Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve Part 3 : Wildlife
This is the third and final installment in the Sungie Buloh Wetland Reserve series. The focus of this post in on wildlife photographed at the reserve, namely the monitor lizard. But before that, let’s dive in on the bird like creature seen above. After some research and detective work, the bird above is revealed to be a Milky Stork (Mycteria cinerea), an endangered species native to Sumatra, Indonesia. Worldwide population figures are estimated at around 5000. As luck would have it, two of these Milky Stork appeared right at in the area of the viewing gallery where I merely happened to past by.
The most common reptiles seen at sungei buloh wetland reserve is the crocodile and the monitor lizard. While I have seen no sign of any crocodiles except for warning signs at the places where they supposedly appear most, I have seen at least 5 of the latter. The species seen above is a Malayan Water Monitor Lizard (Varanus salvator). Adults have a length of roughly two meters, with the longest ever recorded being 3.21 meters in length. Those sharp claws look like they can pack quite a scratch and perhaps even tear a person’s face off.
The same water monitor lizard, shortly after being photographed, waded awkwardedly and rather lazily into the waters. It moved with minimal speed, as though it was trying to be cautious. Or maybe it was just cannot move fast enough in waters. From the direction it was facing, I spotted a dead fish directly in the monitor lizard’s path. Which probably means this lizard is hunting for his lunch, although I always thought that wild animals favor prey that is still alive.
Anyway, this lizard must have thought that it’s lunch was already dead, floating in the waters for quite some time, as it jumped out of the water clumsily and pounced onto the fish. Dead fish don’t move, someone’s got to tell this monitor lizard. And so , having secured it’s lunch, the monitor lizard once again took it’s own sweet time to get back to shore.
Just like a cat which plays with it’s food, the monitor lizard dropped the fish, picked it up, and repeated the process a couple of times. Before swallowing the whole fish head first. Surprisingly, the fish got through that throat, which seemed about the same size as the fish.
As some of you may have observed, the focusing was off of the main subject and falls instead on the pile of leaves at the back. Through the viewfinder, I distinctly remember having selected a focal point that falls on the monitor lizard. This makes me wish a tiny bit for a mirrorless system. With the removal of the bulky mirror box, there is no place for a viewfinder anymore. Which is a shame, since I dislike using the display lcds for composing and they are really bad for the battery life. Some of the higher end prosumer mirrorless cameras come with electronic viewfinders which are said to rival traditional DSLR viewfinders. With depth of field clearly visible, accurate exposure and even 100% magnification to ensure you have focused onto the right place, it really makes me want to adopt the mirrorless system.
However, since I am already quite invested into the Nikon camp, and Nikon’s line of mirrorless cameras are not very appealing, this is a dealbreaker. By switching to Nikon’s V series, I lose the ergonomics, larger sensor size and superior battery performance, and also render my entire lens collection useless. Yes, I can use a adapter, but sticking my lenses onto the relatively puny sized camera gives rather bad handling issues. However, one benefit of going down this route is that the smaller size of the cx sensors means longer focal length for telephotos. I personally find this extremely useful for wildlife photography, since you can get real close shots of say a bird from afar.
The best case scenario in my opinion is that Nikon designs a DSLR looking kind of camera without a mirror box. Throw in an electronic viewfinder, make the body slimmer but keep the contours and grips of their current line. Maintain lens compatibility with the F-mount lenses and we could have a winner.
On my way out of the wetland reserve, I past by the “lazy” monitor lizard first observed in Part 2 of this series. It was still in it’s original spot, since about an hour ago!