A Walk Outside

Hello everyone!! How have you been? I'm sorry I haven't been writing much -- besides being busy with school and my little brother, I've been having the flu! I had a fever for days, but am better now, just that I have this stupid cough and sometimes a head and tummy ache. So my Mom has been taking care of me and giving me my nasty tasting antibiotics. I've finished my homework now though, so I'm going to share with you some photos I took!

My Mom takes us for long walks to the beach almost every day and each time there's lot of different things to see. These are photos I took on one of those walks (except the one on top of course, which was taken by my Mom! I was about to go for ballet then haha).

So first let me show you the mangrove swamp we always walk past. The canal leads to the sea. The swamp area used to be much bigger, with lots of herons, snakes and monitor lizards, but that has greatly decreased :(

That day, we were so lucky to see this little bird in the bougainvilleas! He or she looks like a hummingbird, don't you think? But my Mom says we don't have hummingbirds here, and he is actually a sunbird. In fact, she thinks he may actually be a spiderhunter, one of the largest species of sunbird.

Like hummingbirds, sunbirds feed on nectar, and also insects and spiders. They have long, curved bills, and tubular tongues for nectar feeding. They're so cute!

Some sunbirds can take nectar by hovering like a hummingbird, see? They fly very fast, so I was happy to catch these shots!

There are lots of beautiful trees and plants by the sea.

My Mom says many of them have been here for years. I hope they stay around for many years more!

Many ships pass through here. Singapore is the world's second-busiest port and the world's busiest transshipment port. Ships like this one are so huge they look gigantic even from the shore. My Mom says LNG is a tanker that transports liquefied natural gas. The ship has a double hull or body to protect the cargo from damage or leaks.

Out at sea, there are lots of these kelongs. Kelong is a Malay word for these sorts of offshore wooden structures. They are built mainly for fishing, though there are fishermen and their families living in the bigger ones. They are secured to the sea bed by tall wooden posts that go down several metres into the sea. These ones look like they're resting on the water surface, but there are many that are elevated high above the water and you have to climb up the rickety beams. My Mom told us she did that when she was younger. The kelong she went to was out in the deep sea and she could see big shiny barracuda in the water below!

Now let me tell you about this thing. We had been seeing it in different parts of the sea for days already and I finally remembered to take a picture of it. The first time we saw it, we said it looked just like the head of someone with goggles and greasepaint on, half-submerged like those people on secret missions. Then I said he was in some competition for treading water, and that he had outlasted everybody.

You see -- he refuses to give up! That's why he looks like this now.

There were many poor dead crabs on the shore that day. The bottom of this crab shows he is male. When they are alive, we can see them running about in the shallow water and then suddenly diving and disappearing into the sand.

I read an article that said that unlike what a lot of people think, crabs and other crustaceans DO feel pain. My Mom has always believed this and refuses to eat them (and animals in general). Once, we rescued some crabs from the supermarket. My Mom says that those poor crabs and lobsters we see tied up in the supermarket or in the tanks at restaurants are boiled alive. Now a university study has proven that these poor animals do feel pain! And if you read how the study was done, you will see that they are smart, thinking creatures too! So please don't eat them!

There are lots of sea stars washed up on shore too. Don't call them starfish because you know they aren't really fish. They don't have backbones for one thing, but fish do. Did you know that sea stars can grow a new arm if they lose one? They also don't have brains or blood, and move by using hundreds of tube feet on their undersides.

Now let me share with you a very sad picture. This is a beautiful bird we have to walk past every time we go to the beach. He is quite far away so we can't tell what kind of bird he is, but he has a very long tail and sings very loudly and sweetly. I think it is very very wrong to keep a bird caged. Caged birds cannot stretch or use their wings and are lonely and bored. Imagine being trapped like that all day, every day! He must be so sad when he sees the wild birds calling to each other and flying past. Mommy says there is a poem by one of her favourite writers called "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings". One verse of the poem is:

The caged bird sings with fearful trill

of the things unknown but longed for still

and his tune is heard on the distant hill

for the caged bird sings of freedom

Isn't that sad?? Please don't ever get a bird for a pet, unless you are going to build a bird sanctuary in your backyard or are rescuing one that has been abandoned.

