15 Dec (Sun): Celebrate the school holidays with a trip to Chek Jawa!

Join us at our Chek Jawa Boardwalk outing on 15 December, Sunday. This is a very special and beautiful corner of Singapore mangroves, and the best way is to explore this place is with a nature guide. Our walks are designed for small groups of young families and friends. Best of all, this nature walk is free! Register on Eventbrite here.

Chek Jawa is rich in biodiversity, and with the help of our volunteer guides, you should be able to see lots of interesting plants and wildlife. Even though we are not going on to the shore, there is still much to see and enjoy. There are monitor lizards, fiddler crabs, tree-climbing crabs, spiders, rare plants, wild boar, 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: 15 December 2019 (Sunday)
Meeting place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk, Pulau Ubin
Meeting time: 9:30 am
Duration of walk: 2 hours
Fees: No charge for now, but small donations are accepted
Sign up here.

8 September (Sun) - Spend your school holidays with us at Chek Jawa!

Join us at our regular Chek Jawa Boardwalk outing on 8 September, Sunday. This is a very special and beautiful corner of Singapore mangroves, and the best way is to explore this place is with a nature guide. Our walks are designed for small groups of young families and friends. Best of all, this nature walk is free! Register on Eventbrite here.

Chek Jawa is rich in biodiversity, and with the help of our volunteer guides, you should be able to see lots of interesting plants and wildlife. Even though we are not going on to the shore, there is still much to see and enjoy. There are monitor lizards, fiddler crabs, tree-climbing crabs, spiders, rare plants, wild boar, 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: 8 September 2019 (Sunday)
Meeting place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk, Pulau Ubin
Meeting time: 9:30 am
Duration of walk: 2 hours
Fees: No charge for now, but small donations are accepted
Sign up here.

18 Aug (Sun) - Free Guided Walk at Chek Jawa

Join us at our regular Chek Jawa Boardwalk outing on 18 August, Sunday. This is a very special and beautiful corner of Singapore mangroves, and the best way is to explore this place is with a nature guide. Our walks are designed for small groups of young families and friends. Best of all, this nature walk is free! Register on Eventbrite here.

Chek Jawa is rich in biodiversity, and with the help of our volunteer guides, you should be able to see lots of interesting plants and wildlife. Even though we are not going on to the shore, there is still much to see and enjoy. There are monitor lizards, fiddler crabs, tree-climbing crabs, spiders, rare plants, wild boar, 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: 18 August 2019 (Sunday)
Meeting place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk, Pulau Ubin
Meeting time: 9:30 am
Duration of walk: 2 hours
Fees: No charge for now, but small donations are accepted
Sign up here.

Celebrating a decade of fun at Chek Jawa!

Photo by Ria Tan

For our final walk of 2017, thirty participants joined us as we celebrated our 10th anniversary of guiding at Chek Jawa! Over the decade, Naked Hermit Crabs has grown with many old and new guides joining the family and learning from one another.

A picture of our visitors right before we started our walk!
(Photo by Liz Lim)

To further commemorate our tenth birthday, we took similar shots of old photos from 2007 during the walk to find out how much Chek Jawa has changed over the years. Here are some of the 'before and after' photos!

The once sparse vegetation in front of Jejawi Tower completely covers the tower today.
(Photo by Ria Tan)

Young trees planted in 2007 have become tall and lush.
(Photo by Ria Tan)

The coastal boardwalk still offers beautiful views all year round!
(Photo by Ria Tan)

Taking in the views
(Photo by Liz Lim)

We were also graced by the presence of a Gerard's water snake (Gerarda prevostiana), which was spotted by one of our participants. This was the first time this species has been recorded on the island! This is the only recorded snake species that loops its body around its prey and tears the prey into smaller pieces rather than swallowing its food whole [1].

Gerard's water snake (Gerarda prevostiana)
(Photo by Sumita Thiagarajan)

Searching for food
(Photo by Sumita Thiagarajan)

We spotted loads of tree climbing crabs as we walked along the boardwalk as well. One of them was even seen eating a very special meal: a snake moult!

