WilderN'US

I don't know if many NUS students realise what a lovely campus we have. Nestled on a ridge with much (not that much but enough I suppose) lush secondary forest, our campus is nicely landscaped with wayside trees covered in epiphytes, my favourite eye candy in NUS. We were taking the usual walk through Ridge View Residences from lunch at YIH back to our labs, when we noticed the resident squirrel bounding up to a palm tree. This wasn't the first time I encountered this bugger, but when we realised there were 2 of them, I whipped out the camera to capture their antics on digital film. Then as we approached within 3 feet of the pair, we saw a little baby! The parents bounded down the corridor as if in play, leaving the baby on the palm tree to fend for itself.



One of my favourite things to do on the way to school on the ISB is to eyeball the trees along the road flanking the hospital. There, someone (I'm sure) once propogated a number of large clumps of pigeon orchids on the trees, along with huge staghorn ferns and a couple of bird's nest ferns. I like to look out for the flowers of the pigeon orchid, because when I see them, I think the day will turn out alright. I know I'm a pessimist.

Pigeon orchids bloom when there is a sudden drop in temperature, usually in Singapore that would be after a bout of heavy rain. Their flowers only last 2 days before dying. I took this photo at twilight before our delightful lil party last week.

About a month and a half ago, I'm not sure how many of you noticed the pair of oriental white-eyes constructing a nest in the branches of the sea almond tree between the 1st and 2nd floors of S2, outside the biology labs.

Over the course of their nesting, some people from the museum came by to take photos of them, and every time we walked by after class or roamed about during a break from the labs, we'd drop by the corridor and hang out with the birds. 3 chicks hatched, and I remember when I took breaks from the thesis and term papers, watching the parents take turns to forage and feed their chicks, til they were big enough to stand up in the nest and stretch their wings.



We salvaged the nest about 2 or 3 weeks after the family abandoned it.