q: How do I recognise the organisers?
A: We will be the ones doing a roll-call at Chek Jawa Information Kiosk. So, as long as you make it to Chek Jawa, you will definitely see us.

Q: What if it rains?
A: This is a rain-or-shine event. The Crabs will be there at Chek Jawa regardless of the weather. Usually we are able to resume the walk once the rain stops. Please come prepared with rainwear. You make your own decision whether to come or not in the event of bad weather.

10th Sep - Free Chek Jawa Boardwalk trip

2011-08-31T07:05:00.000+08:00

Chek Jawa remains one of the few unspoilt natural shores in Singapore. You might have heard lots about the place and the abundant biodiversity that still exists there. Come on down and join the Crabs as they do their monthly visit to Chek Jawa.

On a typical trip on the boardwalk, we would expect to see mudskippers, tree-climbing crabs, fiddler crabs, monitor lizards, jungle fowl, molluscs and fishes in the mangroves as well as on the shoreline. And if you are interested in birds, then you won't be disappointed too. The more spectacular species seen at Chek Jawa are the Oriental Pied Hornbills, Grey Herons and White-Bellied Sea Eagles. But the smaller birds are equally interesting too. We have seen (and heard) tailorbirds, sunbirds, woodpeckers, kingfishers and bulbuls.

Write to us at nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com and tell us how many people are coming along. We welcome small family and friend groups.

Date: 10 September, 2011 (Saturday)
Time: 9:30 am
Duration: about 2 hours
Meeting Place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk, Pulau Ubin
Cost: The Crabs do not charge for the trip but you will have to pay for the bumboat and taxi rides to get to Chek Jawa.

How to get to Chek Jawa?

1) Take the bumboat to the island of Pulau Ubin from Changi Village.
2) Once you arrive at Ubin, you can find a lot of island taxis (vans) near the jetty. Tell the taxi driver to take you to Chek Jawa.

Give yourself 45 minutes to travel from Changi Village to Chek Jawa at a leisurely pace.

More Information

Read more about Chek Jawa and Pulau Ubin, and how to get there and what to see and do on the wildsingapore website.

FAQ

Q: Suitable attire?
A: Comfortable outdoors clothes and walking shoes

Q: What should I bring?
A: Drinking water (important), rain gear. Optional: cap, change of attire, camera, snacks.

Q: Age restriction?
A: None as long as the participants are prepared to walk 2 km, climb a 6-storey high tower. able to stand the hot sun or wet weather, and be responsible for their own well-being during the walk.

Q: How do I recognise the organisers?
A: We will be the ones doing a roll-call at Chek Jawa Information Kiosk. So, as long as you make it to Chek Jawa, you will definitely see us.

Q: What if it rains?
A: This is a rain-or-shine event. The Crabs will be there at Chek Jawa regardless of the weather. Usually we are able to resume the walk once the rain stops. Please come prepared with rainwear. You make your own decision whether to come or not in the event of bad weather.

It's August!

2011-08-25T00:00:00.000+08:00

The Crabs had a wonderful trip out to Chek Jawa Boardwalk together with their visitors on 13 August. About 30 people came and we split into 3 groups led by our volunteer guides - Pei Yan, Daniel, Kok Sheng and Ley Kun. Two of KS's students came along to help us as part of their environmental exposure programme.

We had a number of kids in the groups, and true to form, the kids were wonderful in spotting lots of interesting stuff. Read on to find out what they spotted.

Along the path leading to the shore, Ley Kun's group stopped to admire the Sea Poison Tree (Barringtonia asiatica). It is a rather tall tree with large leaves. The fruits have an unusual box-like shape. Its fibrous covering enables the fruit to float on water, just like the coconut, thus allowing it to have a wider seed dispersal. Here is a young visitor holding the lovely pom pom flowers of the Sea Poison tree, found strewn under the tree.

The tide was relatively high during the time when we were there. So, we thought there would be no fiddler crabs to observe on the mudflats. But no, the kids said there were fiddler crabs to be found! The adults strained their eyes, squinted and, lo and behold, the fiddler crabs were there on the seaweed patch next the mangrove trees. In this cropped photo, you can see the male fiddler crabs waving their enlarged pincers. Good sighting, kiddos!

We are getting more and more sightings of the Malayan Monitor Lizards (Varanus salvator) these days. The lizards are among the top predators in the mangroves, and their presence indicate a healthy food chain that is able to sustain their existence. They are however not dangerous to human beings. You would have seen the same species of lizards lying on the boardwalk at Sungei Buloh Wetlands Reserve. We spotted at least 4 lizards today.

Here is the one spotted by KS's group, popping out of a mud lobster mound.

And there was another juvenile basking in the sun just under the Jejawi Tower.

A third one was spotted crawling around the leaf litter near the nipah palm grove at the back mangroves. The fourth one was spotted on the large rocks on the rocky shore area.

We were fortunate to see a Giant Mudskipper (Periophtalmodon schlosseri) in the mangroves. The visitors were amazed to see its huge size, about the length of a man's foot. In this excellent photo taken by KS, you can see the protruding eyes which are specially adapted to life above the water line. Your guides would have explained to you that the mudskippers have enlarged gill pouches that keep their gills moist while on land. Whenever their gill pouches begin to dry out, the mudskippers would dive into the nearest puddle to replenish.

From the top of the Jejawi Tower, you can enjoy the view of the forests in Chek Jawa. This is the coastal forest situated at the far corner of Chek Jawa.

This is the view of the secondary forests to the west of Chek Jawa. As long as Chek Jawa and Pulau Ubin are spared from urban development, you will get to enjoy a view of the verdant forests with no tall buildings in the horizon. A view that is hard to find on the main island of Singapore, so, enjoy!

The kids found a huge spider web at the edge of the forest. It was the Batik Golden Web Spider (Nephila antipodiana), a relative of the Golden Orb Spider (Nephila maculata)which we have seen countless times at Chek Jawa. What you're looking at in the picture below is the female spider. It does not have any yellow joints on the legs, unlike the Golden Orb Spider. The visitors were impressed with the size of the spider as well as the gigantic web that it had spun. The web was over a metre in diameter.

Here are a few photos of the groups in action on the boardwalk.

Among our visitors today is a group of friends from school (Anglican High, I believe). Their team leader, Jasmine, is an experienced birder. It's good to see that she is sharing her love for nature with her friends, and making the effort to get them out on such trips to enjoy the great outdoors. Heartening to see fellow nature lovers sharing their enthusiasm!

This is the Conrad family from England, visiting Singapore during their summer holidays. We're delighted that you made the effort to visit Chek Jawa! Do share what you've learnt on this trip about tropical mangroves and shore lines with your friends back home. And if they travel this way, ask them to come visit Chek Jawa with the Crabs.

At the end of the trip, many of the visitors stopped at the English Cottage and drew on our guest book. Here are a few of their drawings.

On our way out of Chek Jawa, we were lucky to see the wild boars (Sus scrofa) at Punai Hut. The wild boars have become more accustomed to human presence. The van drivers have been feeding them, and the wild boars have come to associate "Vans = Makan".

Mr Lai, one of the taxi drivers, saw us talking about the rubber trees and rubber-tapping. He quickly went to his van and took out a sharp metal device. WIth a swift stroke, he stripped off a bit of the bark, and the white rubber latex started to ooze out.

Soon it formed a little stream flowing down into cup. Mr Lai certainly has not lost his rubber-tapping skills.

As always, we say "Thank you" to our volunteer guides - Pei Yan, Daniel, Kok Sheng, Ley Kun - and the 2 student helpers, Jessie and Janet. We hope to see Jessie and Janet do some guiding in the near future!

The Crabs run this free walk on the second Saturday of every month as a community outreach to educate people about natural shores and conservation issues. We welcome small family and friend groups. Our next walk at Chek Jawa is on 10th September.

Related links:
KS' blog "God's wonderful creation" -
http://wondercreation.blogspot.com/2011/08/chek-jawa-august-walk-with-nhc.html

KS' flickr set for this trip -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/koksheng/archives/date-taken/2011/08/13/

13th Aug - Free Chek Jawa Boardwalk trip

2011-08-07T22:41:00.001+08:00

Registration is open for our monthly outing to Chek Jawa this coming Saturday, 13th August.

Chek Jawa is a natural shore located on the eastern tip of Pulau Ubin. On a typical trip, we would expect to see mudskippers, tree-climbing crabs, fiddler crabs, monitor lizards, jungle fowl, molluscs and fishes in the mangroves as well as on the shoreline. Last month, we had sightings of wild boars in the forest, as well as several herons feeding on the mudflats. The guides miss seeing the Oriental Pied Hornbills for a while now, and we hope we are luckier this month. It is always a special treat when we get to see the hornbills in Chek Jawa.

Come and see for yourself. Write to us at nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com and tell us how many people are coming along. We welcome small family and friend groups.

Date: 13 August, 2011 (Saturday)

Time: 9:30 am

Duration: about 2 hours

Meeting Place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk, Pulau Ubin

Cost: The Crabs do not charge for the trip but you will have to pay for the bumboat and taxi rides to get to Chek Jawa.

How to get to Chek Jawa?

Wild Boar Day

2011-07-19T00:12:00.003+08:00

Kudos to all the moms and dads who took the kids out to visit Chek Jawa with us on 9th July (Saturday). We had a great time, and hope you did too!

Excitement was in the air when we arrived at Chek Jawa in the morning. Someone had found durians from the nearby forest and was sharing them with the visitors. Yes, we are in the middle of durian madness in Pulau Ubin, and there are several durian trees planted by villagers in Chek Jawa a long time ago. Unfortunately the fruit that we had was rather tasteless, but we were assured that there are better ones to be bought from the Ubin town centre. Do visit soon if you want to taste home-grown durians. We probably have about 2 weeks left of the durian season.

Besides durians, it seems to be Wild Boar Day as well. Families of wild boars could be seen running in circles around Chek Jawa. We saw the pigs crossing the main path several times, and concluded that they must be running in circles! The piglets are adorable! Some of them seem to have grown bigger since we last saw them in May and June, and have already lost their 'watermelon' stripes. They seem relatively unafraid of people too. As always, we reminded our visitors to keep a distance from the wild boars.

On the boardwalk, we spotted lots of interesting animals. The kids in Ria's group were wonderful in spotting the best stuff.

There was a huge Giant Mudskipper by the side of the boardwalk in the mangrove area. It was guarding its burrow. The kids were amazed to see a mudskipper as big as a size-8 shoe.

The Vinegar Crabs could be seen on the mud mounds along in the mangroves.

For the first time in a long while, we finally had a sighting of a mud crab in the mangroves. This is the kind of crab that we eat in our famous Singapore chilli crab dish. For some of the visitors, it was interesting to observe this familiar crab in its natural environment.

At the front mangrove area (i.e. next to the inter-tidal zone), we were treated to a sighting of several jungle fowl foraging for food. There was an adult male with its flamboyant plumage, and two females staying close to him. The jungle fowl is the ancestor species of the domesticated chicken.

As it was low tide, the mudflats were exposed, and we were able to observe the mudskippers and fiddler crabs. In particular, there seemed to be a lot of porcelain fiddler crabs under the boardwalk. The males have brightly coloured claws while the females are a dull grey or brown shade. There were some male individuals that had nice blue markings on their shells too.

Further out on the sandbar, we saw two herons, likely to be Grey Herons. When the tide was coming in, we could see them turn and face the incoming tide. This is probably a more favourable direction in order to catch the fishes that come with the rising tide.

There was also a Monitor Lizard out on the mudflat. It must have gone fishing too, and was holding something in its jaws as it walked back to the mangroves. I cannot quite make out what it has caught. What kind of food do you think the lizard eats?

The mudflats are an important feeding ground for animals and birds. In this photo, you can see the two herons, monitor lizard and a Little Heron all within the same frame. I don't know how you feel about this, but I am certainly thrilled to be able to observe them at close range. What a treat!

At the end of the trip, the families gathered at the English Cottage. The kids did some drawings of the animals that they saw. The grown-ups expressed their thoughts about preserving Chek Jawa for our children. Here is a lovely photo of a father and son bonding over a drawing of the Giant Mudskipper.

Some of the thoughts expressed by our friends:

"Chek Jawa is a stunning getaway from the concrete jungle that we live in. It is hidden away but ready to reveal all its wonder to those who are willing to be curious and enthralled."

"Chek Jawa is absolutely gorgeous. It provides such an array of marine life that I never thought I would get to see here in Singapore. It is truly a treasure and it provides an escape from the busy life in Singapore. Great for pictures too!"

"What a beautiful world under the boardwalk. Chek Jawa is worth preserving so that generations after us may enjoy one of Nature's gifts."

Poetry for Chek Jawa!

Do join us at our monthly Chek Jawa Boardwalk trips. We run these walks on the second Saturday of the month. Pre-registration is required - nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com

We had about 40 visitors on this trip. Thanks go out to our volunteer guides - Ria, Chay Hoon and Ley Kun! Your efforts are much appreciated.

Read Ria's wildshores blog for a post of this trip.

