9 July - Chek Jawa Boardwalk nature trip

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.

Free Chek Jawa Boardwalk outing on 11 June

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

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!

Chek Jawa Boardwalk trip this Saturday, 14th May

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

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.

Free walk on 9th April 2011 - Chek Jawa Boardwalk

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

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)