Sweltering hot at Chek Jawa...

It was exactly 2 years ago when I started out as a Team Seagrass member where I had my first monitoring trip at Chek Jawa in January 2009! Our first seagrass monitoring falls on the second day of 2011! 17 of us headed out in the hot afternoon to Pulau Ubin, to conduct our first seagrass monitoring at Chek Jawa.

What's so special about Chek Jawa? It has been laundered to consist of 7 different ecosystems within a small area of land. In December 2001, reclamation at Chek Jawa was deferred due to the overwhelming response from the public to preserve this area. Today, Chek Jawa is still a popular reef walk site for many of the members of the public. Public walks are still regularly conducted by the Naked Hermit Crabs and NParks.

Team Seagrass Scientific Officer - Siti!

Team Seagrass is a non-profit organisation that runs monitoring surveys through a base of volunteers. Volunteers are not only trained to identify the different species of seagrass, they contribute their effort by helping in the overall monitoring of this important ecosystem. Singapore contributes to the international organisation, Internation Seagrass Watch. Data helps the scientists keep track of seagrass health, and the organisms that interact with the ecosystem.

Volunteers laying transect lines prior to monitoring

Today, I had the privilege to observe the monitoring and also did some monitoring on the overall sites. The regulars noted the increase in patch area with 'bleached' grass blades. According to Siti and Ria, they believed that these grass are losing chlorophyll pigments and this could be due to the lack of sunlight.

Bleaching Cymodocea rotundata

Healthy Cymodocea rotundata

Bleaching spoon seagrass (Halophila ovalis)

I did not managed to find the new patch of Halophila beccarii this time, while the older patch could still be found near the jetty. We all noted that the sand bars on CJ is growing bigger with time, and we wonder why that is happening... Hmm...

It was a really hot day! It was no surprise that members of the team could not see much animal activity around.. Andy made an observation of returning carpet anemones! That is a good sign of recovery since the last mass mortality in 2007.

Wei Ling pointed out this small horseshoe crab baby. It's still too young to identify which type of horseshoe crab!

Underside of horseshoe crab

Gastropods of the day include this uncommon black-lipped conch (Strombus urceus)...

Concentric eye spots of Strombidae

Noble volutes procreating...

A large ball moon snail individual...

A recently eaten razor clam with the remains of its uneaten foot...

Juvenile filefish individual trying to hide in crevices...

Echinoderms were just the usual common sand dollars, and this pretty spiny cake star...

As well as this bottlebrush brittlestar...

I also noticed a huge influx of shore birds, including this particular species shown in the photo... As I approached the flock, one of them noticed my close presence and made an alarm call to alert the others, and every one of them flew away...

In flight...