Radjah Shelducks (Tadorna radjah)

Click on the above photo for high-res image
These wild ducks caught my attention when I was at the Singapore Botanic Gardens yesterday. There were three of them, all with the same color markings. The head, neck, and under parts are white whilst their wings and a band across their breast are black. The secondary feathers are metallic green with white tips. Legs, feet and bill are light pink.

Click on the above photo for high-res image
Click on the above photo for high-res image
Thanks to Ms Jacqueline Lau (ecologist and nature photographer cum nature guide) for ID-ing them as "Tadorna radjahs". They are also commonly known as White-headed Shelducks or Black-backed Radjah Shelducks.

Click on the above photo for high-res image
Tadorna radjahs are definitely not native to Singapore. They are mainly found around the coast of New Guinea and on the Moluccan Islands, the Aru Islands in western Papua, and on Fergusson Island. These birds prefer marshes, lagoons and swamps of shallow brackish or saline water. Both sexes are vocal, even when flying. Females sound like a harsh rattle, males sound like a hoarse whistle.

Click on the above photo for high-res image
Radjah ducks feed mostly at night by grazing in pastures or by dabbling in the water. They eat mollusks, insects, sedge materials, and algae.

Green Iguana (Iguana Iguana)

Click on the above photo for high-res image
Spotted this handsome Green Iguana at Sungei Buloh today. As Iguanas are not native to Singapore, I suspect that this one has been (illegally) released into the freshwater ponds at Buloh. This beautiful reptile was sunning himself at the lily pond. He was easily 1.5 to 2 meters long from head to tail. He nodded his head (and the dewlap under his throat swung like a pendulum) just before disappearing into the bush. I understand from fellow photo-buffs that there is another one at the Botanic Gardens which I have not come across yet.

Labrador Nature Reserve (Labrador Park)

Click on the above photo for high-res image
Labrador Park is well-known for its natural rocky seashore and coastal vegetation, and has been gazetted as a nature reserve in 2002. However, it is more than a nature reserve. Labrador is also a park rich in history. In its midst are historical war relics and bunkers that date back to the 19th century, when the British identified Labrador as a strategic site for the defence of Singapore. View of the Labrador Jetty from the aerial staircase.Click on the above photo for high-res image
The cliffside aerial staircase offers a good view of the Southern Islands of Singapore. In the distance, the chimneys of Pulau Bukom's oil refineries stand out clearly against the blue sky (though perhaps not on camera). The Jetty is also known to be a good fishing spot and is very popular with local anglers.
Click on the above photo for high-res imageThe above is one of the two 6-inch Rifle Bridged Loading (RBL) guns deployed at Labrador during the war and is an apt reminder of the role played by the Labrador Battery during the battle of Singapore in February 1942.

The Little Heron (Butorides striatus)

I spotted this juvenile Little Heron (aka the Mangrove Heron or Striated Heron) at the Singapore Botanic Gardens this morning. It was standing on a water-lily pad hunting for little fishes.
Click on the above photo for high-res image

Changeable Lizard at Kent Ridge Park.

This morning I went to Kent Ridge Park with the simple intention of wanting to try out the Canopy Walk. Kent Ridge did not disappoint... The Canopy Walk.Click on the above photo for high-res image
Another view of the Canopy Walk.Click on the above photo for high-res image
I was hanging around at the Look-Out Point till noon, when I then went in search of the legendary alligator at the pond. Just imagine, some wise guy saw a Monitor Lizard and later the story went around that he saw an alligator ! Whilst walking along the edge of the pond, I saw a juvenile Yellow Bittern (Ixobrychus sinensis) or Pucong Kuning (Malay name) on the opposite bank. It is not easy to spot a Yellow Bittern because of their supreme camouflage. They are usually seen only in flight, and their flights are usually brief and low. Couldn't get a good shot, as it darted quickly into the thick undergrowth to hide.
As I made my way back to the Canopy Walk, a Changeable Lizard (Calotes versicolor) ran across my path just in front of me. It was a matured male in red crested breeding regalia. He seems to be less fearful of people. I leopard-crawled to within 3 feet of this agamid ( See photo below). This agamid froze momentarily on hearing my footsteps.Click on the above photo for high-res image

Hindhede Nature Park

Went to Hindhede Nature Park this afternoon for these pics despite the partly cloudy sky. Strolled up the gentle winding boardwalk to the lookout point where I was rewarded with a lovely view of a water-filled disused quarry. From the dense forest across the water, I could hear the chatter of monkeys and the garrulous call of the white-crested laughing thrush. This is one of my favourite scenic spots at Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. Very calm and peaceful surrounding, reminds me of the same tranquility that I experienced at Tasik Kenyir.

