Love MacRitchie Walk

I attended a guided tour at MacRitchie organised by the NUS Toddycats as part of the ‘Love Macritchie‘ campaign. We took a 2 hour walk around Venus Drive, slightly off the main MacRitchie catchment area.

Chloe, our lead guide of the walk

Before we started off on our walk, Chloe, our lead guide, shared the motivations behind the guided walks with the group. Love MacRitchie is a movement to raise awareness of the biodiversity beautiful nature in the Central Catchment Area in Singapore, and to oppose the development of the Cross Island Line which will cut right across MacRitchie forest. (Read more here.)

Chloe shared that should the Cross Island Line be developed, a wind tunnel would be created. This happens when wind is directed through a small corridor, usually between two buildings. The creation of a wind tunnel would affect the remaining flora and fauna, changing the environment drastically. The forest at Venus Drive has been around for a long enough time that it is almost a mature forest.

Seeds and leaves from the rubber tree

We were first introduced to the plants surrounding the edge of the forest. Chloe drew our attention to how different the edge of the forest was to the inside of the forest. She mentioned that this is called an edge effect – the changes in a population or community structure which occurs at the boundary of two habitats. In the case of Venus Loop, the two habitats were the inner forest, and the carpark and vehicles going past. At the edge of the forest, we saw many introduced species – plants and trees that are not native to Singapore, or even to Southeast Asia, and were introduced to the region for commercial or ornamental reasons. The rubber tree is one of these introduced species. Rubber is an integral material in our day-to-day activities and is tapped from the rubber tree. There were many rubber trees spotted during our walk, which is an indication that Venus Drive was used as a rubber plantation in the past.
Herringbone technique of tapping latex from a rubber tree

We were also told that NParks runs an Invasive Species Management program, in which volunteers enter the forests to remove these introduced species – such as the Zanzibar Yam, also known as the “Batman Plant” because of the shape of its leaves. However, these invasive plants grow at an exponential rate and while efforts to curb their growth have been made, they still continue to take over the surface of the forest. This poses a problem to the forest flora because they crowd the plants and small trees that are native to the forest, preventing them from photosynthesising.

Plantain squirrel dashing amonst the trees

The first animal we spotted when we walked into the forest was a Plantain Squirrel. Moving as quietly as it could along the vines, the Plantain Squirrel is a native to Singapore, and can be found in almost any park, forest, or mangrove area.

Banded Imperial Butterfly taking a rest on a leaf

In the forest, there is a plant that is known as the mile-a-minute weed. It gets its name from the astonishing speed that it grows and covers the trunks and branches of trees in the forest – about 15 centimetres per day! But here’s the catch: butterflies, such as the Banded Imperial Butterfly, in the forest love the nectar of the mile-a-minute flowers. For ecologists, there is a love-hate relationship with this plants. They crowd out the other plants, but provide food, shelter and a place for the butterflies to breed.

Needles on the trunk of a Nibong palm

As we progressed through the forest, we caught sight of a cluster of Nibong palms. We were informed by our guides that the Nibong palms are sometimes used when building ‘kelongs’ (fish farms out in the ocean that are built on wooden piles driven into the seabed). The most interesting part about the Nibong palms are that their trunks are completely lined with needle-like projections. This is an adaptation of the trees to deter monkeys from climbing them!

Another species of palm tree that we were introduced to was the Clustering Fishtail palm. They are known by this name because their leaves are shaped just like a fish’s tail. The fruits of these palm trees are an important source of food to the Common Palm Civet, also known as the Luwak.

Snapshot of the path of the rainforest 

During the walk, we heard many bird calls, although we could not spot the birds. Two of the most distinctive and memorable calls were from Greater Racket-Tailed Drongo, which makes a metallic call, and the Red Jungle Fowl, which is also known as jungle chickens. They make a distinctive call that sounds like a rooster, but the end of their call is cut off and sounds like the jungle fowl is being strangled!

Tree with holes in its trunk

As we continued on our path, we came across a tree with huge holes in its trunk. It turns out that the holes were created by Carpenter bees, which get their name from how they build their nests in burrows in dead trees. These bees are dark blue or black in the forests, such as in MacRitchie, but are yellow in the parks around Singapore. We had to stand a distance away from the tree while observing it, as we were warned about how the bees tend to dash out of their burrows at a high speed, startling anyone who would poke their head close by to get a closer glimpse.

