Singapore stopover

Hi all

Flight schedules dictated that I had to overnight in Singapore on my way back from Borneo earlier this week. It’s pretty far from my favourite place in Asia and I would rather have had another day in Kuching, but my mood was improved when I realised we’d accidentally booked a hotel next to a) a water park with big slides and b) mangroves and woodland. A bit of research on arrival revealed that the latter – Pasir Ris park – is a bit of a hotspot for Smooth Otters and Spotted Wood-owls; result. We stayed at D’Resort Downtown East, which  was very nice and reasonably priced compared to the airport hotels.

A late afternoon exploration of the area around the canal and mangroves east of the resort only produced a few Plantain Squirrels, and no mammals at all were seen in this area on a night walk; we did have very nice views of an Asian House Shrew just outside the accommodation block though.

Early the next morning (pre-sunrise) we found four Smooth Otters at the edge of mangroves in the canal. They seemed pretty unconcerned by our presence and after giving excellent views north of the bridge (1.380709, 103.953821) they moved to the beach before disappearing back into the trees.

The Borneo report will appear soon, hopefully (dependent on whether I wait until I’ve worked out what a load of my bat recordings might be!)

cheers

Mike