Changi at sunrise

It was a rare low tide during daylight at Changi, and for a change, we arrived at sunrise. To the noisy calls of kingfishers, koels and all kinds of other birds just waking up. A little tern flitted constantly nearby and daintily picked a small fish out of the receeding tide! Too fast for me to shoot.

November kept me company for this last trip for the June low tides. Rushing by even though she just came home from a long LONG trip. It was nice catching up and sharing this relaxing slow stroll on Changi with her. Thanks November!

My all-time favourite snail is the Conch snail. With its endearing cartoon eyes on stalks, peering tenuously as it nervously sticks out its pointy foot. There were plenty of these lively snails today on Changi.

Conch snails don't creep along on a large broad foot like other snails. They have a knife-like structure at the end of a long muscular foot. They use this to pole-vault along the surface! Many have broad flattened extensions on their shells that keep the shell from flipping over as they perform these acrobatic moves. Because they move so quickly (for a snail), Conch snails have large eyes on stalks. I'm not really sure what kind of conch snail the above one is. Possibly a young Gong-gong (Strombus canius) which hasn't yet developed a thick shell with the characteristic broad extension.

The Olive snail (Family Olividae) was spotted AGAIN today! Burrowing happily in a wide sandy patch thick with Button snails.

So it appears the Olive snails are not really that uncommon, not on Changi anyway. Wow!

Among the Button snails was this tiny skeleton of a sea urchin.

Two weeks ago, there were lots of white sea urchins all over Changi. This week, none. Although there are still lots on Pulau Sekudu (just across from Changi) when we visited a few days ago. Another puzzle to ponder.

In the lush seagrass meadows, there was the beginning of a bloom of sea lettuce, looking like shredded green cellophane paper all over the shore. Among them, tiny carpet sea anemones were everywhere. Most hardly bigger than a seagrass blade! In shades of green, blue and purple. We took care to step only on bare sand.

There were also some slightly larger sea anemones here and there. About the size of saucers. In the past, there were larger sea anemones, homes to cute spotted anemone shrimps. But we haven't seen large carpet anemones for some time on Changi.

There was talk among the shore guides a while back, that some people were seen harvesting these poor animals from our shores. Another reason for us to keep up our regular visits to monitor the situation.

Too many shores to cover, too few low tides....