Hello! It’s been quite a while since the BES Drongos are in action, but stay with us because next year we will be bouncing back with new trail dates and other activities!
As 2015 is coming to an end, we like to recap this year’s best work and feature our heroes behind the lenses – our own trail photographers! Here, we present our camera crew and their work with a description in their own words. Presenting #2015throwback…
An animal lover from young, Emmanuel Goh is an aspiring conservationist who loves translating his vision of nature into pictures for others to enjoy. Having enjoyed Animal Planet and National Geographic, he aims to document the wildlife of Singapore like the great Sir David Attenborough. He hopes that his photos will be able to show how amazing biodiversity can be, so that Singaporeans will believe in the value of preserving Singapore’s natural heritage.
“The green-crested lizard (Bronchocela cristatella) is a bright green lizard with a bluish tinge on its head. Well camouflaged in vegetation, it feeds on insects and invertebrates (notice the spider-web thread on its head) while hiding from snakes. It has a distinctive dark ring around each eye and dark spot at the back of its head. When threatened, it will turn dark brown or grey. Its tail makes up 75% of its body length! In Singapore, its confinement to forests is believed to be caused by the aggressive Changeable Lizard (Calotes versicolor).”
Jacqueline is a year 4 BES environmental biology student currently studying urban bats. She has been taking photos of random things since she was 13, and her favourite lens is a Samyang fisheye for her Olympus OMD. When not guiding, taking photos or nagging other guides, she enjoys drawing comics and squishing her cats. Check out her new Facebook page – Classroom Cartoonist, where relatable comics and biology humour will be posted from time to time!
“Myotis muricola, or the Whiskered Myotis, are little-known but very amazing bats that live in curled up banana leaves. While this series is not the clearest of photos that I have taken, they certainly required the most effort. I had to get a stepladder and check the rolled leaves of a few different plants over the course of a month, and even then most of the time the bats I find would not even be facing me. Still, all that effort has made this photo series one of my favorites, and I think the whiskered myotis is my favorite bat now.”
Nicholas is currently a year 2 student in the BES programme. His favourite group of animals are the insects which he has always found to be fascinating. He picked up photography in his junior college years and have been doing it ever since. He started off mainly in macro-photography of bugs and insects but have more recently started to dabble in bird and wildlife photography.
“This photo was taken in Cuc Phuong National Park in Vietnam. I think it is the pied warty frog (Theloderma asperum) but we call it the commonly call it bird shit frog. It mimics tree bark and can be quite hard to spot in the field. However, we managed to spot a few of them and this was my best photo for the day.”
It’s me! It’s my dream to be a photojournalist, hoping to amalgamate my passions for the environment, nature and photography together. I want to document life in every part of the world and make a difference through my lenses everywhere I go. I also enjoy graphic design and cinematography!
This is admittedly not my best work, but the most interesting encounter of an yellow-vented bulbul (Pycnonotus goiavier) as the adult on the fence actually led me to its family! These bulbuls are really common in parks and gardens, able to adapt to urban areas with its varied diet in insects and fruits. Mama and papa bulbuls both help to incubate and raise the young, which was what I observed with this little family. I was excited to capture the juvenile spreading its wings, and you can see clearly its developing wings and even the shaft connecting it to the bones.
Some of these photos will appear on our Facebook page over the next few months as well. Coming up next: Learn more about photography ethics when it comes to nature and wildlife!