9 July - Chek Jawa Boardwalk nature trip

2011-07-01T16:47:00.000+08:00

The kids are back in school, and the boardwalk at Chek Jawa is a lot quieter now. Would you like to join us for a public walk on 9 July, Saturday? In fact, the durian fans among you might want to combine a trip to Chek Jawa with a durian feast at Pulau Ubin.

Chek Jawa is a natural shore located on the eastern tip of Pulau Ubin. On a typical trip, we would expect to see mudskippers, tree-climbing crabs, fiddler crabs, molluscs and fishes in the mangroves as well as shoreline. In many of our previous trips, our visitors were treated to sightings of the Oriental Pied Hornbills, White-Bellied Sea Eagles, herons and even jungle fowl. In recent months, there were sightings of wild boar too.

Come and see for yourself. Write to us at nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com and tell us how many people are coming along. We welcome small family and friend groups.

Date: 9 July, 2011 (Saturday)

Time: 9:30 am

Duration: about 2 hours

Meeting Place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk, Pulau Ubin

Cost: The Crabs do not charge for the trip but you will have to pay for the bumboat and taxi rides to get to Chek Jawa.

How to get to Chek Jawa?

1) Take the bumboat to the island of Pulau Ubin from Changi Village.
2) Once you arrive at Ubin, you can find a lot of island taxis (vans) near the jetty. Tell the taxi driver to take you to Chek Jawa.

Give yourself 45 minutes to travel from Changi Village to Chek Jawa at a leisurely pace.

More Information

Read more about Chek Jawa and Pulau Ubin, and how to get there and what to see and do on the wildsingapore website.

FAQ

Q: Suitable attire?
A: Comfortable outdoors clothes and walking shoes

Q: What should I bring?
A: Drinking water (important), rain gear. Optional: cap, change of attire, camera, snacks.

Q: Age restriction?
A: None as long as the participants are prepared to walk 2 km, climb a 6-storey high tower. able to stand the hot sun or wet weather, and be responsible for their own well-being during the walk.

Q: How do I recognise the organisers?
A: We will be the ones doing a roll-call at Chek Jawa Information Kiosk. So, as long as you make it to Chek Jawa, you will definitely see us.

Q: What if it rains?
A: This is a rain-or-shine event. The Crabs will be there at Chek Jawa regardless of the weather. Usually we are able to resume the walk once the rain stops. Please come prepared with rainwear. You make your own decision whether to come or not in the event of bad weather.

Free Chek Jawa Boardwalk outing on 11 June

2011-05-26T12:01:00.028+08:00

It's the June holidays! Time to take a break from the books, and go out to get some sunshine! Better still, come and explore Chek Jawa (boardwalk, not shore walk) with the Naked Hermit Crabs. The trip will be an eye-opener for many of our Singapore school kids, many of whom have not visited a mangrove and natural shore habitats.

Typically on our trips, we get to see fiddler crabs, tree-climbing crabs, mudskippers, monitor lizards, jungle fowl, weaver ants just to name a few. On some occasions, when we are really lucky, we might see the magnificent Oriental Pied Hornbill, White-bellied Fish Eagle and Great-billed Heron. Every trip is different. Thankfully, Chek Jawa is still very rich in biodiversity.

Date: 11 June, 2011 (Saturday)

Time: 9:30 am

Duration: about 2 hours

Meeting Place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk, Pulau Ubin

Cost: The Crabs do not charge for the trip but you will have to pay for the bumboat and taxi rides to get to Chek Jawa.

To register, please write to nakedhermitcrabs at gmail.com, and tell us how many people are coming for the walk. We welcome small groups of families and friends, but unfortunately are unable to handle corporate events.

Drawings by our visitors

2011-05-21T11:47:00.002+08:00

We had a wonderful outing at Chek Jawa on May 14. There were about 60 visitors and we had 6 volunteer guides that day. A group of RGS girls from the Environment Club and RA Biology Class joined us together with their teachers. This is the second year they came for our walk.

It will be such a waste if we did not put up the lovely drawings done by our visitors. What animals and plants did we see from the boardwalk? What are the feelings after the walk? How do people feel about the conservation efforts done for Chek Jawa? We are always fascinated to find out what captures the eye of our visitors. Sometimes we are worried that perhaps they didn't see much and didn't quite care about the future of a biologically rich shore like Chek Jawa.

Well, the drawings do show that they care!

This first picture shows that we encountered lots of animals and plants in the short one and a half hours. Take a closer look at the picture and you'll see spiders, monitor lizards, crabs, snakes, butterflies, birds, jellyfishes and wild boars. Yes, we saw families of wild boars crossing jungle paths and foraging in the forests around Chek Jawa. To top it all, there were several piglets with their characteristic striped bodies. The wild boars are breeding as wild boars do!

I remember this group of visitors siting on the high rock overlooking the jetty in front of the English Cottage. I've probably got a photo of them in the idyllic setting. They saw Pulau Ubin as a "Wild Paradise". That is so true! Pulau Ubin is where ordinary Singaporeans go to escape from the frenetic pace of life in a city of shopping malls and air-conditioning. Every time I look at Pulau Ubin and its verdant forests as the bumboat approaches the island, my heart immediately quietens down as I know I will be spending a delightfully slow day in natural surroundings.

The next two drawings express the feelings of the RGS girls. "Conserve it!", say the young people from RGS.

And the 'dancing' mudskippers at the front mangrove area have caught someone's eye. These are the bearded mudskippers (Scartelaos histophorus) that we often observe near the soft muddy area. They have slender grey bodies, and are observed to leap head-up into the air. There are numerous species of mudskippers in Singapore. You can find out lots of information about them from the wildsingapore website.

Ah! Someone has drawn a St Andrew's Cross Spider (Argiope mangal) which we found in the mangroves. This spider has eight legs like all spiders do, but because the legs are tucked together in pairs, it appears to have 4 legs at first glance. The spider does look like the St Andrew's Cross. Nature is truly interesting!

More feelings expressed by our visitors in the next few pictures. Calls of "Don't reclaim", "Keep all the beauty, natural environment and wildlife or else the whole world will be ripped from its nature" written in the drawings.

We had a great time despite the hot weather (thankfully, the forests and mangroves provided deep shade that we could escape to!).

We run these free nature walks on the boardwalk every second Saturday of the month. Do join us if you could get your family or friends to come and explore Chek Jawa. We do these free walks in order to raise public awareness of the rich biodiversity of plants and animals in Chek Jawa. All the guides are volunteers. Thanks go out to Alyce, Pei Yan, Daniel, Ivan, Ria and LK for the wonderful trip.

Our next walk is on 11 Jun (Saturday morning). Write to nakedhermitcrabs at gmail.com to register.

And have a lovely weekend!

Related posts: Chek Jawa with the Naked Hermit Crabs by Ria Tan

Chek Jawa Boardwalk trip this Saturday, 14th May

2011-05-12T22:49:00.001+08:00

We still have about 15 places for our monthly Chek Jawa Boardwalk trip this Saturday.

Please write to nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com to register. Happy to share Chek Jawa with you.

Date: 14 May, 2011 (Saturday)

Time: 9:30 am

Duration: about 2 hours

Meeting Place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk, Pulau Ubin

Cost: The Crabs do not charge for the trip but you will have to pay for the bumboat and taxi rides to get to Chek Jawa.

Chek Jawa is not a zoo

2011-04-15T07:41:00.004+08:00

After a busy week of registrations and last-minute cancellations for our monthly walk, we were pleased that we had a good turnout of about 55 visitors on 9th of April. So between the 3 of us, CH, Ivan and myself, we each took about 15 to 20 visitors to show them our favourite Chek Jawa trail.

Here's a picture of Ivan briefing his group at our meeting point, the Chek Jawa Information Kiosk.

Our first stop was at the Jejawi Tower. On our climb up the 20-m high tower, we spied 2 fresh nests made by red weaver ants on a mangrove tree. The nests are made of fresh leaves weaved together into a ball shape with an opening at the bottom, serving as entrance to the nest within. It was a hive of actvity. It is said that the ants could build several satellite nests on a tree, but effectively the satellite nests belong to the same colony.

At the top of Jejawi Tower, we soak in the panoramic view of the environs of Chek Jawa including the Johor river and Pulau Tekong. Here, LK's group stopped to take a group photograph.

A little further down from the tower, we stopped to look at the critically-endangered Sonneratia caseolaris, also commonly known the Berembang tree. The tree was full with fruits, and we were able to see a few up close. Upon further research about this tree, I now understand that the young fruit of the Sonneratia caseolaris is sour and could be used to flavour curries and chutnies. How interesting! It is good to see that our NParks friends have replanted this tree in Chek Jawa. I look forward to seeing this particular tree grow tall and magnificent for everyone to enjoy.

At the inner mangroves, the groups encountered some resident animals of Chek Jawa. There was a juvenile Malayan Water Monitor Lizard (Varanus salvator) and an enormous Giant Mudskipper which kept really still in the hope that we would not spot it. But we did, and lucky for the mudskipper, we are rather harmless folks and did no harm to the cute fellow! Hiccup!

We also saw a mud crab (yes, the edible kind), trying very hard to camouflage itself. As I remarked to my group of visitors, animals in the wild are constantly doing 3 things - Eat, Mate and Staying Alive.

When we got to the outer mangrove boardwalk area, we could see a pair of Great-billed Herons feeding on the mudflats further out on the shore. These birds are rare in Singapore, but we are fortunate to have spotted them several times in Chek Jawa. At low tides, they could be seen hunting alone. Here in this photo, you could see it had caught a fish. We saw it swallow the fish whole.

Closer to shore, all the 3 groups lingered to observe the fiddler crabs and mudskippers on the mudflat. The male fiddler crabs are easy to spot with their colourful enlarged claws. The females are a lot harder to see as they are smaller and their grey colour blended with the mud.

Here is a picture of an unidentified species of mudskipper using its pectoral fins like crutches to hang on to the ground. It had dug itself a nice deep burrow. The small piles of mud near the burrow were spat out by the mudskipper. After all that effort to dig the burrow, I am not surprised that it would guard its well-built home.

By the time we got to the coastal boardwalk, we could see the tide rising over Chek Jawa. It was a beautiful sight as the sea begin to reclaim the land.

Tides are caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon and the Sun. There are 2 high tides and 2 low tides in a day, and the tides shift by about 45-50 minutes every day. This means that if the lowest tide for a particular day happened at 7 am, then we can expect the low tide for the next day to happen at around 7:50 am. Why is this so? It can be explained by the fact that the Moon orbits around the Earth in about 24 hours and 50 minutes. Put simply, the Moon returns to the same location in the sky every 24 hours and 50 minutes, and hence tide times shift by the same time period too. The height of the tides however changes every day.

With the rising tide, there were plenty of fishes too. The sea around Chek Jawa is indeed well and alive. The visitors spotted garfishes and mullets. There was also an unidentified jellyfish measuring about 40 cm across its body. We could see it pulsating away but simply could not determine its shape. Its wine-red colour is very unusual.

Before we knew it, we came to the end of the walk after about one and a half hours. It was a fruitful trip with sightings of little animals and rare plants. To be honest, we were hoping to see the Oriental-pied hornbills, but they were not to be seen nor heard. Nonetheless, we were happy for them. Chek Jawa is not a zoo, and the animals are free to fly and roam to where they pleased.

We thank all our visitors for being so sporting to make their own way down to Chek Jawa. Go spread the word, Chek Jawa is alive, and there is plenty to see.

As always, thanks go out to the guides for giving their time.

Our next walk is on 14th May, Saturday. Same time, same meeting place. Please remember to register so that we can get enough guides.

To end, we leave you with a cute photo of CH's "bag-climbing crab" :-) Have a great weekend ahead!

Free walk on 9th April 2011 - Chek Jawa Boardwalk

2011-04-03T23:58:00.001+08:00

Join the Naked Hermit Crabs for their monthly guided walk at Chek Jawa Boardwalk this April 9 (Saturday).

There is plenty of native flora and fauna to observe from the safety of the Chek Jawa Boardwalk. No need to get your feet wet. We should be able to observe interesting creatures like mudskippers, tree-climbing crabs, fiddler crabs, weaver ants, kingfishers, etc. Sometimes when we are REALLY lucky, we get treated to spectacular aerial displays by the White-bellied Fish Eagles. We have also spotted the Oriental Pied Hornbills on many of our trips. These are animals in the wild, and Chek Jawa is not a zoo, so the sightings are never guaranteed. But that makes an outing to Chek Jawa ever so exciting simply because you'd never know what you get to see!

So come and see for yourself. Signup by writing to nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com. We welcome small groups of family and friends. If you are planning a corporate or organisation outing, we urge you to pool your money to hire the professional nature guides.

Date: 9 April, 2011 (Saturday)

Time: 9:30 am

Duration: about 2 hours

Meeting Place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk, Pulau Ubin

Cost: The Crabs do not charge for the trip but you will have to pay for the bumboat and taxi rides to get to Chek Jawa.

Chek Jawa Boardwalk trip, 12 March 2011, bookings open

2011-03-05T21:20:00.003+08:00

Time for the monthly outing to Chek Jawa Boardwalk with the Naked Hermit Crabs.