Close up of a fig tree fruit

Chloe picked up a fig tree fruit from the trail, and split it into half to show us what was inside. The fruit is called a syconium, which is actually a structure bearing both the flowers and the seeds of the fig tree. The syconium is very sweet and nutritious, making the fig tree a keystone species of the rainforest. It flowers and bears fruits all year round, due to its symbiotic relationship with fig wasps.

Strangling Fig tree, or also known locally as a Banyan Tree 

Another species of fig tree that is present in Venus Drive is the Strangler Fig, which is locally known as the Banyan tree. However, this particular tree has been cut down by NParks officials, as it had uprooted completely. It now serves an educational purpose, as it is a superb example of how a Strangler Fig becomes a parasite. The Strangler Fig starts out as a plant in the crevices of the host tree and grows its roots downwards, enveloping the host tree. At the same time, the fig continues to grow upwards to reach the sunlight above the forest canopy. This gradually blocks the host tree from gaining sunlight and it dies, leaving the centre hollow. The Banyan tree is said to be home to be a variety of spirits and demon-like creatures, and it is believed that one should not walk too close or point at the Banyan tree, in case it invokes the wrath of the spirits and creatures that inhabit the tree.

Mealybug on a stem of a plant 

A fascinating insect that was pointed out to us was the mealybug, which looks like a round white ball of fluff. Its white projections are waxy in nature, and are used as a deterrent to predators. Mealybugs are considered pests as they pierce the stem and suck the sap of plants, depriving the plants of food.

Red flowers of the Bilimbi tree 

During our walk we also came across a stream. Rainforest streams are long-term streams that hardly dry out, due to the constant flow of water from the rain and from the ground. The streams are muddy-brown due to the leaching of tannins from the decaying leaves of vegetation near the streams, and can be slightly acidic in nature.

Holes in a mud wall, along a river bank 

We spotted several holes at the bank of the stream. These are actually burrows of the Blue-eared Kingfisher, about 1 metre deep at the side of the stream, in the mud wall. The Blue-eared Kingfisher is rarely spotted at Venus Drive and unfortunately, we did not have the pleasure to see it that day, as these burrows have been abandoned for some time and the Blue-eared Kingfisher has moved on to another location.

White fungi on a tree stump

Another type of fungi found in the Venus Drive forest 

As we walked through the rainforest, we spotted many different species of fungi. This is because there are so many different kinds of dead matter that need to be decomposed. Different types of fungi, such as bracket fungi and mushrooms, break down different types of dead matter in the forest.

Common skink sunbathing on a root 

One of the highlights of the walk was spotting the tubular shaped Common Skink. We spotted not one but two skinks on separate occasions, both sunbathing. Being reptiles and therefore cold-blooded, the skinks need to bask in the sun to warm their blood.

A St Andrew’s Cross Spider beginning to spin its web 

One of the last organisms we spotted was an extremely fascinating one – the St Andrew’s Cross Spider. These spiders get their name from the way that they hold their eight legs together in pairs, forming an X shape. The X is called the cross of St. Andrew as it is believed that Saint Andrew was martyred on such a cross. The spider was in the process of weaving its web, which we were told was very beautiful and distinctively zig-zagged, which it is already beginning to do, as seen at the bottom of the picture.

Group picture with all the guides on the walk

I would like to thank the very knowledgeable group from NUS Toddycats for such a wonderful and educational experience at Venus Drive, and for sharing with us more about the Cross Island Line that may be destroying such a wonderful pocket of nature that we can find within our urban city.

Through this walk, we were exposed to so much more flora and fauna that we would see in our everyday life, and learned many facts about the animals and plants that is only a stone’s throw away from our home. We would definitely encourage our friends and families (basically anybody who would hear us, really) to sign up for these walks to learn more about what we have in our forests!

The Love MacRitchie movement hopes to draw enough attention to what we may stand to lose if the Cross Island Line is developed, in terms of an escape from city and urban life, as well as the immense amount of biodiversity that we would never be able to get back once the forest is destroyed. Hopefully, enough people would be made aware of it and not only sign the petition against the Cross Island Line, but also make a stand against the MRT line development and protect the little nature that we have left in Singapore.

Grasshopper taking a rest