In case your sense of direction isn't too good, this map will put you on the right track.Click on the above photo for high-res image
View of the quarry from the lookout point.
The TAS VHF Station is at the top of the quarryClick on the above photo for high-res image

Clouded Monitor

Photographed at MacRitchie Reservoir, Singapore
Family : VARANIDAE
Species : Varanus bengalensis nebulosus.Click on the above photo for high-res image
Whilst on the way to the Tree Top Walk, I encountered this specimen as it was digging amongst the leaf litter searching for beetles and other insects. The hike to Tree Top Walk had to be abandoned due to bad weather.
The Clouded Monitor is often mistaken for the Malayan Water Monitor due to similarity in appearance. The Clouded Monitor is distinguished by the position of the nostrils which lie mid-way between the eye and snout.

Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve

This is the mouth of Sungei Buloh Besar with the town of JB forming the backdrop. Click on the above photo for high-res image
There are three walking trails in Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve (SBWR). On my previous visits, I managed to complete "Route One" and "Route Two" but somehow I took a wrong turning and missed the "Tower Hide".
This morning I visited SBWR again and chose to do "Route Three" which is approximately 7 km long. It took me about 4 hours to complete this trail. This time with the aid of a trail map I made it to the "Tower Hide". Here are some pictures that I took from the top level of the "Tower Hide" :-
Can you see the "Bird Observation Hide" on the left ?Click on the above photo for high-res imageAnother view from the topClick on the above photo for high-res imageDuring the course of my hike, I came across quite a number of Malayan Water Monitor Lizards (Varanus salvator) sunning themselves. There is a large community inhabiting the Aquatic Pond. Another common sight is the "Common Sun Skinks" and the "White-breasted Waterhen". The star attraction of SBWR is of course the migratory birds that feed on the mudflats. I couldn't get any good shots with my camera as they were out of range. Time to get a more powerful zoom ?
Whilst on the way back to the car park, I spied a "Pink-necked green pigeon" (Treron vernans) feeding on the the ripened fruits of a palm tree. Here is the shot :
Pink-necked Green PigeonClick on the above photo for high-res imageWhen I next come back to SBWR again, I intend to explore the 2 km long "Kranji Nature Trail" which is the green corridor linking two wetlands, the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve and Kranji Reservoir Park.

Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra.

Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra will tour China and Singapore in October, performing two concerts in Beijing, one in Shanghai as part of the prestigious China Shanghai International Arts Festival and two in Singapore.

Photo Credit: Mark Lyons
Tour at a Glance

• Friday, October 21: Beijing, Great Hall of the People

• Saturday, October 22: Beijing, Great Hall of the People

• Monday, October 24: Shanghai,* Shanghai Grand Stage

• Wednesday, October 26: Singapore, Esplanade — Theatres on the Bay

• Thursday, October 27: Singapore, Esplanade — Theatres on the Bay

Esplanade — Theatres on the Bay is Singapore’s national performing arts center. It boasts superb adjustable acoustics — by world-renowned acoustician Russell Johnson — found only in four other halls globally.

I have two of the Pops recordings, both are on TELARC label. One is "Time Warp" with Don Dorsey on the synthesizer keyboard and the other is "Round-up".

Globalogue Forum - Launched Today

A new forum, "Globalogue", has been launched today at :



http://globalogue.org/forums

What is a forum ? (an uninitiated may ask.)

A forum is a place for online discussion, debates, dialogues and information sharing. It allows you to post messages for everyone to read, and in turn read the messages of others. Forums are an excellent place to learn and share knowledge with other people from around the world.

In "Globalogue", there are a number of topic areas in which global affairs are discussed. These and other topics are listed on the forum's topic index page.

Check here for their WELCOME MESSAGE.

See, Hear and Feel the Sound.