Do join us this March holidays for an outing to one of the loveliest natural shores in Singapore. Chek Jawa is located on the north-eastern corner of Pulau Ubin. Even though this is a boardwalk trip, there will still be plenty to see. On most days, we see the fiddler crabs on the shore, tree-climbing crabs in the mangroves, mudskippers, monitor lizards, weaver ants, the list goes on. At our last trip in February, we were treated to a sighting of jungle fowl. These are the ancestors of domesticated chickens. The male jungle fowl have colourful plumage and can fly short distances.

Jungle fowl sighted on 12 February 2011

To register for this trip, please write to nakedhermitcrabs at gmail.com and let us know how many people are coming. We have limited places due to the small number of volunteer guides.

Date: 12 March, 2011 (Saturday)
Time: 9:30 am
Duration: about 2 hours
Meeting Place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk, Pulau Ubin
Cost: Free (you have to pay for the bumboat and taxi rides to get to Chek Jawa)

Please keep your group small, preferably fewer than 10 people, so that we can welcome as many family and friend groups as possible. If you are organising a corporate event, we encourage you to hire the professional nature guides.How to get to Chek Jawa?

1) Take the bumboat to the island of Pulau Ubin from Changi Village.

2) Once you arrive at Ubin, you can find a lot of island taxis (vans) near the jetty. Tell the taxi driver to take you to Chek Jawa.

Give yourself 45-60 minutes to travel from Changi Village to Chek Jawa at a leisurely pace.

More Information

Read more about Chek Jawa and Pulau Ubin, and how to get there and what to see and do on the wildsingapore website.

FAQ

Q: Suitable attire?

A: Comfortable outdoors clothes and walking shoes

Q: What should I bring?

A: Drinking water (important), rain gear. Optional: cap, change of attire, camera, snacks.

Q: Age restriction?

A: None as long as the participants are prepared to walk 2 km, climb a 6-storey high tower. able to stand the hot sun or wet weather. and be responsible for their own well-being during the walk.

Q: How do I recognise the organisers?

A: We will be the ones doing a roll-call at Chek Jawa Information Kiosk. So, as long as you make it to Chek Jawa, you will definitely see us.

Q: What if it rains?

A: This is a rain-or-shine event. The Crabs will be there at Chek Jawa regardless of the weather. Usually we are able to resume the walk once the rain stops. Please come prepared with rainwear.

This nature outing is brought to you by a group of nature-lovers who just want to share the magic of Chek Jawa with members of the public.

Plenty to see at Chek Jawa

2011-02-20T01:09:00.009+08:00

The Naked Hermit Crabs had a wonderful outing to Chek Jawa Boardwalk on February 12. It was our regular monthly trip out to our favourite place. There were 12 visitors and so we split into 2 groups, one led by PY and Daniel, and the other by LK.

At the start of the walk, an observant visitor, Karen, spotted an Oriental Pied Hornbill (Anthracoceros albirostris) perched on a high branch right above our heads. The hornbills were really quiet that morning, but fortunately we managed to catch a glimpse of this large beautiful bird. It is reported that there are approximately 100 hornbills in the wild in Singapore. It was definitely a good start to the trip! A joy!

Oriental Pied Hornbill in Chek Jawa

Our next checkpoint was the Jejawi Tower. On our way up, we were able to see lots of nests formed by the Weaver Ants (Oecophylla smaragdina) on the tree next to the tower. These ants are able to glue leaves together until they form a large ball with a cavity inside. The nests are considered some of the most complex of ants' nests. This is because the process of building the nests involves complex co-ordination by the ants to pull and stick the edges of the leaves together. It is also observed that a large colony would build several satellite nests on a tree. When the leaves forming the nests dry up, the ants would move away and form new nests with fresh green leaves. The process of building new nests is never done! Fascinating nature facts!

A new nest being built by Weaver Ants

Two old nests

At the inner mangroves area, we were able to observe many tree-climbing crabs. These crabs are usually seen in the mud mounds formed by the Mud Lobsters. The crabs have another common name, Vinegar Crabs. It is a Teochew delicacy to pickle these crabs in black vinegar. The food culture of eating vinegar crabs in Singapore seems to be lost already. However, a few years ago, one of our visitors who was originally from Bangkok told me that we can still find this delicacy in the Chinatown area (Yaowarat Road) of Bangkok. Another visitor, an elderly Teochew gentleman, told me that he had eaten vinegared crabs when he was a young man. He thinks too that no one prepares them in this way any more.

Surprisingly, we did not see any giant mudskippers in the inner mangrove area today.

Further down the path, we came up close to a large web formed by the Golden Orb Web Spider (Nephila maculata). You can recognise this spider by looking for the gold colour on the joints on the legs. The female is very large relative to the tiny inconspicuos male spider.

Ah....! It is low tide at the mangroves! We were excited by the prospect of observing more animal activity on the exposed inter-tidal area.

That's right! We saw 3 large (about a metre tall) shore birds feeding in the shallow waters on the outer sand bank area. A zoom-in of our photographs revealed that it was the Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea). There are many heronries on Pulau Ubin. So, on your next visit to Pulau Ubin, do look out for the nests usually set high up on trees found next to bodies of water. One of the Crabs' favourite spots to observe the Grey Herons and their nests is at Pekan Quarry.

Grey heron feeding on the mudflat at low tide

We also stopped for a long time at the silty area where a stream empties into the shore. Lots of mudskippers here! And there are several different species too. In particular, we were fascinated by the dancing mudskippers! These are the Bearded Mudskippers (Scartelaos histophorus). In recent months, we have observed that they have become a regular sighting at Chek Jawa at low tide. The Bearded mudskipper has a long slender body and, in my opinion, it is a very expressive fish, if there were such a thing as an expressive fish! It was very active, constantly moving around, and sometimes, it leapt up into the air in an almost vertical position.

Bearded mudskipper

On this particular trip, we noticed that the Bearded Mudskipper actually digs a burrow in the silt! Here is a picture of the mudskipper returning, head first, into its little burrow.

A Bearded Mudskipper going into its burrow

No visit to Chek Jawa is complete without spending some time to observe the beautiful fiddler crabs (Uca sp.). There were large numbers of fiddler crabs on the shore, especially the males with their uneven claws; one large and one small claw. Fiddler crabs are common on the natural undisturbed shores of Singapore. The fiddler crabs (male) have bright orange claws, and the shells of some of them are multi-coloured (mostly blue) and some even have markings.

We had a leisurely walk on the coastal boardwalk. At low tide, it is possible to see the beautiful seagrass meadows, oysters and barnacles on the rocks, large shells such as the Noble Volute, and a couple of carpet anemones scattered on the lagoon.

Chek Jawa coastal boardwalk at low tide

Seagrass meadow in Chek Jawa

Near the coral rubble area, we were lucky to spot a pair of very colourful male Red Junglefowl (Gallus gallus) sunning themselves at the edge of the coastal forest. We were able to see the characteristic white patch behind the ear, as well as the white patch on the rump. According to PY and Daniel who led the other group, they saw about 4 of these birds including the young. We were delighted with this relatively rare sighting.

Sighting of Red Junglefowl at Chek Jawa

It was definitely a good trip for everyone. The weather was kind to us and we had a lot of interesting sightings of the fauna of Chek Jawa. Everyone, guides and visitors alike, left the place pleased with a Saturday morning that was well spent. Hope you guys had fun at the nature walk!

And what our visitors are saying....

1) Here is a link to more lovely photos of flora and fauna of Pulau Ubin taken by a visitor, Wei Neng.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=329512&id=681783766&l=10740dece5
In particular, look out for great shots of the jumping mudskippers!

2) Karen, one of our visitors on this trip, wrote to tell us that her group stayed on to explore after the walk and came across many other birds and creatures including a pair of Brahminy kites, a Common Flameback woodpecker, a White-rumped Shama,a collared kingfisher, and yet another hornbill amongst other things. Thank you for sharing your sightings!

A pair of Brahminy Kites (photo by Karen)

Female Common Flameback (photo by Karen)

Members of the public can sign up for our free walks whch are held every second Saturday of the month. Register by writing to nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com. Our next trip is on 12th March.

CNY nature walk at Chek Jawa Boardwalk - 12 Feb 2011

2011-02-05T11:20:00.002+08:00

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Done all your CNY visiting? Tossed a few "yu-sheng" already? Eaten one too many pineapple tarts? I'm sure you had a great time this Chinese New Year! If you want to walk off some of the fat gained from all that CNY feasting, come on down to join us for a nature outing to Chek Jawa Boardwalk on 12th February. The Naked Hermit Crabs run these nature walks every 2nd Saturday of the month with the hope of introducing fellow Singaporeans and residents to the natural flora and fauna that are thriving in our backyard.

Chek Jawa is a natural shore located on the island of Pulau Ubin, off the Changi coast. We will be walking on the boardwalk, but still expect to see quite a bit of inter-tidal and mangrove wildlife such as mudskippers, fiddler crabs, tree-climbing crabs, monitor lizards, fishes and jelly-fishes. Sometimes, when conditions are right, we might see some of the large birds of Pulau Ubin - the Oriental Pied Hornbill and White-bellied Fish Eagle.

Date: 12 February, 2011 (Saturday)
Time: 9:30 am
Duration: about 2 hours
Meeting Place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk, Pulau Ubin
Cost: Free (you have to pay for the bumboat and taxi rides to get to Chek Jawa)

Write to nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com to register for the walk.

Please keep your group small, preferably fewer than 10 people, so that we can welcome as many family and friend groups as possible. If you are organising a corporate event, we encourage you to hire the professional nature guides.

How to get to Chek Jawa?

1) Take the bumboat to the island of Pulau Ubin from Changi Village.

2) Once you arrive at Ubin, you can find a lot of island taxis (vans) near the jetty. Tell the taxi driver to take you to Chek Jawa.

Give yourself 45-60 minutes to travel from Changi Village to Chek Jawa at a leisurely pace.

More Information

Read more about Chek Jawa and Pulau Ubin, and how to get there and what to see and do on the wildsingapore website.

FAQ

Q: Suitable attire?

A: Comfortable outdoors clothes and walking shoes

Q: What should I bring?

A: Drinking water (important), rain gear. Optional: cap, change of attire, camera, snacks.

Q: Age restriction?

A: None as long as the participants are prepared to walk 2 km, climb a 6-storey high tower. able to stand the hot sun or wet weather. and be responsible for their own well-being during the walk.

Q: How do I recognise the organisers?

A: We will be the ones doing a roll-call at Chek Jawa Information Kiosk. So, as long as you make it to Chek Jawa, you will definitely see us.

Q: What if it rains?

A: This is a rain-or-shine event. The Crabs will be there at Chek Jawa regardless of the weather. Usually we are able to resume the walk once the rain stops. Please come prepared with rainwear.

This nature outing is brought to you by a group of nature-lovers who just want to share the magic of Chek Jawa with members of the public.

First Chek Jawa Boardwalk trip for 2011

2010-12-26T10:13:00.002+08:00

Hi friends!

We are holding our first Chek Jawa Boardwalk trip of 2011 on 8 Jan (Saturday). Give yourself a treat and get out to enjoy one of Singapore's beautiful natural shores. No, there are no al fresco coffee joints in Chek Jawa; no beach-front seafood restaurants either. Chek Jawa is a natural shore where you will still see inter-tidal marine life and mangrove swamps. As in many of our past trips, we expect to see fiddler crabs, mudskippers, fishes, mangrove tree-climbing crabs, monitor lizards, and, if we are lucky, the critically-endangered Oriental Pied Hornbill and otters.

Date: 8 January, 2011 (Saturday)
Time: 9:30 am
Duration: about 2 hours
Meeting Place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk, Pulau Ubin
Cost: Free (you have to pay for the bumboat and taxi rides to get to Chek Jawa)

Write to nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com to register for the walk.

Please keep your group small, preferably fewer than 10 people, so that we can welcome as many family and friend groups as possible. If you are organising a corporate event, we encourage you to hire the professional nature guides.

Give yourself 45-60 minutes to travel from Changi Village to Chek Jawa at a leisurely pace.

More Information
Read more about Chek Jawa and Pulau Ubin, and how to get there and what to see and do on the wildsingapore website.

FAQ
Q: Suitable attire?
A: Comfortable outdoors clothes and walking shoes

Q: What should I bring?
A: Drinking water (important), rain gear. Optional: cap, change of attire, camera, snacks.

Q: Age restriction?
A: None as long as the participants are prepared to walk 2 km, climb a 6-storey high tower. able to stand the hot sun or wet weather. and be responsible for their own well-being during the walk.

Q: How do I recognise the organisers?
A: We will be the ones doing a roll-call at Chek Jawa Information Kiosk. So, as long as you make it to Chek Jawa, you will definitely see us.

Q: What if it rains?
A: This is a rain-or-shine event. The Crabs will be there at Chek Jawa regardless of the weather. Usually we are able to resume the walk once the rain stops. Please come prepared with rainwear.

This nature trip is brought to you by a group of nature-lovers who just want to share the magic of Chek Jawa with members of the public.

2011 - Free Chek Jawa Boardwalk trips on the 2nd Saturday of each month

2010-12-01T18:00:00.003+08:00

Good news! The Crabs have decided to continue with the free Chek Jawa Boardwalk trips in 2011.