Well, before I go, let me share with you something happy -- a picture of my little brother who is now one month old! He is getting cuter and cuter every day! I love him!!! He is soooooooooooooooooooo adorable! I just want to hug him and squeeze him FOREVER!!!

Thank you for visiting! See you again really soon!!
 

Waves in a Bottle!

Hello everybody!! How have you been? Are you ready to go back to school? I'm looking forward to seeing Nicholle and Maisy! We had so much fun together during the holidays! Yay for good friends you can count on!!

Just yesterday, I got a bit creative and made this little experiment in a bottle! I like to shake it around, or flip it over and shake like crazy. Then the whole bottle turns blue, with a million teeny little yellow bubbles of oil floating around. After a while, the blueness settles down and I will roll it around on a table to make extremely mad waves. Then before the waves die down, I'll quickly stand it upright, so that the bubbles fly everywhere, like seagulls! After all the flipping, rolling and shaking, I do it all over again!

When I get tired of all the crazy shaking, I watch all the bubbles float down, piling on top of each other at the bottom to make a seabed. It's quite fascinating actually. Sometimes I decide that maybe all the insane flipping might cause the bottle to slip from my hands, and CRACK! So, maybe doing all that stuff is kinda dangerous haha...

Hey, do you know what the "twilight zone" is? It is the middle layer of the world's oceans, that part of the pelagic zone that goes down from 200 to 1000 metres below the ocean surface (the pelagic zone is any water in a sea or lake that is neither close to the bottom nor near the shore). According to Wiki, some light penetrates this deep, but it is insufficient for photosynthesis. Animals such as swordfish, squid, wolf eels, cuttlefish, and other semi-deep sea creatures live here. They are adapted to life in near darkness, cold water and high pressure. Also, there is enough sunlight for animals, such as the chain catshark, to be fluorescent! Here's my little twilight zone in a bottle! I hope you enjoy watching!

Bye and thanks for visiting! Remember to visit me at Bikbik and Roro, where I have been guest blogging for the last week!
 

On Sadness and Cuteness

Hi everybody! How have you been? I hope you all are doing OK, although the weather and haze pollution are so bad. The Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) went up to 401 today. I've learnt that the PSI is a sort of measure of the air quality. Zero to 50 is good, while 101 - 200 is unhealthy, 201 - 300 is very unhealthy, and anything above 300 is hazardous. So we are in the hazardous range now. The smell of smoke even comes into our house although the windows are shut. Plus the temperature is 35 degrees :(

I read in the news that "Indonesia on Thursday accused Singapore of acting "like a child" over thick smog from forest fires in Sumatra that has triggered an environmental crisis, as the city-state's premier warned it could last weeks" (you can read more here and here). I feel sad that there is all this bickering going on while there is such a bad environmental crisis happening which is not being fixed. I also feel so bad for the poor wildlife that is being affected :(

Let me share with you something happier. Remember the cat pin my Mom made for Maisy's birthday? It was so cute, I wished I could have one too, so my Mom made me a little one! This is a tiny Ragdoll kitten! He reminds me of my cat Ming Ming.

This pin is actually very small, just about 3.5cm. But he has a cute star in his ear! This is what he looks like close up. Isn't he simply adorable?

And this is what he looks like on a cardigan! Isn't he sweet?

My Mom actually put some cat pins in her shop. This cat head is one of them! I love his colour and his beautiful green eyes. These pins are environmentally-friendly because they are made with recycled, reclaimed things. My Mom has been taking some custom orders for her cat pins, so if you want one, just email her or me! They are OOAK (one-of-a-kind), so you can look super cool wearing a special work of art!

OK, see you again soon! Try to enjoy the rest of your June holidays even if you are stuck indoors. Keep praying that the haze crisis can be fixed peacefully, permanently and soon!!!