Crab eating a snake moult
(Photo by Liz Lim)

The Nipah Palm has always been a crowd favourite, with one of the visitors excitedly exclaiming "It's atapchee!" when they saw the plant! They were also fascinated by a young Nipah Palm that had just started out its life.

Young Nipah Palm!

It was one of the highest tides we have ever seen and there were many mudskippers taking refuge on the roots of the mangrove trees!

Can you spot the mudskippers?
(Photo by Liz Lim)

Mudskipper
(Photo by Liz Lim)

On the coastal boardwalk, we were greeted by a Collared Kingfisher and Common Sandpiper that were resting by the rocks. One group had even seen a White-bellied Sea Eagle swoop out of the trees above them on its way out to hunt some fish!

As it was our 10th anniversary, many visitors had written well-wishes for us!

An extremely cute card by one of our participants!

(Photo by Ria Tan)

Some lovely drawings from a family
(Photo by Ria Tan)

Finally, we would like to thank Ley Kun, Ria, Sumita, Ivan, Liz, Chen Xi, Dayna and Xiang Tian for helping us to guide the participants on this very special walk! Also, big thanks to Ley Kun, Ria, Sumita, Dayna and Liz for your amazing photos of this walk. Lastly, we'd like to thank all the visitors for joining us on this very special day and we hope you've enjoyed yourselves!

(Photo by Ria Tan)

See you in 2018 for more fun walks!


[1] Jayne, B. C., Voris, H. K., & Ng, P. K. (2002). Herpetology: Snake circumvents constraints on prey size. Nature, 418(6894), 143-143.

Awesome first Chek Jawa walk in 2016

After taking a break in January, the Crabs are happy to be back conducting the first walk of 2016.

There were 56 enthusiastic visitors who made that long journey from Singapore to Chek Jawa. I have always called the journey "a skip, hop and a jump" because you have to get to Changi Village first, then 'hop' on to a bumboat, and finally 'jump' to Chek Jawa on an island taxi. Hardly anyone complains about the journey, which kind of tells us just how much Singaporeans love Chek Jawa! Bravo to the visitors!

Golden Orb Spider

Even before the walk began, the visitors were admiring the Golden Orb Spider and its splendid web. The weather has turned drier this week, and the guides were expecting to find more spider webs, and we did! Spiders are known to conserve energy by avoiding the task of building webs during the rainy season. The rain would spoil their webs easily, and the spiders would end up spending more energy to build and re-build webs.

Group photo of walk on 27 Feb 2016, Chek Jawa

Here's the happy group photo before we set off for the walk. Our walks are suitable for families as well as for grown-ups.

Flowers of the Attap (Nipah) Palm

So much to see at Chek Jawa Wetlands!

Our outing to Chek Jawa on 22 August was a fun and eventful one! We saw so many animals and had an encounter with a venomous sea snake. Lots of photos to share with everyone.

Truly, we say it again and again - Chek Jawa is ALIVE! If you have not visited Chek Jawa, come visit this gem of a nature place with the Naked Hermit Crabs. We run a monthly nature tour on the boardwalk as part of our educational outreach to fellow Singaporeans and residents, and the next one is on 12 September.

We hold our walks on the boardwalk. At Chek Jawa, there are 2 segments of the boardwalk - the mangrove boardwalk and the coastal boardwalk.

This is the outer mangrove segment where we always stop to watch the cute fiddler crabs.

Mangrove boardwalk

When the tide is low, it is wonderful to be on the coastal boardwalk because you can see so much up close. Well, next best thing to being on the mudflat itself.

Coastal boardwalk

Hey! What's that green animal? It's the Haddon's carpet anemone. This is a beautiful animal, roughly 60 to 70 cm in diameter. The green colour is due to microscopic algae growing in the anemone. The carpet anemone has a large oral disk on which are lots of tentacles that can sting and trap small animals that swim past it. We used to have a lot more carpet anemones at Chek Jawa, but the encouraging news is that we are slowly seeing more of them these days.

Haddon's carpet anemone

Our last morning Chek Jawa Boardwalk for 2014!