Looking back at the time when we started this project..... Our very first outing with registered guests was to visit the reef shore at Tanjong Rimau, Sentosa, on 5th June 2007, Environment Day. And our first Chek Jawa Boardwalk trip was on 9th September that same year. Time flies! We have done more than 3 years worth of monthly trips, bringing possibly more than 1000 people (we've lost count!) to Chek Jawa to appreciate the natural beauty of one of Singapore's wild coastal areas. We have also trained several new guides who now volunteer with us, and who are eager to share what they know of Chek Jawa with you.

Mark these dates. Write to us at nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com if you wish to join us for a walk.

8-Jan (Sat)
12-Feb (Sat)
12-Mar (Sat) - school holidays
9-Apr (Sat)
14-May (Sat)
11-Jun (Sat) - school holidays
9-Jul (Sat)
13-Aug (Sat)
10-Sep (Sat) - school holidays
8-Oct (Sat)
12-Nov (Sat)
10-Dec (Sat) - school holidays

Meeting Time: 9:30 am

Meeting Place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk, Pulau Ubin

Duration of walk: Approximately 2 hours

Cost: No charge still

Group size: small friends and family groups. Sorry, we do not do corporate groups nor events.

How to get to Chek Jawa?

1) Take the bumboat to the island of Pulau Ubin from Changi Village.

2) Once you arrive at Ubin, you can find a lot of island taxis (vans) near the jetty. Tell the taxi driver to take you to Chek Jawa.

Give yourself 45 minutes to travel from Changi Village to Chek Jawa.

More Information:
More about Chek Jawa and Pulau Ubin and how to get there andwhat to see and do on the wildsingapore website.

Images of Chek Jawa environs:

Jejawi Tower

Coastal Boardwalk

Mangrove Boardwalk

Oriental Pied Hornbill

Mud crab

Cotton Stainer Bugs

Jellyfish

Families enjoying an outing to Chek Jawa

2010-11-28T21:47:00.004+08:00

In a country that is so obsessed with shopping and the trappings of a city life, it is heartening to see so many of the visitors to our outings at Chek Jawa express their love for nature and wild places. And they bring their families along - the young and the young-at-heart - to enjoy a morning amongst the mangroves and coastal areas.

It is the school holidays, and we had a total of 50 visitors and 7 guides (including Alan from NParks who helped us too).

As the roving photographer today, I was able to take many photos of the groups along the trail.

Here's one of PY and her group as they set off from the meeting place.

CH, one of our regular guides, is seen here explaining how the mud lobsters create their amazing network of burrows in the mangrove. These networks of tunnels and mounds are like a 'condo' to numerous species of animals such as snakes, spiders and crabs which share the burrows with the mud lobsters. It is indeed a rich ecosystem.

This is Alan and his group hunting for insects such as the cotton-stainer bugs that are often seen in the sea hibiscus trees.

Daniel and his group are seen here observing the fiddler crabs at the water edge. In Chek Jawa at low tide, you will be able to observe countless number of fiddler crabs scuttling on the inter-tidal area.

And this is the spot where we usually stop to observe the red weaver ants as they build their nests. That's Ivan sharing his amazing knowledge of the ants.

A view of the coastal boardwalk that stretches several hundred metres over the water.

When we ended our walk at House #1, also known as the English Cottage, we usually encourage visitors to sign our guestbook as a memento of the visit. Here are 2 young lads with drawings of what they saw during their walk.

At the English Cottage, the visitors and guides were swopping stories of their sightings. I overheard Ria saying that some of the kids in her group were really enthusiastic in seeking out the animals and fishes. They saw a juvenile Malayan Water Monitor Lizard in the mangrove area. Chay Hoon's group had a lucky sighting of a pair of Oriental Pied Hornbills in the inner mangrove area. The best sighting of the day belongs to Ivan's group who saw a pair of otters swimming in the sea near the dead Perepat tree. That's fantastic! Chek Jawa is still very much alive!

Thanks go out to all our volunteer guides (PY, Chay Hoon, Ria, Daniel, Ivan, Alan and LK) for giving a precious weekend morning to share the beauty of Chek Jawa with members of the public. Thanks also go out to our visitors for being such wonderful listeners. As many of you said to us, we certainly hope Chek Jawa is preserved for many more generations of Singaporeans to enjoy.

Our next Chek Jawa Boardwalk trip is on 8th January, 2011 (Saturday). I will post an announcement of the 2011 walks shortly.

Related links:
- Read Ria's post of the trip in the wildshores blog.
- Read Siango's post on his blog Trek Through Paradise.

Free Chek Jawa Boardwalk trip on 27-Nov-2010 (Saturday)

2010-11-20T12:03:00.003+08:00

We are opening our registration book for visitors who wish to join us this month at our nature trip to Chek Jawa.

It is a boardwalk trip (sorry, not a shore trip), but there are plenty of animals and plants to spot. Do read about our past trips to get an idea of what to expect of a typical boardwalk trip to Chek Jawa. One of our visitors wrote in our guestbook, "The best kept secret of Singapore... Explore till you drop!! Real wildlife and ecosystem observation within secure limits".

Date: 27 November 2010, Saturday

Time: 9:30 am

Duration: 2 hours

Meeting Place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk, Pulau Ubin

Cost: still free for now

Write to nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com to register for the walk.

How to get to Chek Jawa?
1) Take the bumboat to the island of Pulau Ubin from Changi Village.

2) Once you arrive at Ubin, you can find a lot of island taxis (vans) near the jetty. Tell the taxi driver to take you to Chek Jawa.

Give yourself 45-60 minutes to travel from Changi Village to Chek Jawa at a leisurely pace.

How many people can I sign up for?
We welcome small family and friend groups of around 6 people or fewer. For large groups, organisations and corporations, we suggest you pool your resources and hire professional guides. Write to us and we will tell you who they are.

More Information
Read more about Chek Jawa and Pulau Ubin, and how to get there and what to see and do on the wildsingapore website.

FAQ

Q: Suitable attire?
A: Comfortable outdoors clothes and walking shoes

Q: What should I bring?
A: Drinking water (important), rain gear. Optional: cap, change of attire, camera, snacks.

Q: Age restriction?
A: None as long as the participants are prepared to walk 2 km, climb a 6-storey high tower. able to stand the hot sun or wet weather. and be responsible for their own well-being during the walk.

Q: How do I recognise the organisers?
A: We will be the ones doing a roll-call at Chek Jawa Information Kiosk. So, as long as you make it to Chek Jawa, you will definitely see us.

Q: What if it rains?
A: This is a rain-or-shine event. The Crabs will be there at Chek Jawa regardless of the weather. Usually we are able to resume the walk once the rain stops. Please come prepared with rainwear.

Chek Jawa intertidal walks for whole 2011 open for booking on 1-Dec (organised by NParks)

2010-11-17T19:04:00.002+08:00

To all our visitors and friends,

If you are interested to book a Chek Jawa shore walk in 2011 with NParks, please note that the booking date is on 1-Dec-2010. Don't miss this opportunity if you have always wanted to book an intertidal trip. Chek Jawa is a magical place where you can view wonderful inter-tidal marine life.

Read Ria's wildshores blog for an excellent explanation of how the booking works - http://wildshores.blogspot.com/2010/11/chek-jawa-intertidal-walks-for-whole.html

And the NParks website for Chek Jawa is in this link - http://www.nparks.gov.sg/cms/popup/pulau-attractions.html

Through the eyes of our visitors

2010-11-14T23:32:00.003+08:00

It's been three weeks since our monthly nature trip to Chek Jawa Boardwalk on 23rd October. One of our visitors, Jimmy, forwarded a zip file of wonderful photographs taken during the trip. So, with permission from the photographer, Tan Wei Sheng, I am sharing his photographs with you here. Enjoy!

This is the path towards Chek Jawa. This used to be a rubber plantation, but the business of rubber tapping has long stopped, and the rubber estates in Pulau Ubin are gradually turning into secondary forests with a wide variety of plants and trees growing naturally in between the rubber trees.

This is the start of the boardwalk on the way to Jejawi Tower. The boardwalk was officially open to the public on 7 July 2007. With the boardwalk, we can now enjoy the inner and outer mangrove areas without getting our shoes covered with mud. The boardwalk is a wonderful place to observe animals like mudskippers, snakes, crabs and birds.

This is the fruit from the attap palm, also known as the nipah palm. And as its name suggests, the seeds of this fruit are indeed the "attap ji" that many of us enjoy in our chendol and ice kacang desserts. The attap seeds are boiled in syrup for several hours in order to achieve the chewy texture of "attap ji". So the next time you eat your "attap ji", please remember the natural mangrove habitats that support the growth of attap palms. Mangroves are a vanishing sight in modern Singapore.

CH, one of our volunteers, is photographed here as she shares a story about the mud lobsters of Chek Jawa. The mud lobsters are shy creatures and they seldom venture out of their hiding places during the day. However, their presence can be felt by the sight of mud mounds that literally change the landscape of the mangroves. The tunnels made by the mud lobsters are home to numerous other animals such as crabs, spiders, scorpions and even snakes.

The stilt roots of the bakau kurup mangrove trees form an artistic picture. When the tide rises, the roots are covered by sea water, and it becomes a safe refuge for small fishes along the coastal areas.

The Sea Hibiscus Tree is commonly found along the coastal areas of Pulau Ubin. The flowers of the Sea Hibiscus change in colour from yellow to orange to wine red over 2 to 3 days.

This is the jetty in front of the Summer Cottage.

The visitors managed to see a family of wild boars near the visitor centre. This young wild boar is quite skinny and was seen wandering around the area on his own. We wonder if he is an orphaned piglet. Wild boars are a common sight in Pulau Ubin. They have an excellent sense of smell which helps them to detect yummy roots, fruits and shoots in the undergrowth of the forests. We appeal to visitors not to feed the wild boars so that they do not acquire a taste for our kind of food.

To end, thanks go out to our volunteer guides, Ria, CH, LK and, not forgetting, Joan who came to learn more about guiding and volunteering at Chek Jawa.

To register for our monthly free walks at Chek Jawa Boardwalk or to enquire about volunteering opportunities, please write to nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com.

Free Chek Jawa Boardwalk trip on 23-Oct-2010

2010-10-16T23:47:00.000+08:00

Are the final semester exams over? If you're free, plan a trip to Chek Jawa this coming Saturday, 23rd October, 2010. Come with your family or friends. Let the Naked Hermit Crabs introduce you to Chek Jawa without getting your feet wet.

Even though we are not going on to the shore, there is still much to see and enjoy. There are monitor lizards, fiddler crabs, spiders, rare plants, wild boars, mudskippers and lots of fruit trees. If we are lucky, we might even spot the Oriental Pied Hornbill, White-bellied Sea Eagle and the giant Atlas Moth.

Date: 23 October 2010, Saturday

Time: 9:30 am

Duration: 2 hours

Meeting Place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk, Pulau Ubin

Cost: still free for now

Write to nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com to register for the walk.

How to get to Chek Jawa?
1) Take the bumboat to the island of Pulau Ubin from Changi Village.

2) Once you arrive at Ubin, you can find a lot of island taxis (vans) near the jetty. Tell the taxi driver to take you to Chek Jawa.

Give yourself 45-60 minutes to travel from Changi Village to Chek Jawa at a leisurely pace.

How many people can I sign up for?
We welcome small family and friend groups of around 6 people or fewer. For large groups, organisations and corporations, we suggest you pool your resources and hire professional guides. Write to us and we will tell you who they are.

More Information
Read more about Chek Jawa and Pulau Ubin, and how to get there and what to see and do on the wildsingapore website.

FAQ

Q: Suitable attire?
A: Comfortable outdoors clothes and walking shoes

Q: What should I bring?
A: Drinking water (important), rain gear. Optional: cap, change of attire, camera, snacks.

Q: Age restriction?
A: None as long as the participants are prepared to walk 2 km, climb a 6-storey high tower. able to stand the hot sun or wet weather. and be responsible for their own well-being during the walk.

Q: How do I recognise the organisers?
A: We will be the ones doing a roll-call at Chek Jawa Information Kiosk. So, as long as you make it to Chek Jawa, you will definitely see us.

Q: What if it rains?
A: This is a rain-or-shine event. The Crabs will be there at Chek Jawa regardless of the weather. Usually we are able to resume the walk once the rain stops. Please come prepared with rainwear.

And then there were four hornbills

2010-10-11T00:05:00.003+08:00

Looking back at our last blog post, I wrote that if we were lucky, we might spot the gregarious Oriental Pied Hornbills during our monthly guided trip to Chek Jawa Boardwalk. We must have been REALLY fortunate; we saw four Oriental Pied Hornbills on one tree during our trip on 25th September, 2010. Here is proof of the sighting!

Can't see four hornbills? Scroll down and view the next photograph.

It is truly wonderful that these magnificent birds have made their home in Pulau Ubin. Their presence must not be taken for granted because it takes more than just a few trees to lure them to stay. It is the large tracts of forests with an abundance of food including fruits, small vertebrates and invertebrates to support the many hornbills found on the island. Of course, there are the man-made nesting boxes that play a big part too, thanks to the hornbill-breeding programme run by NParks and Singapore Avian Conservation Project.

