10th Sep - Free Chek Jawa Boardwalk trip

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.

It's August!

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.

13th Aug - Free Chek Jawa Boardwalk trip

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.

Wild Boar Day

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.

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!