My First Pin!

Just yesterday, my Mom allowed me to make my own collage pin, just like the ones she sells in her shop! I chose a picture of a tiger and cut it out. I then glued the tiger to a thick board and asked my Mom to help me cut that out. That part was quite hard, because the board is very thick and the cutter has to be very sharp. It also isn't easy to cut around curves and corners!

I looked at a bunch of scrap papers my Mom had and selected a nice green paper. I cut out the flower shape and stuck my tiger on the green background, along with two paper butterflies! Then I added a few sparkly stars and varnished my pin.

This is what I made! I thought it came out quite good for my first time, don't you think?

This is a close-up of my first collage pin! Isn't this tiger beautiful?

I always think of tigers as proud, majestic and very independent. Tigers hunt and live alone. Did you know that a tiger's closest relative is the lion? Without their stripes, it might be hard to tell a tiger and lion apart! Tigers are very large -- they can reach 3.3 metres and weigh up to 306 kgs! Their canine teeth can reach almost 7.5cm long!

When you look into this tiger's eyes, what do you see? I see a bright, happy face which fills me with a joyous feeling, but I am sad that tigers are actually critically endangered because of habitat loss and illegal hunting. Poachers poison their water and set traps to kill them so they can sell their body parts and skin for stupid traditional Chinese medicine recipes. There were once eight tiger subspecies, but three have become extinct. This is a tragedy! You can read more about tigers here and what you can do to help.

I have to go do my homework now. See you soon, and wishing all of you blessed school holidays!

Zoo Excursion!

Hello again! I'm so excited to share with you some pictures from my recent class field trip! We got to go to the Zoo -- yippee-doodle!

Welcome to the Singapore Zoo! We were so excited when we saw it come into view. Our teacher gave out excursion booklets for us to fill in while we were there.

There were dozens of people queuing up to pay for their admission, or buy tickets for animal shows, and tram and ferry rides.

Here I am standing near the ticket booth, waiting to go in with my class. It was pretty sunny that day (like every day here in Singapore!!!), so I decided to put on my hat.

We saw the parrots first. The parrot is also known as a psittacine. There are more than 370 parrot species living in tropical and subtropical areas, including Macaws, Amazons, lorikeets and cockatoos. All parrots have strong, curved bills, and clawed zygodactyl feet (that means two toes facing forward and two facing back).

Parrots mainly eat seeds, nuts, fruit, nectar and other plant material. Sometimes they eat animals as well. Did you know that parrots are one of the most intelligent birds in the world? They can also see many unusual colours that the human eye cannot see -- they can see parts of the ultraviolet end of the spectrum! Unfortunately, some parrot species are highly endangered :(

After the parrots, we went to look at the otters, but they were swimming so fast that I couldn't take a decent picture of them. I did manage to take this one of a proboscis monkey though! Proboscis monkeys are one of the largest monkey species. The male has a pretty large nose! Proboscis monkeys are found exclusively in the rainforests of Borneo (well, in zoos too), and eat fruits, leaves, flowers, seeds and sometimes insects. They usually live in groups, and communicate by honking, snarling and even roaring! Did you know that the proboscis monkey has webbed feet and is a very good swimmer? Sadly, it is extremely threatened in its natural environment because of deforestation.

Here is cute little sea turtle. I'm not sure, but I think he (she?) might be an Atlantic ridley sea turtle. He is diving down to pick at something on the floor, maybe some algae or seaweed.

Here is an adorable little squirrel we saw sitting on a little log. He was actually nibbling on a cute little acorn. Before I could snap another picture, he scampered away to a nearby tree, out of sight.

Here are two crocodiles. As you can see, one is dead and one is alive. Obviously, this one is quite alive. Crocodiles usually live in freshwater habitats such as rivers, lakes and wetlands; they mostly eat fish, reptiles, and mammals, which sounds like almost everything really! Did you know that the word "crocodile" comes from the ancient Greek word for "lizard"? The pressure of a crocodile's bite is more than 5,000 pounds per square inch, compared to just 335 pounds per square inch for a Rottweiler dog, or 400 pounds per square inch for a large great white shark. Crocodiles can swim swiftly and are very fast over short distances, even out of water -- very, very scary!