*************

Here are the drawings made by some of the 30 visitors that we had that day:

Read more about the visitors who came to our walk in Ria's wildshores blog too: http://wildshores.blogspot.com/2010/09/triple-joy-at-chek-jawa-boardwalk.html

We had Elsa and her family including a set of triplets! There was Mr Chong and his family including the 2 young ladies, Jennifer and Jessica, who gave us this colourful drawing of the mangroves in Chek Jawa.

And then there was Seng Heng and his group of friends. Here is a picture of his group on the boardwalk, followed by a picture of their drawing.

If you're interested to visit Chek Jawa Boardwalk during one of our free guided walks, please write to nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com. We run our walks on the 4th Saturday of each month in the morning. The announcement for each walk will be posted closer to the date.

Lastly, thanks go out to our volunteer guides - Ria, Ivan, LK and Kavita, our new friend from NIE.

Join us - Chek Jawa Boardwalk trip on 25-Sep-2010

2010-09-20T00:09:00.001+08:00

Whoa! It's time for our monthly free walk at Chek Jawa Boardwalk again!

It's going to be frenetic weekend in Singapore next week with the Formula-One races down at the city circuit. If you're the type who seeks to be far from the madding crowd, then Chek Jawa with its mangroves and abundant intertidal wildlife may be the perfect place to escape to. Join us at this free walk. You should be able to see fiddler crabs, mudskippers, many bird species, perhaps, if luck is on your side, you might even spot the gregarious Oriental Pied Hornbills.

Write to nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com to indicate how many people are coming for the walk. This trip is designed for small family and friend groups.

Date: 25 September 2010, Saturday
Time: 9:30 am
Duration: 2 hours
Meeting place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk, Pulau Ubin
Cost: still free for now

The coastal segment of the boardwalk at Chek Jawa

How to get to Chek Jawa?
1) Take the bumboat to the island of Pulau Ubin from Changi Village.

2) Once you arrive at Ubin, you can find a lot of island taxis (vans) near the jetty. Tell the taxi driver to take you to Chek Jawa.

Give yourself 45-60 minutes to travel from Changi Village to Chek Jawa at a leisurely pace.

How many people can I sign up for?
We welcome small family and friend groups of around 6 people or fewer. For large groups, organisations and corporations, we suggest you pool your resources and hire professional guides. Write to us and we will tell you who they are.

More Information
Read more about Chek Jawa and Pulau Ubin, and how to get there and what to see and do on the wildsingapore website.

FAQ
Q: Suitable attire?
A: Comfortable outdoors clothes and walking shoes

Q: What should I bring?
A: Drinking water (important), rain gear. Optional: cap, change of attire, camera, snacks.

Q: Age restriction?
A: None as long as the participants are prepared to walk 2 km, climb a 6-storey high tower. able to stand the hot sun or wet weather. and be responsible for their own well-being during the walk.

Q: How do I recognise the organisers?
A: We will be the ones doing a roll-call at Chek Jawa Information Kiosk. So, as long as you make it to Chek Jawa, you will definitely see us.

Q: What if it rains?
A: The Crabs will be there at Chek Jawa regardless of the weather. Usually we are able to resume the walk once the rain stops. Please come prepared with rainwear.

A jellyfish seen during the walk in July 2010

Upcoming trip to Chek Jawa Boardwalk - 28 Aug

2010-08-21T22:42:00.001+08:00

It's another month and time to get out to Chek Jawa Boardwalk again!

Come and join us for a free nature outing. We invite small family and friend groups to join us.
Registration is required. Please write to nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com

Date: 28 August 2010, Saturday
Time: 9:30 am
Duration: 2 hours
Meeting place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk, Pulau Ubin
Cost: still free for now

How to get to Chek Jawa?
1) Take the bumboat to the island of Pulau Ubin from Changi Village.

2) Once you arrive at Ubin, you can find a lot of island taxis (vans) near the jetty. Tell the taxi driver to take you to Chek Jawa.

Give yourself 45-60 minutes to travel from Changi Village to Chek Jawa at a leisurely pace.

How many people can I sign up for?
We welcome small family and friend groups of around 6 people or fewer. For large groups, organisations and corporations, we suggest you pool your resources and hire professional guides. Write to us and we will tell you who they are.

More Information
Read more about Chek Jawa and Pulau Ubin, and how to get there and what to see and do on the wildsingapore website.

FAQ
Q: Suitable attire?
A: Comfortable outdoors clothes and walking shoes

Q: What should I bring?
A: Drinking water (important), rain gear. Optional: cap, change of attire, camera, snacks.

Q: Age restriction?
A: None as long as the participants are prepared to walk 2 km, climb a 6-storey high tower. able to stand the hot sun or wet weather. and be responsible for their own well-being during the walk.

Q: How do I recognise the organisers?
A: We will be the ones doing a roll-call at Chek Jawa Information Kiosk. So, as long as you make it to Chek Jawa, you will definitely see us.

Hornbills, monitor lizards and jellyfish in Chek Jawa

2010-07-25T23:28:00.002+08:00

We were worried that none of our visitors would turn up for the walk. The weatherman predicted "thunderstorms and gusty winds", the sort that give floods in Orchard Road, and we got even more worried when we saw dark clouds on our way to Pulau Ubin. But it turned out to be a perfect day for a trip to Chek Jawa. No rain, no thunder, no lightning, just gusty winds! And we had 16 visitors!

The intrepid visitors were Eleanor and her friends, and a bunch of RGS girls with their teacher. With us too were Sing Yee, Elizabeth, Shaun and Wei Xuan from RJC who had attended the Guides of Singapore Shores workshops for the past 3 weeks. They wanted to see some real-life guiding in action and so we invited them to join us for this trip. We split ourselves into 2 groups with Ria and CH guiding Eleanor and friends as well as the Fab Four (so named by Ria in her blog post!), while PY and I took the cheerful team of girls from RGS.

The first animals to welcome us were the wild boars (Sus scrofa). With a good supply of food on Pulau Ubin, the wild boars survive quite well. We have seen wild boars foraging for crabs and snails on the intertidal areas during low tides. And with the current fruiting season, we are sure that the wild boars have no lack of delicious durians and rambutans to snack on.

Further down the track, we saw 3 (!) Oriental Pied Hornbills (Anthracoceros albirostris) high up on the durian tree. Before we knew it, another 2 more swooped down to join the trio! What a treat for all of us because these are critically endangered birds. Shaun managed to capture a very sharp image of the super-long eye-lashes of the hornbill. Check out his photos on Facebook. That is going to inspire the rest of us to capture more close-ups of the hornbills in future trips.

Along the boardwalk, we saw no fewer than four Malayan Water Monitor Lizards (Varanus salvator). All of them are juveniles. This particular fellow, the tiniest of the lot, was chasing a fiddler crab into a hole and then triumphantly emerging from a neighbouring hole with its prized catch.

Over at the back mangroves, we saw another juvenile lizard basking in the sun, and it appeared to have a large meal inside its belly. Lizards, being cold-blooded animals, need to absorb the heat from the sun before they are able to stir into activity.

Still at the back mangrove area, we saw a Giant Mudskipper about the length of a human foot under the boardwalk. It was guarding its puddle of water in a hole that it has probably created for itself.

There was a tiny mangrove crab that has a luminous blue band on its face and bright red claws. Pei Yan told us that this is the Face-banded Crab (Perisesarme sp.) that is commonly found in Singapore mangroves.

Near the Jejawi Tower, we stopped to marvel at the ingenious camouflage of a stick insect. It really is easy to miss it if not for the sharp eyes of one of the RGS girls.

Over at the coastal boardwalk area, we saw a reddish jellyfish (unidentified) that is about 60 cm in diameter. It is huge! The tentacles look like the convoluted lobes of a brain, and I'm sure this particular jellyfish is capable of giving nasty stings.

After about 2 hours, we ended the walk at House #1. Thank you so much for the lovely drawings that you have left for us in our guestbook.

After the walk, the Crabs and Fab Four proceeded to lunch at Ubin Town where we enjoyed some really good local durians, and our favourite deep-fried squid from Yue-Lai's coffee shop. Perfect ending to a perfect day.

Thanks go out to Ria, CH, PY and LK for guiding today.

Read more about the walk in Wildshores blog http://wildshores.blogspot.com/2010/07/we-are-out-today-on-dry-sunny-day-with.html

Make a date with the Crabs - Saturday, July 24th

2010-07-13T07:56:00.000+08:00

Join us for our monthly nature walk at Chek Jawa Boardwalk in July!

Learn more about the biodiversity of the flora and fauna in Singapore. After all, 2010 is declared the International Year of Biodiversity by United Nations, and we are celebrating its significance by helping to raise awareness of the importance of conserving biodiversity for human well-being. You too can be part of this. Bring your family and friends out to get away from the urban landscape and to enjoy a wild and natural place in Singapore.

Date: 24 July 2010, Saturday
Time: 9:30 am
Duration: 2 hours
Meeting place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk, Pulau Ubin
Cost: still free for now

Registration is required. Please write to nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com

How to get to Chek Jawa?

1) Take the bumboat to the island of Pulau Ubin from Changi Village.

2) Once you arrive at Ubin, you can find a lot of island taxis (vans) near the jetty. Tell the taxi driver to take you to Chek Jawa.

Give yourself 45-60 minutes to travel from Changi Village to Chek Jawa at a leisurely pace.

How many people can I sign up for?

We welcome small family and friend groups of around 6 people or fewer. For large groups and organisations, we suggest you pool your resources and hire professional guides. Write to us and we will tell you who they are.

More Information

Read more about Chek Jawa and Pulau Ubin, and how to get there and what to see and do on the wildsingapore website.

FAQ

Q: Suitable attire?
A: Comfortable outdoors clothes and walking shoes

Q: What should I bring?
A: Drinking water (important), rain gear. Optional: cap, change of attire, camera, snacks.

Q: Age restriction?
A: None as long as the participants are prepared to walk 2 km, climb a 6-storey high tower. able to stand the hot sun or wet weather. and be responsible for their own well-being during the walk.

Q: How do I recognise the organisers?
A: We will be the ones doing a roll-call at Chek Jawa Information Kiosk. So, as long as you make it to Chek Jawa, you will definitely see us.

See you!

Families enjoying Chek Jawa Boardwalk

2010-07-10T23:49:00.004+08:00

We had a good turnout at our monthly boardwalk trip in June. There were about 50 visitors, mostly families with children, a few groups of friends, and even some visitors from the USA.

Here is a fabulous photo of the Sng family on the boardwalk. They were wonderful visitors who asked lots of good questions, showing great interest in the animals and plants that we saw. And Grandpa Sng regaled us with his own stories of how he used to eat salted mangrove crabs with 'teochew muay' in his younger days. Unfortunately, this tradition of eating pickled mangrove crabs has stopped in the last 40-50 years, probably due to widespread loss of mangrove habitats and hence less access to large, economically viable supplies of these crabs.

Here is a photo of Grandpa Sng and the small durian that he found under the tall durian tree closest to the CJ Information Kiosk. Like a true expert, he gave it a shake and a sniff, and declared that there was little flesh in the durian.

The Crabs were too busy guiding and hence had no photo to show of the animals that we encountered. We will just have to rely on the drawings done by the visitors as a record of what we saw that day.

Enjoy the drawings!

The kids clearly enjoyed seeing the giant mudskippers and crabs in the back mangroves.

Almost without fail, our visitors would tell us that Chek Jawa is just too wonderful to be neglected or to be bull-dozed in pursuit of urban development. Let's hope Chek Jawa gets an official nature reserve status. It is a place that should be left for future generations to enjoy. It will be a huge loss to our natural heritage if Chek Jawa becomes yet another beach-front property.

Written by one of the visitors: "Chek Jawa is a wonderful escape from the urban landscape and its conservation is excellent (so far). This is my first visit here and I look forward to visiting it during the birds mass migrations. It would really be a loss for Singaporeans if all that is left of this place are photos and fossils."

A fun group effort by Alice and her friends.

Says Marsha from the USA.

A few words of encouragement penned by Diana from Michigan. Thank you for including us in your itinerary :-)

Finally, thanks go to LK, PY, Daniel and Anuj for guiding! Without you guys, we would not have managed to pull this trip off. Well done!

26 Jun 2010 - Chek Jawa Boardwalk for you

2010-06-18T14:39:00.002+08:00

The school holidays are ending! But wait ..... there is still one more nature walk to do before everyone buckles down for serious work in semester 2. Come and explore Chek Jawa Boardwalk with the Naked Hermit Crabs.

Date: 26 June 2010, Saturday

Time: 9:30 am

Duration: 2 hours

Meeting place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk

Cost: the Crabs are not charging

2010 is a rather special year; it is the International Year of Biodiversity (IYB). There is still so much to learn about biodiversity in our little country. Chek Jawa remains a precious refuge for plants and animals thriving in its various ecosystems. If you have been following our blog, you will know that we regularly encounter mudskippers (lots of different species!), fiddler crabs, mud crabs, hornbills, kingfishers, eagles, sunbirds, jellyfishes and many kinds of fishes in the water. And if you think plants are boring, we hope to show you a couple of interesting ones in Chek Jawa.

