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Crocodile, Otters, Emerald Dove and Fruit Bats at Sungei Buloh

Today must be my luck day! I saw a few of my favourite animals at Sungei Buloh!

Was so excited that even though I had not finished the slides for my volunteer training tomorrow, I was all prepared to stay up late tonight just to put up this blog entry first to spread my joy :P The first animal was this Estuarine Crocodile (Crocodylus porosus). It was right below the main bridge when I reached the reserve in the morning! During lunch time, it decided to come up for a sun tan! Just look at the sharp teeth... Then it was the Smooth Otters (Lutrogale perspicillata). They were resting in the box near the freshwater pond when I went back to the visitor after seeing the crocodile in the morning! This was my first time seeing both crocodile and otters on the same day! There were a total of 5 otters that we saw, and 2 of them were swimming in the river, and at one point, was just a few metres away from the crocodile! One of the otters decided to go for a swim in the freshwater pond after a while. And here was it cleaning its fur after swimming for a while. I also saw one of my favourite birds, an Emerald Dove (Chalcophaps indica), which was foraging among the vegetation right next to the visitor counter! Seemed like this dove had been ringed though, as I could see a metal ring on one of its legs. And it had found some seeds while foraging too! Marcus later show me some fruit bats! Looked like Lesser Dog-faced Fruit Bats (Cynopterus brachyotis) to me, but since I wasn't really a vertebrate person, can't really say for sure.

Saw a number of other interesting stuff during these few days of workshops at Sungei Buloh. Will post more photos when I have the time! :)

Posted by Ron Yeo at 7:25 PM Labels: Sungei Buloh 
Great post! Seems like the otters are really starting to become quite used to humans. I'll show this post to the students to tell them what they could have seen if they had kept quiet and not made so much noise. =P

Oct 30, 2009, 8:03:00 PM mixuer said...

Haha, I heard from Dr. Yong that we missed the crocodile sightings by 10 min when my class went there for our field trip. Oh well!

You're sooooo lucky! :D
Could I use some of those pictures you've taken for class use too? Credits to you! ^^

Nov 1, 2009, 10:37:00 AM 
Hi Ivan, thanks :)

Hi mixuer, you may use my photos. Was taken on the following day, not on the day the NIE group visited buloh though.

Nov 1, 2009, 11:44:00 AM 
hmmm... your croc looks a lot larger than the ones I spotted on 31 Oct. We also found a dead otter that washed up with lots of dead milk fish. A water monitor was trying to eat the carcass but NParks staff removed the carcass n buried it.

Nov 5, 2009, 8:16:00 PM 
Heard about the dead otter from Dr Chua. Sigh... wonder if it's killed by the wild dogs. Saw a pack of 10 of them just the other day.

Would assume that we r seeing the same croc though. But it's kind of hard to tell from the photos :P

Nov 5, 2009, 11:42:00 PM 
Yup! I met Dr Chua. He was photographing the lizards consuming the dead milk fish.

There was a pack of five feral dogs not far from the otters. The large monitors were also stalking the otters. I had a great time observing the otter/monitor interaction. Am wondering if the otters bit off the tail tips of two large monitors. I saw an otter bit one and try to pull the monitor into the water.

Nov 6, 2009, 9:06:00 PM