This picture of the stuffed crocodile was taken outside the auditorium, where we were waiting for a talk by one of the zookeepers. He looks awfully fat, doesn't he. Perhaps he died from that.

Here I am posing at a notice board near the auditorium. Some kids draw stuff and they tack it up here. My friends and I walked around a path near the auditorium and found a creepy, yet cute, surprise hanging from the ceiling. Guess what we saw? Yes, fruit bats!

Isn't it kinda weird that there were bats up there? This is only one of the bats; there were a whole bunch on the ceiling up ahead. My friend started yelling at the bats to come down, which woke some of them up. Some of them flew off but eventually flew back; some just went back to sleep.

Did you know that another name for the fruit bat is megabat? Fruit bats eat, well, fruits, or lick nectar from flowers. They have sharp teeth to bite through hard fruit skins and very long tongues that unroll when they are feeding. Some bats actually help pollinate flowers! Did you know that they have to run into something such as a tree or bush in order stop themselves when flying?

Soon, we were heading to the zoo auditorium to listen to a talk by one of the zookeepers. We were learning about the outer coverings of animals.

Do you see Mr Bones up there? He was used to represent humans, and to tell us that we are mammals, like dolphins and whales.

This is a quote from a wildlife aid group. They try to help animals that are being killed for their skin, fur or feathers. I'm not sure if it's WildAid, but this is their mission, which I think is great: "To end the illegal wildlife trade in our lifetimes by reducing demand through public awareness campaigns and providing comprehensive marine protection.

"The illegal wildlife trade is estimated to be worth over $10 billion (USD) per year and has drastically reduced many wildlife populations around the world. Just like the drug trade, law and enforcement efforts have not been able to resolve the problem. Every year, hundreds of millions of dollars are spent protecting animals in the wild, yet virtually nothing is spent on stemming the demand for wildlife parts and products. WildAid is the only organization focused on reducing the demand for these products, with the strong and simple message: when the buying stops, the killing can too".

The crocodile, tiger cub, pangolin and porcupine had all died a long time ago and been stuffed. The zookeeper had them displayed on a table in front of her and kept stroking them.

The polar bear's paw was from the zoo's polar bear, Inaku, who had recently died of old age. I hope there was a very good reason why they did not just stuff the whole bear and leave him his paws.

The snake's skin had been shed by a python from the zoo's Reptile House.

These are white tigers. Aren't they beautiful? See how their fur gleams in the sun. They always look so proud and majestic, but I think they look happy and cheerful sometimes too.

Unlike domestic cats, tigers have eyes with round, not slitted, pupils. That's because domestic cats are nocturnal, while tigers are crepuscular, meaning they hunt mainly in the morning and evening. Most tigers have yellow eyes, but white tigers usually have blue eyes. This has to do with the the gene for blue eyes which is linked to the gene for white fur (see my cat Ming?). A tiger's night vision is six times better than that of humans!

Tiger claws are retractable, just like with house cats, and they scratch trees to mark their territory. Tigers don't normally roar at other animals, but to communicate with other tigers. A tiger's stripes are unique, like human fingerprints -- the markings can also be found on their skin, so even a shaved tiger would still show its stripes. Tigers are very good swimmers.

Many people hunt down tigers for their beautiful skin, which endangers the poor animals. They also face territory loss as more and more humans crowd them out. In just a hundred years, the world has lost 97% of wild tigers -- don't let them become extinct! Visit groups like the WWF to see how you can help!

We had lots of fun at the zoo, but we learned some sad things about the animals as well. I hope you will help to save these poor endangered and homeless animals. Many animals are endangered because of human activities -- not just poaching and killing, but also other things like deforestation, pollution and using poisons in gardens and on farms. Read this for a start and remember to reduce, reuse and recycle! See you again real soon!