Saturday, April 24, 2021

100+ words Snake Story

 Semi annoyed and amused with my son's English composition assignment.. 

 




"Mama, why don't I see Papa around anymore?" said the baby snake.
Mama snake sighed and said, "Let me tell you a story".
    One fine day, Papa was sunbathing on a tree branch. Minding his own business, until a young hairless ape spotted him and let out an ear-piercing scream. Papa was terrified and tried to slither away. Unfortunately, he didn't warm up enough and he could only hide nearby. Soon, the young hairless ape came back with an adult hairless ape in a blue uniform. It was strange, the uniformed ones usually don't catch us. So Papa let his guard down.

It was a mistake.

    Papa was caught and placed into a gunny-sack. Papa could have bitten the ape as it was silly enough to use his bare hands. Papa was too kind.
    From that day onwards, we have not seen Papa again. His story was told to all the snakes in the parks.
    Beware, child. Beware.
Slither away when you see the hairless apes. Even the young ones. Our homes are shrinking, so it's harder to avoid them but we must. It's the only way we can survive. Even though the apes do not prey on us, they make so much noise and leave their litter after eating food from outside of the forest. The apes are different from the other animals in the parks, they don't understand the concept of sharing and co-existing in peace. They make so much noise and leave their litter after eating food from outside of the forest.





Wednesday, May 07, 2014

Oriental pied hornbill spotted in Bishan HDB

Isabelle has kindly submitted these pictures of an Oriental Pied Hornbill (Anthracoceros albirostris convexus) perched on a railing at a HDB flat.
Hopefully the residents view the visit as a unique experience being in such close proximity with wildlife. It's like the zoo is being brought to your doorstep.
The man on the street will likely only see them as virus carrying poop machines.  Sadly.

Friday, July 05, 2013

Festival of Biodiversity @ Vivocity, 13-14 July 2013!


The Festival of Biodiversity is back again!

The Festival of Biodiversity is an annual event organized by the National Parks Board in collaboration with the Biodiversity Roundtable. This is an event to celebrate Singapore’s natural heritage and in doing so, we hope to bring about greater awareness of the biodiversity that Singapore has.

Date: 13 & 14 July 2013 (Saturday and Sunday)
Time: 10am to 10pm
Venue: VivoCity, Level 1, Central Court B and West Boulevard
Come celebrate the Festival of Biodiversity with us on the weekend of 13th and 14th July 2013 at VivoCity! Surf this site to find out more!

Find out more at the webpage and blog.
http://www.nparks.gov.sg/festivalofbiodiversity/
http://biodiversityfestival2013.wordpress.com/
http://toddycats.wordpress.com/2013/07/01/festival-of-biodiversity-vivocity-13-14-july-2013/

I will be down there to lend my support as well!

Friday, September 21, 2012

Birds of NUS: a pictorial ID guide

“The Birds of NUS” at nusavifauna.wordpress.com which includes a guide to identifying birds, artificial keys, a checklist and maps with point locations of observed species


alerted to this by otterman 
https://nusbiodiversity.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/announcing-birds-of-nus-a-resource-for-lsm1103-and-lsm2251-students-by-undergrad-david-tan/

Thursday, August 02, 2012

BMC Ecology Image Competition 2012

http://blogs.openaccesscentral.com/blogs/bmcseriesblog/entry/bmc_ecology_image_competition_2012
FRIDAY JUL 06, 2012


BMC Ecology wants to see your visual interpretations of ecological processes. The “BMC Ecology Image Competition 2012” is open to everyone affiliated with a research institution. So from muddy-boots fieldworkers to desk-based computational modellers, we want to know how you see the science of ecology.
Entries should depict a specific ecological interaction, and should be submitted to one of five categories that reflect the editorial sections of the journal. 
We will consider all images from photos to data visualizations, or a mixture of both – as long as they are striking, meaningful, and creative. The winner of each category will be chosen by each of the journal’s  Section Editors (Michel Baguette, Michael Bonsall, Jean Clobert, Nick Royle and Josef Settele). The categories are:
Behavioural and physiological ecology
Conservation ecology and biodiversity research
Community, population, and macroecology
Landscape ecology and ecosystems
Theoretical ecology and models
The overall winner will receive a cash prize of £250 (300/$400) and their image will be used as the journal’s main promotional image for 2013 – featuring prominently on the journal ‘s website and in its printed and online marketing material. The runner-up will receive £100 (125/$150), and additional prizes of £50 (65/$75) will be awarded for those images selected by the Section Editors that best represents their section.
Please ensure that you provide a description of the ecological processes depicted in your image, as well as the category you feel the image best embodies. Please also ensure that you correctly cite any data sets that were used to generate your image.
In line with our policies on Open Access, entry to the competition implies release of the images under a creative commons licence, to allow file sharing with proper attribution. We strongly encourage everyone to upload their images onto our Flickr group page “Imaging Ecology”, where you can view other entries and post your comments.
We would also encourage entrants to submit their images for consideration by our partners at the Biology Image Library, subject to peer-review.
Please email your entries to the Executive Editor of BMC Ecology atsimon.harold@biomedcentral.com
All entries should include as the subject line “BMC Ecology Image Competition 2012”, together with the following completed form:
Name:
Section:
Image Description (Max. 300 words):
File type:
Data attribution (if applicable):
Affiliation:
Contact details of Research Institute:
I agree to release this image under a Creative Commons License:  Y/N
I would like my image to be considered for inclusion in the Biology Image Library: Y/N
Please attach your image entry to your email, which should conform to the following criteria:
Images must be a minimum 300dpi (1831 x 1831 pixels for a raster image).
Allowable formats - EPS, PDF (for line drawings), PNG, TIFF,  JPEG, BMP, DOC, PPT
Please note that it is the responsibility of the author(s) to obtain permission from the copyright holder to reproduce figures or tables that have previously been published elsewhere.
Help us spread the word by downloading a flyer and displaying it prominently in your research department. We’ll also be posting regular updates on the competition throughout the coming months, so don’t forget to keep up to date by reading ourblog or by following us on Twitter @BMC_series using #ImagingEcology
Closing date for entries is 1st December 2012 and winners will be announced in the New Year.
We look forward to receiving your entries!


Monday, June 25, 2012

Seagrass-Watch Magazine featuring Secret Dugongs in Singapore

The latest issue of Seagrass-Watch news (the official magazine of the global seagrass and assessment program) is now available online at http://www.seagrasswatch.org/magazine.html  Both low and high resolution versions of the magazine are available. Please note that the high resolution version is 23.1Mb.


This is a special bumper double issue focusing on dugongs (Issue 45) and manatees (Issue 46) and our guest editor was Distinguished Professor Helene Marsh. Helene is an international authority on the conservation biology of dugongs, sea turtles and coastal cetaceans. Helene also co-authored the recent publication " Ecology and Conservation of the Sirenia: Dugongs and Manatees" (see magazine for more info).


There's an article featuring the good work of TeamSeaGrass on page 12 issue 45 on the 'secretive' Dugongs in Singapore. Sadly no live sightings have been found but the distinctive feeding trails are signs that they haven't all but disappeared ...