First Love MacRitchie Walk of 2014: Macaques, drongos and bird waves

On 15 February 2014, seven Toddycats took some 25 participants on a Love MacRitchie Walk at Venus Loop. This was the first of a series of fortnightly free guided walks for the public planned for 2014. Through our second guiding workshop earlier this year, we have more than doubled our crew of trained guides to 40! This ensures a high guide to participant ratio for future walks.

Participants and guides of Group 1. Photo by Chloe Tan.

Participants and guides of Group 2. Photo by David Teng.

This walk, like previous ones in 2013, was anchored around five major stations along the trail, giving participants a holistic learning experience of the importance of forest reserves, forest ecology and human impacts. The walk was also peppered with fun facts about plants and animals encountered along the way.

A young participant getting to know the rubber tree with guide David Tan. Photo by David Teng.

Among other stories of forest critters, participants on this walk would probably best remember the foraging habits of the Long-tailed Macaque (Macaca fascicularis), Greater Racket-tailed Drongo (Dicrurus paradiseus) and other birds. The drongo is known as “burung hamba kera” in Malay, meaning “slave bird of the Long-tailed Macaque (kera kera)”. We watched in wonder as the story behind their common names played out, with drongos following behind a troop of macaques, picking on the insects stirred up as they moved through the forest canopy. Then, calling the participants to a brief moment of silence, we listened to a medley of bird calls, which we believed to be a bird wave! A bird wave is composed of various species flocking in to pick up prey rustled by other foraging birds. Drongos are also capable of initiating bird waves with their ability to mimic the calls of other species.

Long-tailed Macaque. Photo by David Teng.

Greater Racket-tailed Drongo. Photo by Chloe Tan.

View more photos from this walk at http://www.flickr.com/photos/habitatnews/sets/72157641073077383/

Love Our MacRitchie Forest will celebrate World Wildlife Day with our next walk at Prunus-Petai Trail on 1 Mar 2014 (fully subscribed!).

Toddycats HOWL 9: the museum, our logo, endemic crabs, Singapore flowering, otters and a song

With the full moon on Saturday, it was time to arrange for a HOWL session. So much is going on which should be shared with Toddycats, and we called for a pow-wow on Wed 26 Feb 2014.

And we were sure glad we did – twenty-two Toddycats listened to and discussed a slew of topics. And most importantly, everyone explained about how we should move forward in relation to our focus and identity. And in subtle but also firm ways, which was good to see.

Joelle did wrestle with some outreach figures before an impromptu discussion about where how our endemic freshwater crabs were distributed and how they might be coping during this very dry spell.

An extremely tired Adrian Loo who had surfaced from Gardens by the Bay explained in a very soothing manner about the very inclusive Singapore Flowering facebook page (just post pictures of flowering with location), and Otterman told a few stories, including the museum’s modern history and smooth-coated otters along our eastern shores.

When Chloe updated us about the Love MacRitchie project, we were reminded about the lovely four-minute Love MacRitchie video with its lovely tune and visuals. It does help us realise the extent of the fauna in this very precious forest patch which we have. The video highlights some treasures of this precious patch of forest and shares the wonders we could retain for the future, with a realignment of the Cross Island Line to avoid the fragile forest.

I don’t mind ta-king a longer ride on the MRT

For MacRitchie”

Do you?

Today Joelle chaired the session and bore the burden of time management to ensure we would vacate our lovely venue by 10pm. This is an exhausting job while we engage in one diversion after another, so we will share the responsibility in future! We did not complete the agenda (not unusual) and we’ll look forward to the rest of it during HOWL 10.

See you there!

Toddycats Coordinator Joelle had sole charing duties today

Who and where, attendance by Amanda Tan

A brief history of the museum, with an emphasis on recent highlights

Recent temperature trends and flowering – the motivation behind Singapore Flowering

Toddycats Howl 9 on Wed 26 Feb 2014: 7.00pm

Toddycats are meeting for HOWL 9 on Wed 26 Feb 2014 at 7.00pm
Do sign up to let us know you are coming as indicated by the mailing list notification.

The agenda includes the future of the museum and Toddycats, how effective outreach has been in 2013 (Joelle Lai), smooth-coated otters at GBB (Otterman), what and who is behind the Singapore Flowering fb project (Adrian Loo), how to report offences in nature reserves, updates from the Biodiversity Roundtable (Otterman) and Love MacRitchie project (Chloe Tan) and about a wildlife sanctuary in Cambodia (Alvin Wong).

Cheerio!

Joelle Lai & Sivasothi

Toddycats’ MacRitchie forest walks in 2014

Join Raffles Museum Toddycats on their MacRitchie forest walks on in march and April 2014.
The walks are free and are an eye opener about our forest heritage!

Sign up at http://tinyurl.com/lovemacritchiewalks-wait to be placed on our waiting list.  

 

Forest Walks in March 2014

• Sat 01 Mar 2014 – Petai Trail (~4km; not suitable for children below 12).  We are full for this walk! Please see dates below for more slots 🙂
• Sat 15 Mar 2014 – Venus Loop. Sign up at: Link (25 spaces only)  We are full for this walk too! Please sign up for slots on the remaining dates if you would like to join us. 
• 29 Mar 2014 – Venus Loop. By Raffles Museum Toddycats. Sign up at: Link (25 spaces only)  We are full for this walk too! Please sign up for slots on the remaining dates if you would like to join us. 

Forest walk in April

• 12 Apr 2014 – Venus Loop. By Raffles Museum Toddycats. Sign up at: Link (25 spaces only)  We are full for this walk!

Toddycats are back with Love MacRitchie Walks 2014!

Toddycats are back with our Love MacRitchie Walks for 2014! The three guided walks we conducted at Venus Loop last year received overwhelming response and much positive feedback. With our crew of 20 veteran and novice guides, we managed to reach out to 64 participants (majority from the NUS community). We even helped train MacRitchie advocates from NIE and Singapore American School, who then went on to bring the Love MacRitchie Walks to a wider audience.

Toddycats with MacRitchie advocates from NIE and SAS during the guiding workshop – 5 Oct 2013. Photo by Chloe Tan.

This year, Toddycats are striving to beef up our pool of trained guides, explore new trails at MacRitchie, and hold more guided walks regularly for members of the public. Each of these walks will be able to accommodate up to 25 participants. You can look forward to hearing wonderful stories about the plants and animals of MacRitchie Forest!

Spotted Keelback (Xenochrophis maculatus) at Venus Loop during the guiding workshop – 5 Oct 2013. Photo by Marcus Ng.

A spreadwing damselfy (family Lestidae) spotted during a walk – 19 Oct 2013. Photo by Marcus Ng.

Little Wyn and Toddycat guide Chloe Tan holding leaves of the Giant Macaranga (Macaranga gigantea) – 26 Oct 2013. Photo by Lim Sun Sun.

Malayan Colugo (Cynocephalus variegatus) mother and her baby spotted during a Toddycats visit to Petai Trail – 18 Jan 2014. Photo by Chloe Tan.

Here’s a tentative schedule for the Love MacRitchie Walks series for the first half of 2014:

• 8 Feb – Guiding workshop at Venus Loop (for Toddycats only)
• 15 Feb – Love MacRitchie Walk at Venus Loop
• 1 Mar – Love MacRitchie Walk at Petai Trail
• 15 Mar – Love MacRitchie Walk at Venus Loop
• 29 Mar – Love MacRitchie Walk at Venus Loop
• 12 Apr – Love MacRitchie Walk at Venus Loop

Stay tuned to lovemacritchie.wordpress.com/love-macritchie-walks and like us on Facebook for updates on registration details.