It was a huge turnout for the walk on 27 September with about 60 eager participants that were excited to discover Chek Jawa's rich biodiversity!

Look at all those radiant smiles! 

We saw many mangrove crabs such as the tree climbing crabs which has a diet that mainly consists of leaves and can climb trees up to 6m high! 

A beautiful collage done by one of our participants, Seow Ling Tan 

Unfortunately, the mangrove boardwalks are closed from 29 September 2014 to 31st January 2015 and we will not be able to have walks at Chek Jawa. 

Picture from WildSingapore

Do not worry though! We will be having our walks at Pasir Ris Mangroves instead! Do check out our blog for updates on the walks at Pasir Ris Mangroves.

27 Sept, Saturday: Free guided walk at Chek Jawa Boardwalk

If you have joined us last Saturday for our Pasir Ris Mangrove Boardwalk and would like to join us for the Chek Jawa Boardwalk, we are glad have been bitten by the nature bug and are joining us again! No worries if you have not joined any of our walks because here is the chance for you to do so on 27 September, Saturday!

We have been doing free nature trips to Chek Jawa Boardwalk for nearly 7 years now. Each month, we bring small groups of visitors out on to introduce them to the plant and animals found in the mangroves and intertidal areas of Chek Jawa. All from the safety and convenience of the boardwalk. There is always plenty to see on these trips, such as wild boars, insects, lots and lots of crabs, spiders, snakes, fishes, perhaps a jellyfish or two in the sea, and not forgetting the birds in the forests and flying high above us. Who says there is no nature in Singapore! Come explore Chek Jawa with the Crabs!

Sign up at the Online Registration Form, and we will confirm your attendance via email in a few days! Our email address is nakedhermitcrabs@gmail.com.

Date: 27 September 2014 (Sat)

Meeting time: 9:30 am

Meeting place: Chek Jawa Information Kiosk, Pulau Ubin

Duration of walk: Around 2 hours

Cost: Free

Read on for more photos and details about the walk.

Festival of Biodiversity, 13-14 July, VivoCity

The Festival of Biodiversity is back again, and we just want to celebrate Singapore's rich biodiversity in our nature places with you!

This year, the festival will be held at VivoCity, and the organisers hope to reach out to more Singaporeans and residents. The festival is an annual event organised by the National Parks Board in collaboration with the Biodiversity Roundtable. Click here for the website for the Festival of Biodiversity 2013.

Date: 13 and 14 July, 2013 (Saturday and Sunday)
Time: 10am to 10pm
Venue: VivoCity, Level 1, Central Court B and West Boulevard

The Naked Hermit Crabs are participating in this festival. We will be at VivoCity to celebrate and share information of our beloved natural shores such as Chek Jawa, Pasir Ris Mangroves, shores and reefs of the Southern Islands. The festival is designed for all ages. There will be lots of information as well as games and activities, all of which will give you a deeper understanding of what biodiversity has been conserved.

See you at the Festival!

Day out at Chek Jawa with special guests

The Crabs spent a delightful Friday morning at Chek Jawa with some friends of NParks.

The incoming tide was at about 0.7m and it was just PERFECT to see lots of life on the mudflats. In fact, we took the counter-clockwise route today, so that we were able to get out to the coastal boardwalk as quickly as we could. Read on, and you will see the rich biodiversity of plants and animals that we encountered today. Even though we stayed on the boardwalk, we were able to experience the magic of Chek Jawa!

We had 11 guests joined us today. Here we are on the coastal boardwalk admiring the vistas of Chek Jawa....

And the group again on the mangrove segment of the boardwalk.

Breakfast with Wild Boar and Sunshine on the Shores

It was a really hot and sunny morning. But that didn't deter many people, who made it for our guided walk out on the Chek Jawa boardwalk. Today, we had a big group from Temasek Polytechnic, here to gain some insight into the possible impact of tourism on the environment, as well as several families and other groups who had signed up for this tour.

World Biodiversity Day at Chek Jawa Boardwalk

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.

nature walk at Chek Jawa Boardwalk - every 4th Saturday

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