How to get to Chek Jawa?

1) Take the bumboat to the island of Pulau Ubin from Changi Village.

2) Once you arrive at Ubin, you can find a lot of island taxis (vans) near the jetty. Tell the taxi driver to take you to Chek Jawa.

Give yourself 1 hour to travel from Changi Village to Chek Jawa.

How many people can I sign up for?

We welcome small family and friend groups of around 6 people or fewer. For large groups and organisations, we suggest you pool your resources together and hire professional guides. Write to us and we will tell you who they are.

More Information
More about Chek Jawa and Pulau Ubin and how to get there andwhat to see and do on the wildsingapore website.

FAQ
Q: Suitable attire?
A: Comfortable outdoorsy clothes and shoes

Q: What should I bring?
A: Drinking water (important), rain gear. Optional: cap, change of attire, camera, snacks.

Q: Age restriction?
A: None as long as the participants are prepared to walk 2 km, climb a 6-storey high tower. able to stand the hot sun or wet weather. and be responsible for their own well-being during the walk.

Q: How do I recognise the organisers?
A: We will be the ones doing a roll-call at Chek Jawa Information Kiosk, so as long as you make it to Chek Jawa, you will definitely see us.

See you!

World Biodiversity Day at Chek Jawa Boardwalk

2010-05-22T23:32:00.004+08:00

It is World Biodiversity Day today, and many families joined us for this month's nature outing to Chek Jawa Boardwalk. What a great bunch of folks they are! For many of them, this is the first time they are exploring a nature area together with their families.

Although it takes a skip, hop and a jump to get to Chek Jawa, the Crabs are always happy to see parents making the extra effort to bring their kiddos to see a spot of nature. As usual, Chek Jawa does not disappoint.

Ria and Justin (from Ubin Explorer) led Mrs Tang's group while Ivan and LK led the other group. Although the rain came down in soft gentle drizzles, the families were not deterred at all. In particular, they were fascinated to see the thousands of fiddler crabs crawling all over the shore at low tide. The male fiddler crabs with their enigmatic enlarged claws were a hit with everyone.

Some of the animals that we saw were:

- the Great-billed Heron was seen wading through the shallow waters further out on the inter-tidal area. Although it was quite far away, we could see its large silhouette, and its graceful head swaying from side to side.

- the Grey Herons were also spotted on the sand bar. Inter-tidal areas are important feeding grounds for these large birds.

- The Oriental Pied Hornbills were teasing us with their loud calls. Finally, one of the groups managed to catch sight of a hornbill perched high on a mangrove tree at the outer mangrove area. We stopped to enjoy its presence for quite a long time. Of course, we saw the artificial nesting boxes and heard the stories of the successful nesting that recently took place there.

- because it was low tide, we saw lots of mudskippers (Gold-Spotted Mudskipper and the Bearded Mudskipper) on the shore as well as the giant ones (Giant Mudskipper) in the back mangroves. Some of the kids thought that the mudskipper is an amphibian. When told that it is indeed a fish, although quite a special fish, they were amazed by its gill pouch, protruding eyes and strong pectoral fins. A fish that walks on land! What a marvelous fish!

- the Collared Kingfisher made its presence felt too. We spotted it on the large dead tree (the Perepat tree) in the seagrass lagoon, and on several other occasions in the mangroves. We taught the visitors how to recognise its call so that they can do some bird-watching in their own neighbourhood. The Collared Kingfisher has adapted well in urban areas, and is often sighted in our parks.

- from the boardwalk, we spotted a large Noble Volute on the seagrass lagoon.

- we saw a pair of garfishes with their long bodies and pointed jaws. Sometimes they are called needlefishes, but they are certainly not swordfishes.

At the back mangroves area, we saw a large troop of photographers pointing their huge cameras at the mangroves. These bird-watchers have come to shoot photographs of the rare Mangrove Blue Flycatcher. One of the kindly photographers showed the kids his photos. It is a small bird with blue feathers on its head, wings and body, and a bright orange chest. It is said that the pair of Mangrove Blue Flycatchers are nesting in Chek Jawa. We just hope the presence of so many people on the boardwalk these few weeks will not scare the birds into abandoning their nesting. Still, it is good to see that the Mangrove Blue has decided to make its presence felt in Chek Jawa.

We ended the walk with a drawing session for the kids and adults. We would like to thank our visitors for their encouraging words always.

Here is Ka Henn (age 8) posing with his drawing. He had added a few of his jokes on the drawing. He has a lovely sense of humour, and we just love it! One of the fathers remarked that it is important that our kids learn to identify our local animal species. "Aye Aye!", say the Crabs. We hope that SIngapore will always have kids who are keen to study about plants and animals, and when they grow up, they become intrepid biologists!

The Crabs would like to thank all our visitors for sharing a lovely day with us at Chek Jawa. We look forward to another trip in June on the 26th.

Thanks too to the guides - Ria, Ivan and LK - for sharing their time and knowledge.

On our way back to mainland Singapore, we stopped to see the preparations being made for the Tua Pek Kong celebrations at the Ubin town centre. According to Alan from NParks, the wayang shows will be from 27 May to 31 May, followed by 2 nights of "getai" on 1 and 2 June.

Read related blog posts:
- "World Biodiversity Day at Chek Jawa with the Naked Hermit Crabs" by Ria Tan
- "World Biodiversity Day at Chek Jawa Boardwalk" by Justin See
- Free nature walk at Chek Jawa Boardwalk every 4th Saturday
- Wayang and "getai" shows at Ubin between 27 May and 2 June.

nature walk at Chek Jawa Boardwalk - every 4th Saturday

2010-05-11T21:54:00.004+08:00

Here are all the dates for our monthly Chek Jawa Boardwalk trips for the rest of 2010. We have fixed them to take place on the fourth Saturday of every month.

22 May (Sat) - World Biodiversity Day
26 Jun (Sat)
24 Jul (Sat)
28 Aug (Sat)
25 Sep (Sat)
23 Oct (Sat)
27 Nov (Sat)
~~25 Dec (Sat) - Christmas Day~~ [Cancelled]

Meeting Time: 9:30 am
Meeting Place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk (Pulau Ubin)
Duration of walk: approximately 2 hours
Cost: Still no charge.

Registration is required. Please write to nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com

How to get to Chek Jawa?

1) Take the bumboat to the island of Pulau Ubin from Changi Village.

2) Once you arrive at Ubin, you can find a lot of island taxis (vans) near the jetty. Tell the taxi driver to take you to Chek Jawa.

Give yourself 1 hour to travel from Changi Village to Chek Jawa.

More Information:
More about Chek Jawa and Pulau Ubin and how to get there andwhat to see and do on the wildsingapore website.

More about Singapore's biodiversity on the Celebrating Singapore's Biodiversity blog set up in support of International Year of Biodiversity 2010.

Footnote:
The Naked Hermit Crabs treat this ongoing project (our 4th year!) as our community service, to introduce ordinary Singaporeans to the wonder of nature. And this year is extra special because 2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity, as officially designated by the United Nations. So, more good reasons for everyone to learn something new about biodiversity of plants and animals in our country.

See you at the Naked Hermit Crabs' nature walks!

Chek Jawa Boardwalk - birds, caterpillars and mudskippers

2010-05-10T00:39:00.004+08:00

A group of 14 visitors signed up for our monthly Chek Jawa Boardwalk in April, and Ria and LK were more than happy to show them around our favourite patch of mangrove in Chek Jawa. The group leader was Lynette and she has brought a group of friends from a Buddhist centre to enjoy a touch of nature away from the bustling Singapore city. "Great choice!", say the Crabs!

Our first checkpoint was to get to the top of the Jejawi Tower before it gets any hotter in the morning. From the Jejawi Tower, one could see the expanse of forest on Pulau Ubin with NO urban skyline in the background! As always, we are grateful for 'ulu' places like Ubin and Chek Jawa where we can slow down to enjoy nature.

Everyone in the group was keen to learn about the plants and animals that day. Cameras went clicking when we spot all kinds of creatures from tiny Cotton-stainer bugs to the Long-tail Macaque that greeted us on the boardwalk.

On the return journey on the southern part of the boardwalk, we were able to enjoy seeing schools of fishes in the waters below us.

At the end of the walk, we were able to stop and observe the artificial nesting box for the Oriental-Pied Hornbill. We were delighted to see that the mud seal on the nest has been broken, and according to our good friends from NParks, the young hornbills had fledged a few days earlier. The story of how the male hornbill would tirelessly gather food for the female hornbill and her babies never fail to impress our visitors. The love for the young (i.e. children) is not exclusive to the human species; all mammals and birds display strong parental love and care for their young until the babies are ready for independence!

And now for a record of some of the sightings during the outing ....

This cute mudskipper, possibly the Blue-spotted mudskipper, could be observed in the back mangrove area. In fact this little fellow was found just below Jejawi Tower. Can you see that he has dug a hole for a home and is fiercely guarding it? I love its beady eyes.

At the back mangroves, one could easily find the Giant mudskipper (Periophthalmodon schlosseri) too. This big boy is about the length of our palm. If you're interested to observe the giant mudskippers in mainland Singapore, pop over to Sungei Api-Api in Pasir Ris. You can see lots of them in the mangrove area not far from the HDB blocks.

For people unfamiliar with mudskippers, they are fishes and they breathe through their gills. Their gill pouches are enlarged so that they retained more water when they are out of water. Although I see them so often, I never stop marveling at how they are created.

We were also delighted to find a gigantic Atlas moth caterpillar (Attacus atlas) when we approached the front mangrove area. The adult Atlas moth has a wing span of nearly 20 cm, and so it was not surprising that the caterpillar is also very large. At the caterpillar stage, the larvae feed voraciously, often leaving a shrub with no leaves after some serious gorging sessions. The adult Atlas moth lacks developed mouthparts and therefore does not feed. The adult moth is dedicated to just one function - to procreate. Isn't nature fascinating?

Under the bakau kurup tree, we spotted a lone Little Heron (a.k.a. Striated Heron) (Butorides striatus) perched on a low branch. As it was not walking on the mudflat, it did not have its characteristic stalking stance.

Here's a little red eye stalk fiddler crab found in the middle mangrove area.

We were fortunate to see the fruit of the Mangrove cannonball tree (Xylocarpus granatum). Ria explained that the fruit of the Mangrove cannonball tree is sometime called the Monkey Puzzle. When the fruit explodes into smaller units, it is very difficult to fit the puzzle back together again.

LK managed to spot a lovely White-rumped shama (Copsychus malabaricus). This is an endangered species that suffers from the threat of poaching. More can be done in Singapore to discourage the sale and purchase of this species as a pet. It will be a tremendously sad day when this beautiful species becomes extinct in our country.

Sorry to end the blog post in this sad note. Let's save what we (still) have in our forests and shores. As nature lovers of inter-tidal and marine ecosystems, it always pain us to see how irresponsible or ignorant acts of human behaviour can cause so much damage to the biodiversity. We are, however, thankful that there is an increase in awareness among the general Singapore population of animal behaviour, welfare and conservation issues. Perhaps there is still hope for our animal friends who share this green planet with us.

Alright, that was somewhat bleak.

Let me share some of the drawings done by our visitors.

Here's a drawing by little Xin Yi who is 6 years old. She drew a camera (yes, we saw many cameras too), a spider and a bat. She heard us talk about bats being the primary pollinators for fruit trees like the durian tree. It goes to show that the children pick up a lot of knowledge from just listening. It also goes to show that grown-ups need to be careful with what they say in front of children!

Amelia expressing her desire to save Chek Jawa and its biodiversity for future generations.

And Shyangwa Tulku Lama also asked for the preservation of Chek Jawa, the jewel of Singapore's nature lovers, for future generations of our country.

Read more:
1) Ria's blog for an account of the nature walk, "Chek Jawa: Monkeys and Memecylon"

2) Ria's blog post on "Help stop cruel 'Animal Liberation' - volunteers needed"

24th April - Chek Jawa Boardwalk trip coming up!

2010-04-18T21:47:00.002+08:00

The Naked Hermit Crabs introduce you to Chek Jawa without getting your feet wet. Even though we are not going on to the shore, there is still much to see and enjoy. There are monitor lizards, fiddler crabs, spiders, rare plants, wild boars, mudskippers and lots of fruit trees. If we are lucky, we might even spot the Oriental Pied Hornbill, White-bellied Sea Eagle and the giant Atlas Moth.

Please write to us at nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com to register.

Date: 24 April 2010 (Saturday)
Time: 9:30 am
Duration: 2 hours
Meeting Place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk
Cost: Still no charge

How to get to Chek Jawa?

1) Take the bumboat to the island of Pulau Ubin from Changi Village.

2) Once you arrive at Ubin, you can find a lot of island taxis (vans) near the jetty. Tell the taxi driver to take you to Chek Jawa.

Give yourself 1 hour to travel from Changi Village to Chek Jawa.

How many people can I sign up for?

We leave you some thoughtful words from the Convention on Biological Diversity website:

"Biodiversity is life"

"Biodiversity is our life"

Coming up .... Chek Jawa Boardwalk trip on March 27th

2010-03-20T15:22:00.000+08:00

Come and join the Crabs on their monthly walk at Chek Jawa (Boardwalk only). Write to nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com to register.

