Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve : Film & Grain Part 1
Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve ( 双溪布洛湿地保护区) lies in the northwest region of Singapore. The reserve, with an area of 130 hectares, is part of the ASEAN Heritage Park. Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve, formerly known as Sungei Buloh Nature Park, was officially opened on 6 December 1993 by then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong.
I visited Sungei Buloh with my trusty 2 year old Nikon, a standard zoom and a telephoto. Of course, I should have brought along a tripod, but to me it’s dead weight. Travelling light is always the better option. And I should have brought along a wonder drug called the insect repellant, which would have saved me from those pesky little flying monsters that suck blood and leave nasty itchy bites. This album was taken on the 21 of December 2014, 2 years after the world was supposed to end in a terrifying explosion according to troves of doomsday folks. Thankfully they were wrong, or else I could not have compiled this little album.
Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve was closed for some time, but rep-opened on the 6th of December 🙂 this year, 21 years after it was first opened. As seen above, this is the visitors entrance, as seen from the carpark. Move in further, and there;s a gallery sort of room, introducing the various wildlife and plants commonly found in the wetland reserve. Also present is a camera recording of some area in the reserve where birds were filmed. The video is not live though, probably chosen from the past few days archive, continuously looping the part where the birds appear and feed.
Upon entering the reserve, it is just a typical forest. Tall trees, cool breezes and the occasional bird whistle. Once you exit the forest, the first signs of mangroove swarms appear. Walk along the bridge and look closely at the trees. What you will see is these mini crabs that flood the trees. There are supposed to be snakes too, but I only saw one that was swimming rather quickly in the waters. Attempts to photograph this water snake turned out to be futile as no crisp or defined shape of any known snakes could be obtained.
Fellow photographer spotted! Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve is quite a popular haunt for photographers, especially wildlife photographer with their gigantic super telephoto primes. Some guy had this enormous camouflaged lens on this large tripod, which probably weights like half my weight. I wonder how he’s going to go around with that gear.
Back to the topic, this bridge is also the place where I almost lost my lens cap. SO I was switching from my standard zoom to my telephoto when I accidentally dropped the lens cap of my telephoto. As luck would have it, the lens cap landed exactly on the narrow wooden plank and not directly into the space in between the planks, in which case my cap would certainly have been lost forever. Phew, lucky me.
December is the monsoon season in Singapore, with torrential rains and heavy thunderstorms, sometimes occurring multiple times in a single day. Which probably explains why this walkway was flooded. This bridge seems to be some kind of a shortcut to another part of the nature reserve. Since it was flooded, everyone had to take the alternative route, which is kind of a letdown. Another visitor was considering crossing the waters by jumping onto the concrete blocks sticking out of the water. “This guy is nuts”, I told myself.
Spotted this baby monitor lizard sunning itself on the rocks. Monitor lizards are a common sight in Sungei Buloh, as can be seen in later photos. This small one is rather cautious, moving around whenever anyone tries to get close or make too much noise. Thankfully, I have with me the telephoto, hence was able to get this photo from afar without worrying about scaring it away. In fact, I was more worried about the other visitors who were within a 1 meter radius of it who might cause it to slither away in fear. Hence, I composed fast, took a couple of shots and left.
And so we have reached the end of Part 1 of this 3 part series on Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve: Film & Grain. Click here to read Part 2 of the series. And thank you for reading till the end.