As always when we do things on a weekend, short or long, it’s because Lamia did some research on the web to discover a place we have not been to, yet. For today – Good Friday – she suggested to go to Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve. This place is located in the North of Singapore. When you stand on the main bridge after the visitor center, this is what you see when you look to the left…
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Yep, what you’d expect: jungle foliage and murky water.
And when you look to the right…
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Oh, that building there? That’s Malaysia, kids.
Geez, that’s really close! It’s the first time we are in this area and though I have often seen how close Singapore is to the Malaysian shore when I was flying back home coming from North, it’s still sort of surprising to see this in person.
Now here we were and thanks to my second-to-none wife we were about to have another wonderful walk in our adopted home country with some stunning and very surprising experiences.
Here’s she and the boy on said main bridge, ready for adventure:
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There are several hikes you can do through Sungei Buloh, and we picked a trail that circled around some of the reserve so we didn’t have to drag along Oskar’s car seat.
Much what we saw at the beginning was nice, but I am spoiled and when I am hauling my Canon 6D and both my L lenses I sort of think I deserve nature pulling out some sensational things to photograph. But like I said, don’t fret: it was a “good” Friday. Here’s a typical view of what we saw in the beginning:
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I guess when you arrive earlier you see more action, especially from birds, when our experience from the Carmargue is any guidance here. We hit the park around 9 am, which I suspected was maybe already too late for the cool stuff.
Anyway, walking was very pleasant. The pathways are wide and very comfortable to walk on and there were not too many people around. There were many of these Giant Golden Orb Weaver above our heads, however, which were really big and belong indeed to the biggest spiders in the world. They can apparently reach a total diameter of 20 cm. The ones we saw were not that big, but easily in the 12-15 cm range.
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Even though I was closer to them, height-wise, Lamia consistently discovered them first. She just has a sixth sense to detect big eight-legged friends…
As we continued, we passed by a deep pond in which a pretty big monitor lizard was sitting. Now, monitor lizard are nothing special in Singapore, to be honest – we run into them all the time (sort of). Seeing such a dragon-ish or dinosaur-ish beast roaming free is still quite special for me, so I tried a few photos of that fellow in his mud bath, but nothing turned out quite right. The angle was not right and I was not…
Lamia: Hey…
… happy with what I got. I thought about…
Lamia: Honey!
… maybe trying…
Lamia: HONEY!
Leo: What now!?
Lamia: There’s another one and it’s coming right towards the walkway!
Leo: Oh…
There was indeed another monitor lizard and though it was not as big as the one in the tub, I have never had the chance to take photos of one of these so close and under really good light conditions (the one on Bintan was close, too, but light was a little more difficult and – more importantly – I did not have my zoom lens).
Hey there, little buddy:
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He really let me come close. Here’s a nice top view:
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And a lovely portrait :)
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Pretty awesome.
You know, at that point in time I was already happy. Not that a monitor lizard is adding a lot to my photo collection, but shooting some really great quality photos was already very satisfying for me (and judge me, but this is really important to me when I go to a place like this).
And on we walked.
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Some Mangroves… I love how the black and white photo helps discover so much detail about the roots.
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Every hundred meter or so we passed by bird watch hides, large and small. Not much to be seen from either of them, but to get the most out of such a hide you need to stay there for a while, of course. And you need a bigger zoom than my (in this case) paltry 300 mm, otherwise you get just a grand overview like this:
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Time for a little snack…
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As stated above, at this point in time I was already happy.
I had a decent photo of a spider and very good photos of the monitor lizard. Unfortunately I had missed a Kingfisher that I had spotted earlier (though I think Lamia got him), but my take from this little trip was not too shabby.
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Turns out we were about to come to the end of this circuit and we were close to the main bridge, when we noticed a crowd at the side of the pathway.
Lady: There’s a snake. Pretty long one.
A snake? Uuuh! Exciting!
I walked around the crowd in the hope to get a good view of it and yes: I could spot it. Not a good angle to take a photo, but it turns out that it was about to show itself a little better. I was just at the right spot, next to half a dozen smartphones, when the snake decided to dare a closer look.
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And it was a beauty!
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I have no idea about snakes, but this one was really pretty. It did not look that big, but it was crazy long. I thought it might be 1.50 meters or so, but to be honest every time I tell the story it gets longer and longer :)
It did not come closer than this, but I was very happy with how close I got and how sharp the photo turned out with my lens.
After this it turned around and climbed up the trees. Shit! It f***ing climbed up the trees! I’ve seen this on TV before, but seeing it in real life is actually much more impressive. This also gives you a better idea of the snake’s size.
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This beast is long!
I was able to follow its way onto a branch and I love the next photo: the snake and the ant.
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Now I was super happy with the “take” of the day, of course.
It’s the first time I took a photo of a snake I came across in the wild. And then it was such a beautiful one. Absolutely marvelous! Naturally the burning question became what kind of snake this is?
This is not an easy task for someone like me who is pretty clueless about how to identify a snake. There are different sources to help track down a species and I found Ecology Asia rather helpful. The South-East Asia snake section has photos and there are really not that many to pick from, so I figured this should not take too long. I first thought we had met some sort of cat snake. Or an Indochinese Rat Snake.
But none of them really seemed to fit.
But then I got it!
And at first I could not believe it. But we actually had run into a King Cobra!
I know what you think:
You: This is not a King Cobra! I’ve seen pictures and they look like this:
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I nicked this photo from a site called TopHQimages.
Well, read about it. First check Ecology Asia and you will start to appreciate the differences in the colors and particularly the scales of snakes. You will eventually come to the King Cobra section and while the specimen they show photos of does not have the exact same color, you will realize it is the same kind of snake.
Then go to Wikipedia, look at this very helpful scalation of a King Cobra and compare it with my photos above and this one here:
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The top view is very easy to confirm with the scalation graph, and the three scales behind the eye seem to be also very typical. The above photo is also helpful if you are missing the hood of the cobra. Do you see these “wrinkles” behind the head? Well, I do admit I could still be terribly wrong – after all I am no expert by any means – but I am pretty sure this is how the hood looks like when it is not extended.
I daresay we crossed paths with a likely rather young King Cobra. This one was max 2 meters, likely less (I told you the size increases every time I tell the story), but Wikipedia claims they can become 3-4 meters long. The bite of this snake is fatal, by the way (if not treated quickly enough), and I do wonder now how close I got to it in the end (well, just to be clear: all of the shots you see above are taken at the maximum focal length of 300 mm – I was further away than some folks with their smartphones).
Once the snake had disappeared in the foliage, we made our way back to the visitor center, crossed the bridge… and Lamia, who had been walking in front of me was suddenly all excited. There were suspiciously many people on that bridge.
Lamia: And now there’s a crocodile!
You got to be…!
I just was quick enough to see a fricking huge, scaled body making an elegant, swift diving motion under the bridge and it was gone. Shoot! I should have been quicker! Unfortunately the crocodile did not surface right after the bridge but only in the distance, close to the shore and under some trees.
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But what a great day for a photographer!
Wow!
Turns out there was also a very cute boy on that bridge…
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… and I had clear view towards him when he was speeding in my direction.
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Eventually we returned to the visitor center.
Remember the monitor lizards I mentioned earlier? And that they are very common in Singapore? Well, they are also very common in the pond at the visitor center. Here’s a fat chap who apparently just had a very big brunch…
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Again: what a great day.
And look at this lovely family:
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I am pretty sure this won’t have been our last time at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve.
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