Learn more about the biodiversity of the flora and fauna in Singapore. 2010 is declared the International Year of Biodiversity by United Nations, and we are celebrating its significance by helping to raise awareness of the importance of conserving biodiversity for human well-being. We are a firm believer of "You can't save something if you know nothing about it"! Come celebrate biodiversity with us! Bring your family and friends. Get away from the urban landscape (enough of Orchard Road!) and enjoy a wild and natural place in our own little backyard.

Date: 27 March 2010 (Saturday)
Time: 9:30 am
Duration: 2 hours
Meeting Place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk
Cost: Still no charge

How to get to Chek Jawa?

1) Take the bumboat to the island of Pulau Ubin from Changi Village.

2) Once you arrive at Ubin, you can find a lot of island taxis (vans) near the jetty. Tell the taxi driver to take you to Chek Jawa.

Give yourself 1 hour to travel from Changi Village to Chek Jawa.

How many people can I sign up for?
We welcome small family and friend groups of around 6 people or fewer. For large groups and organisations, we suggest you pool your resources to hire professional guides. Write to us and we will tell you who they are.

More about Chek Jawa and Pulau Ubin and how to get there and what to see and do on the wildsingapore website.

More about Singapore's biodiversity on the Celebrating Singapore's Biodiversity blog set up in support of International Year of Biodiversity 2010.

We leave you some thoughful words from the Convention on Biological Diversity website:

"Biodiversity is life"
"Biodiversity is our life"

A walk on Chek Jawa Boardwalk in February

2010-03-19T12:00:00.004+08:00

Sorry for the late post! No, the Crabs have not been hiding in our shells. We have been busy busy Crabs. During the February Chek Jawa walk, a few of us went out exploring with 3 visitors (many signed up but did not show up. Sigh.)

The residents of Chek Jawa Wetlands did not disappointed us. We were absolutely delighted to spot the male Oriental Pied Hornbill (Anthracoceros albirostris) a few times during the 2 hours that we were there. He was feeding on the fig tree, resting on the palm trees and flew over our heads several times. Here are pictures of this magnificent bird.

We also spotted several beautiful birds that morning. The White-rumped Sharma (Copyychus malabaricus) was found under a clump of trees. PY managed to get an excellent shot of it.

Further down the trail, we also spotted the male Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker (Dicaeum cruentatum) among the bushes. It is a tireless little bird that flies from tree to tree, so we were lucky to catch it resting on the branch giving us an excellent view of its lovely red crown and back.

We know many of our visitors love to see the Atlas Moth (Atlas attacus) in the wild. There were no adult moth about that day, but we saw a chrysalis. As you can tell by the size of the chrysalis of about 9 cm, the Atlas Moth has an impressive wingspan, in fact one of the largest in the world.

At the inner mangrove area, we saw an unfamiliar fern with a furry 'tail' sticking out. Later that day, we found out from our NParks friends that this is the Oak-leaf Fern (Drynaria quercifolia) and the furry animal-like 'tail' is the growing rhizome of the fern. The Oak-leaf Fern has 2 types of leaves. The brown leaves form a protective armour over the young green leaves. We will try to get pictures of the Oak-leaf Fern when the green leaves have emerged from the brown 'armour'.

Enjoy the rest of the photos from our trip.

An unidentified crab found in the inner mangroves.

Cotton stainer bugs (Dysdercus decussatus) gathering in large numbers. They only feed on the seeds of the Sea Hibiscus Tree (Hibiscus tiliaceus)

Ivan pointing out the nests of the Weaver Red Ants (Oecophylla smaragdina).

And here is a close-up of the pouch of leaves formed by the Weaver Ants. Scientist are fascinated by the ability of such ants to co-ordinate on complex tasks of weaving the nests. Read more about nest building at this website.

A group photo for keepsake.

Parting words from our visitors:

"Never expected Chek Jawa to support so much life... I hope that there is enough awareness to conserve it even more...!"

"Chek Jawa should be conserved for the future generations of Singapore. For the first time in my life, I've seen the attap fruit, real mangrove plants and trees, mud crabs, mudskippers and a lot more nature."

Bravo!

Thanks to Ivan, LK and PY (NIE Green Club) for guiding. Photo credits go to Christel, PY and LK. And a shout-out to our 3 valiant visitors - Philip, Eddie and Winston. Hope to see you guys again at other nature spots.

4th Saturday - Free nature walk at Chek Jawa Boardwalk

2010-02-18T09:04:00.015+08:00

We are open for registration of our monthly (February) free nature walk at Chek Jawa Boardwalk! Write to nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com.

Learn more about the biodiversity of the flora and fauna in Singapore. After all, 2010 is declared as the International Year of Biodiversity by United Nations, and we are celebrating its significance by helping to raise awareness of the importance of conserving biodiversity for human well-being. You too can be part of this. Bring your family and friends out to get away from the urban landscape and to enjoy a wild and natural place in Singapore.

Date: 27 Feb 10 (Saturday)
Time: 9:30 am (Note the change to '9:30 am'!)
Duration: 2 hours
Meeting Place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk
Cost: no charge for now.

How to get to Chek Jawa?
1) Take the bumboat to the island of Pulau Ubin from Changi Village.

2) Once you arrive at Ubin, you can find a lot of island taxis (vans) near the jetty. Tell the taxi driver to take you to Chek Jawa.

Give yourself 1 hour to travel from Changi Village to Chek Jawa.

We prefer that you come in small groups of 6 or less, usually of families and friends. If you have a large corporate group or intend to organise a corporate event, we suggest that you use the services of the professional nature guides. Write to us and we will tell you who they are.

More about Chek Jawa and Pulau Ubin and how to get there and what to see and do on the wildsingapore website.

More about Singapore's biodiversity on the Celebrating Singapore's Biodiversity blog set up in support of International Year of Biodiversity 2010.

Saturday CJ walk with NIE Green Club

2010-01-23T22:45:00.003+08:00

The January walk took place last Saturday on 23 Jan 2010. As we are in the process of changing our schedule, we did not give enough time to advertise our walk and we had zero visitors! I'm sorry if some of you were planning to attend our January walk and missed it. Please do join us at the next one on 27 Feb (Sat).

Luckily for us, we had our friends from the NIE Green Club join us on a training outing.

We were able to focus on training Shirin, Amanda and Daniel, and they, on their part, asked lots of questions and took careful notes of their own observations. We're so glad to share our knowledge with the three of them. We do hope that they have benefited from the sharing session and perhaps be able to guide in the near future.

The tide on Saturday morning reached a low of 1.2m, not too high and not too low. At this level, it was just perfect for viewing inter-tidal marine life from the boardwalk. And we were certainly not disappointed!

In my opinion, the best sighting we had on Saturday was the pair of Great-Billed Herons (Ardea sumatrana) which were seen fishing on the mudflats. They are rarely sighted and so, seeing a pair of them on Saturday was extra special. The Great-Billed Heron stands at about 1.2 metre tall and is one of the tallest birds observed in Singapore. Hopefully this is a breeding pair.

We had to go to the soft mud area again to look at the Bearded Mudskipper (Scartelaos histophorus). They are such a delight to observe with their madcap acrobatic acts. Here is a picture of one of them flipping and leaping into an almost vertical position. This cute little fish is now becoming a favourite with us.

Another pretty fish made its appearance on Saturday. It was the Blue-Spotted Mudskipper (Boleophthalmus boddarti) found in the back mangroves. If you look closely, you can see lots of tiny blue spots on its cheeks, along the sides of the body and even some on the dorsal fin.

It was such a perfect blue-sky day, perfect for spending outdoors. Enjoy the rest of the photos.

We hope to see many of you join us at our free Chek Jawa Boardwalk trips in future. Here's the drawing by Ivan advertising our FREE walk!

The next trip will be on...
Date: 27-Feb 2010 (Saturday)
Time: 9:30 am
Meeting place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk.

Thanks to Ria, Ivan and LK for volunteering their time on Saturday. A shout-out to all the members of the NIE Green Club too. We hope to see you again in February.

Read Ria's blog post titled "Chek Jawa with the Naked Hermit Crabs" for more information about this trip.

Take a nature walk. 2010 is International Year of Biodiversity!

2010-01-18T13:06:00.002+08:00

2010 has been declared by United Nations as the International Year of Biodiversity. The main purpose is to raise awareness of the importance of conserving biodiveristy for the well-being of all humankind.

Think about it: Surely we DO NOT want to be the ONLY species of animal left on this earth? It is a sobering thought, indeed!

Coming for one of our nature walks is a good way to start this special year.

The Crabs just want to show you all the fantastic plants and animals in our very own backyard, Pulau Ubin. More specifically we will be going to the Chek Jawa Boardwalk.
Even though we are not going on to the shore, there is still much to see and enjoy. There are monitor lizards, fiddler crabs, spiders, rare plants, wild boars, mudskippers and lots of fruit trees. If we are lucky, we might even spot the Oriental Pied Hornbill, White-bellied Sea Eagle and the giant Atlas Moth.

Do sign up with us at nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com. We prefer that you come in small groups of 6 or less, usually of families and friends. If you have a large corporate group or intend to organise a corporate event, we suggest that you use the services of the professional nature guides. Write to us and we will tell you who they are.

Date: 23 Jan 10 (Saturday)

Time: 9am (Note the change to '9 am'!)

Duration: 2 hours

Meeting Place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk

Cost: no charge for now.

How to get to Chek Jawa?

1) Take the bumboat to the island of Pulau Ubin from Changi Village.

2) Once you arrive at Ubin, you can find a lot of island taxis (vans) near the jetty. Tell the taxi driver to take you to Chek Jawa.

Give yourself 1 hour to travel from Changi Village to Chek Jawa.

More about Chek Jawa and Pulau Ubin and how to get there and what to see and do on the wildsingapore website.

More about Singapore's biodiversity on the Celebrating Singapore's Biodiversity blog set up in support of International Year of Biodiversity 2010.

Fiddler crabs and madcap mudskippers at Chek Jawa

2009-12-26T21:46:00.016+08:00

Ria and I had a fabulous outing with lots of families and pals at the Chek Jawa Boardwalk today. It is the Christmas weekend, and there is no better way than to spend a lovely morning enjoying the beauty of a natural inter-tidal area in Singapore. There were about 25 people who came for our nature walk today.

Here is one group up on top of the Jejawi Tower, striking a happy pose for Ria.

As usual, the kids were fantastic in spotting the animals. With their keen eyesight, they helped us spot lots of animals in the mangroves. Here is a young man who is engrossed in documenting his sighting with a digital camera.

This is the spot near the back mangroves where we always find lots of fiddler crabs. The kids learnt that the male fiddler crab has a large claw which it uses to attract the females, while the female fiddler crabs have two equal-sized claws.

The fiddler crabs were of all shades of colour - red, orange, specks of blue, black, grey. You can read more about these interesting fiddler crabs in the wildsingapore.com factsheets.

There were lots of the brown and grey tree-climbing crabs in the back mangroves too. Some of the crabs were as large as the palm of a child. The tree-climbing crabs eat mostly leaves. In fact, we saw one of them dragging a leaf into its burrow where it could eat at leisure.

The other animals that we saw in abundance today were the mudskippers. They are found in both the back mangroves as well as the muddy shore facing the seagrass lagoon.

The mudskippers that we saw in the mangroves are the Giant mudskippers. These mudskippers have protruding eyes and are distinguishing by a black line on each side of the body. You can also find lots of Giant mudskippers at Sungei Api-Api in Pasir Ris Park, just a short walk from the HDB flats.

But what really caught the attention of the visitors were the super cute mudskippers in the muddy inter-tidal area. We saw at least 2 species of mudskippers in this patch.

The Gold-spotted mudskippers were very active today and many of the boy mudskippers were chasing each other. Many were flashing their colourful dorsal fins, probably a sign of aggression against each other.

The other species that we saw was the long and slender Bearded mudskipper. They were flipping and flapping all over the place. Ria caught their actions on her camera, and lo and behold, these mudskippers were literally leaping on their tails! A most unusual behaviour!

Further along the shore, we saw lots and lots of fiddler crabs. In particular, the Orange fiddler crabs were plentiful.

In a more placid scene, we saw a large shore bird near the large mangrove tree far out in the seagrass lagoon. It was the solitary figure of the Great-billed heron. This large bird with grey plumage is usually found feeding on the muddy seashore. This bird is rarely sighted in Singapore and its appearance in Chek Jawa is a treat for all visitors.

Really, the Crabs are delighted to see families come out to visit Chek Jawa with their children. It is a wonderful place for the city folks to get re-acquainted with nature. Many of the parents were observed sharing their own knowledge with the kids.

And here is the final group photo for the day for those who stayed on till the end. We hope to see you again.

Here are a few drawings on our guest book....

Little Jorryn, who was one of our super-spotters, drew a picture of a jellyfish and a stingray which she spotted from the southern side of the coastal boardwalk.

And Charmaine from Chong Fu Primary School summed it up best.... "Thank you, I had so much fun today". Yes, and the Crabs had a great time too.

See you at our next trip!

Other blog posts written about today's outing:

Wildshores blog: Mudskippers a-leaping at Chek Jawa!

Wildshores blog: Colourful Chek Jawa with the Naked Hermit Crabs

Trip to Chek Jawa Boardwalk on Boxing Day

2009-12-05T18:00:00.006+08:00

The last nature walk for 2009 at Chek Jawa Boardwalk with the Naked Hermit Crabs will be on Boxing Day.

Come on down and join us. Let the kids go wild on nature during the school holidays. It is a lot of fun for the family and we can help you sneak in a story or two about the plant and animal biodiversity on our precious island.

Oh.... adult groups are welcome too! We have not forgotten about you.

Even though we are not going on to the shore, there is still much to see and enjoy. There are monitor lizards, fiddler crabs, spiders, rare plants, wild boars, mudskippers and lots of fruit trees. If we are lucky, we might even spot the Oriental Pied Hornbill, White-bellied Sea Eagle and the giant Atlas Moth.

Please register with nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com in small groups of 6 or less.

Date: 26 Dec 2009 (Saturday)
Time: 9 am (Note the change to '9 am'!)
Duration: 2 hours
Meeting Place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk
Cost: no charge for now.

How to get to Chek Jawa?
1) Take the bumboat to the island of Pulau Ubin from Changi Village.

2) Once you arrive at Ubin, you can find a lot of island taxis (vans) near the jetty. Tell the taxi driver to take you to Chek Jawa.

Give yourself 1 hour to travel from Changi Village to Chek Jawa.

Chek Jawa not enough?
There are lots of fun activities on the seashores for the kids this December, organised by many nature groups in Singapore. Ria has compiled a fantastic list of activities just for you.

1) "Kids go wild on the shores this December" on the wild shores of Singapore blog.

2) The BEST compilation of nature activities in Singapore by Ria on her wild happenings in Singapore blog. We encourage you go and check it out for yourself. You will never run out of ideas to "edutain" your kids once you read Ria's blog.

Kids, Drawings and Chek Jawa

2009-12-04T00:15:00.014+08:00

Here are the drawings done by the lovely bunch of kids who came to our Chek Jawa walk with their parents last Saturday. THEY ARE GOOD ARTISTS!

Do examine the pictures. They give you an insight to what the kids are thinking about after spending 2 hours with us exploring the mangroves.

Jabez (age: 9) was almost shouting when he wrote in block letters, "HELP THE SNAKES! or else!". You know what, he is right! Snakes have a place in our eco-systems too.

Joshua (age: 7) was inspired by the beautiful Oriental Whip Snake, Ahaetulla prasina, that we saw in the trees next to the toilets at Chek Jawa, so he too drew a snake.

Caleb (age: 10) saw the big picture. His drawing has mangrove trees, boardwalk, the English Cottage (also known as House Number 1), the sea, and hey, isn't that the Oriental Whip Snake hidden among the bushes?

Bryan (age:13) drew jellyfishes and a garfish (also known as a needlefish). As the tide was fairly high on Saturday, we were able to see lots of fishes swimming. The garfishes were sighted on the northern shore of Chek Jawa, while the 2 jellyfishes were sighted on the southern side of Chek Jawa not far from the Seashore Nutmeg Tree. Bryan's depiction of the jellyfishes were correct. I remember the jellyfishes were roundish and had short fat arms. Good observation, Bryan!

Elizabeth (age: 10) drew both plants and animals on her picture. She had a smiling mudskipper, 2 tree-climbing crabs on top of a mud lobster mound, a garfish with a long beak, and 2 mangrove trees. She remembered to draw the stilt roots and some pencil roots too. Good drawing, Elizabeth!

Sarah (age: 12) was the only kid to draw the Tailorbird. I'm glad you drew it because we did have some good views of the little tailorbird in the back mangroves. It is a vivacious bird and seem rather unafraid of us. Can you remember the clear tweeting sound that it made? I can. You can google more about the tailorbirds to find out how they 'sew' a pouch of green leaves to form a nest.

I like the way Samuel (age: 6) drew the mudskipper. It has spots! The mudskippers are among the few marine creatures that are able to exploit the muddy areas even when the tide goes down.

This is the cute drawing made by Ian Ray (age: 4).

And his older brother, Ian Kang (age: 10), drew 2 beautiful mudskippers flipping on a bed of seaweed. I like this picture a lot.

We are so happy that the children and their parents had a great outing with us at the Chek Jawa Boardwalk. Most of all, we are happy that Chek Jawa left a wonderful impression on all of us who have visited it. We hope Chek Jawa and its natural ecosystems continue to thrive for a long time to come.

For those of you who wish to visit Chek Jawa with the Naked Hermit Crabs, please join us at our free walk on 26 Dec 2009.

Date: 26 Dec 2009 (Boxing Day), Saturday

Time: 9 am

Meeting Place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk

Registration is needed. Please write to nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com. We welcome families and friend groups to join us. Please keep the group size small as we have limited number of volunteers.

Enjoy the rest of the school holidays. Bring your kids out to explore Singapore's wonderful wild places!

Teach the young ones

2009-11-28T22:43:00.003+08:00

We had a most wonderful trip out to Chek Jawa Boardwalk with several enthusiastic families this morning.

We decided to hold our trip in the morning so as to avoid the holiday makers that descend on Ubin during a long holiday weekend. We were glad that we did as we practically had Chek Jawa to ourselves before the crowds started to arrive in the late morning.

See these happy faces? The kids had a great time bonding with nature with their parents. In the process, they learnt a lot about life in a mangrove, how the animals behave and the kind of habitats they live in.

We are glad that although we live in a highly urbanised city, many of our Singapore parents continue to impart a love (and respect)) for nature to their children. One of the mothers said to me, we are "stewards of the earth that is created for us".

Let's read what they saw during their trip to Chek Jawa.....

There we were, bright and early at 9 am on a Saturday morning. See how the gentle sun rays in the morning gave a soft glow on the ceiling of the Information Kiosk.

This is the famous Jejawi Tower at Chek Jawa. Everyone gamely trooped to the top of the tower to view the environs surrounding Chek Jawa. From our vantage point, we could see the mangroves and coastal forest, and although it was high tide, we were able to point out the sand bar and seagrass lagoon that are covered by the tide. In the horizon, we could see the state of Johor, and even the mouth of the Johor river.

All the families gathered for a group picture at the top of the Jejawi Tower. The tower is named after the Jejawi Tree (also known as the Malayan Banyan Tree, Ficus microcarpa) which you can see in the background. This is the tallest tree in Chek Jawa, even taller than the 20 metre tower itself. We are not sure if 'Chek Jawa' is named after the Jejawi tree or whether it is simply derived from 'Encik dari Java'.

We told the kids to help us look out for animals, and they took their assigned responsibility very seriously. There were squeals of delight when the kids spotted the animals themselves. They saw the tree-climbing crabs, some fiddler crabs in the mangroves, and lots of giant mudskippers too.

Have you ever seen kids this enthusiastic about biology? Chek Jawa is really the perfect outdoor classroom for our kids.

One particular Giant Mudskipper (Periophthalmodon schlosseri) that we saw in the mangrove was as long as a human foot. It was guarding its little patch of muddy water very carefully.

Can you see the protruding eyes of the mudskipper? Please do remember that a mudskipper is a fish and not an amphibian. It breathes through its gills like all fishes do, except the mudskipper has developed a pouch that enables it to carry water to keep its gills moist at all times.

By the time we got to the outer mangroves, we saw that the mud was in a disturbed state. Ria explained that these were signs that the wild boars have been digging in the area. Wild boars are omnivorous and so they have quite a varied diet. They usually dig for underground tubers and stems for food. Sometimes, they develop a taste for snails, worms, crabs or any small animals along the intertidal zone too.

The gold-spotted mudskippers found at the outer mangroves were seen flashing their dorsal fins especially when they were in groups. If you observe them long enough, you too will be able to see the erect dorsal fins. The kids certainly saw them today.

The complex root systems of the mangrove trees are a wonder. These bakau kurup trees on the outer side of the boardwalk had stilt roots that were even taller than a man. The stilt roots provide stability to the tree and allow it to grow tall and strong even though the soil in a mangrove area tend to be soft and unstable. These trees when grown in a large clump provide added stability to each other too.

Who says there is nothing to see from the boardwalk during a high tide? We saw these garfishes (or needle fishes). They are quite a rare sight and we were glad that we spotted this pair in the water.

Besides the garfish, we also saw a large school of large square-tail mullets swimming in a straight line formation nearby at the rocky coast. We spotted them exactly a week ago at around the same time. By coming more regularly to Chek Jawa, we were able to see some patterns in animal sightings. These mullets with yellows tails were spotted in the same spot at roughly the same time a week apart.

What is this long-tailed macaque doing on the floating pontoon? The little fellow looked scared. It probably wanted to run back to the safety of the forest but was scared when it saw group after group of humans walking on the boardwalk. For those of you who have not seen our earlier blogs about the long-tailed macaques, may we gently remind you not to feed the monkeys found in many parts of Singapore. Feeding the monkeys causes them to lose interest in hunting for their own food, and in the end they become a nuisance to people. Don't feed the monkeys! The forests provide enough food to sustain the macaque population.

Here is an idyllic view of the boardwalk and the colourful forests that hug the shoreline. Ria has blogged about these colourful forests of Chek Jawa too. The coastal forest in Chek Jawa is an excellent example of a primary forest as the trees there have never been chopped down by humans for land clearing.

When we were nearly at the end of our walk, the kids spotted this brightly coloured Oriental Whip Snake near the toilets. It has such a beautiful luminous green colour. It slid away quickly but the kids saw it and were absolutely thrilled. This snake is mildly venomous but does not pose a danger to humans. We just love to spot this snake. Do read Chay Hoon's blog on an interesting encounter with an Oriental Whip Snake that ate a gecko for lunch.

Just when we thought there was nothing else to see, those of us who were walking in front saw this male wild boar near the electro-generator. The wild boar is the largest mammal found on Pulau Ubin, not counting the homo sapiens species!

We ended our walk at the English Cottage. The kids drew their impression of Chek Jawa. We will post the drawings in the next blog after I have scanned them onto my computer.

This young man drew the gold-spotted mudskipper by looking at his photo. Good initiative! The camera is a wonderful learning tool, and we are glad to see the kids making full use of their cameras. Many of them were busy taking photos of the animals throughout the trip. We heard one of the young men keeps a blog. Do share that blog with us if you have written about nature in Singapore. We are more than happy to help promote your blog to fellow nature lovers.

While waiting for our vans to arrive at Punai Hut, LK took the opportunity to explain how rubber (or more accurately, latex) is obtained from a rubber tree. Rubber trees are tapped at night, and the latex sap will ooze from the tree for the next one to two hours. The latex is collected in cups attached to the tree. Rubber tappers will then make a second round in the day to collect the latex. One of the mothers in the group told us that she grew up in a rubber estate in Perak. She said her father owned a rubber smokehouse and so she is familiar with how latex is processed to form rubber sheets. Natural rubber is an important raw material used in the manufacturing of all kinds of goods, from shoes to tyres.

We hope the families who joined us today had an enjoyable time at Chek Jawa. Please continue to explore the nature places in Singapore. There are so many interesting places to visit. The kids will learn so much more by actually seeing, observing and touching. Do subscribe to Ria's Wild Singapore Happenings blog to get a weekly update of wild places to visit.

For families or groups of friends who want to join us for our monthly walks, the next date is:

Date: 26 December 2009 (Saturday)

Time: 9 am

Meeting place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk

Registration: write to nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com

Thanks to Ria, CH and LK for giving your time to share the wonders of Chek Jawa with our new friends.

Other blogs written about the same trip:

Animals and colourful coastal forests of Chek Jawa on the wild shores of singapore blog.

Saturday 28-Nov. Note: a change of timing

2009-11-22T17:34:00.009+08:00

Our last Saturday nature walk at Chek Jawa Boardwalk is ON! It is next Saturday, 28th November.

Please sign up with us quickly. Write to nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com. We have limited places.

As our upcoming walk falls smack in the middle of the long Hari Raya Haji weekend, we are expecting huge crowds to descend upon Pulau Ubin. So, the Crabs have decided to change the timing of our walk from 3 pm to to 9 am. This new timing allows us to avoid the crowds going to Ubin as well as returning home. We also think the 9 am timing is perfect for the year-end monsoon season as you may have noticed that the storms in recent days happen in the afternoon.

Let me give you the final details of the walk ....

Date: 28 November 2009, Saturday
Time: 9 am
Meeting Place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk
Duration: 1.5 to 2 hours.

Guiding Fee: No charge for now. This is a community outreach by a group of volunteers to share some of the marvellous plant and animal biodiversity in our country.
Group size: come in small family or friend groups of not more than 6. No large groups please.

How to get to Chek Jawa?

1) Take a bumboat from Changi Village to the island of Pulau Ubin

2) At the Ubin jetty, hop into an island taxi (vans) and tell the driver to take your group to Chek Jawa.
Give yourself about 1 hour to get from Changi Village to the final destination of Chek Jawa.

Please feel free to write to us if you have questions.

Cheers from the Crabs.