You are invited to "see, hear and feel the sound" of Dolby.
Stereo speakers recommended.
( See the video )

Mighty Mouse is here !

Apple today introduced Mighty Mouse, its next generation mouse with several innovative new features that make using a Mac even more powerful and easy. Mighty Mouse offers power users up to four independently programmable buttons, without compromising simplicity for users who prefer just a single-button mouse. Mighty Mouse also introduces an ingenious Scroll Ball that lets users scroll in any direction—vertically, horizontally and even diagonally. With the Scroll Ball, users can scroll with natural, fluid movements, making Mighty Mouse perfect for applications from viewing web pages and photographs, to video editing and music creation. Mighty Mouse is priced at just S$88.



Check this review: http://www.apple.com/mightymouse/

I think I'll wait until Apple releases a Bluetooth version of this mouse before shelling out money.

Bukit Timah Nature Reserve

Went trekking at Bukit Timah Nature Reserve this morning as the weather was cool and breezy.
Situated within this 164-hectare (400 acres) of nature reserve is Bukit Timah Hill, the highest point in Singapore standing at a "towering" height of 164m. I took the shortest path to the summit because of time constraint.
Summit Path
The shortest trekking route to the summit follows what the park has labeled as the "Red Walking Trail" which is just over 1 km and follows a paved road heading northwest from the the Nature Reserve's Visitor Centre. From the Visitor's Centre to the entrance of the Nature Reserve, I encountered a rather steep climb, (about 60 degrees incline) which actually provided me with some good exercise as I plodded my way up the hill.
Saw many interesting insects along with the Plantain Squirrels (Callosciurus notatus) on my way up. I also spotted two beautiful butterflies - the Blue Glassy Tiger and the Common Palmfly.The Blue Glassy Tiger.Click on the above photo for a high-res image
The Common Palmfly.Click on the above photo for a high-res image
Watching these butterflies feeding from flower to flower in their natural environment is always fascinating and rewarding.
The whole Nature Reserve has four clearly marked trails. The shortest one takes about 20 minutes while the longest route will take about 1 hour and 10 minutes to complete at a leisurely pace. Throughout all the routes, there are many simple jungle-themed shelters which provide rest as well as shelter from the rain for the visitors.
Bukit Timah Hill was once an active quarrying site in the mid-1900s. One abandoned quarry has been developed as a park. Hindhede Nature Park is now a popular spot with visitors who come to enjoy the quarry’s scenic beauty.

I saw Batman Begins

I saw BATMAN BEGINS yesterday. Whilst strolling along Orchard Link, I decided to walk over to Cathay Cineplex Orchard and view the cinema posters. I was curious about how many people would turn out to see BATMAN on a Monday so I purchased a ticket to the 1:40 PM show and was surprised to find the theater to be only half full!


If you are a fan of the comic book series , GO SEE THIS FILM! It is the closest you're going to get to the comic book. It is different from all of the other Batman movies in that it is made much more in real life style. It is serious all the way through. Christian Bale did great! Liam Neeson and Morgan Freeman were brilliant too. Michael Caine's portrayal as Alfred was amazing and as for Ken Watanbe, I wish he had more words to say ... I love his acting and totally enjoyed his character as Katsumoto in "The Last Samurai". By the way, Gary Oldman is perfect in his role as Commissioner Jim Gordon! After seeing this film, I think I can safely say that this is one of Christopher Nolan and David S Goyer's best films without a doubt. The cinematography and the bat effects are fantastic! I must confess I was literally in awe after watching this movie.

One drawback was that the fight sequences in "Begins" were edited too quickly, and the lighting too dark so that you really couldn't tell what was going on and determine who was hitting who. Hopefully the next film will open up the fight sequences so that we can actually see Batman use the martial arts skills he developed during his exile.

Looking forward to the sequel !

VLC media player

VLC (VideoLAN Client) is a multi-platform multimedia player. It handles most MPEG, AVI (including DivX), ASF, WMV, OGG, MP4 and WAV files as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.

I stumbled across the latest release of VLC (version 0.8.2 - test2) during the latest round of my never-ending search for a way to play back WMV files on my iMac. Couldn't be happier with this Mac OS X version ... the only drawback is that VLC does not support the WMV3 sound or video format due to no suitable decoder module for fourcc WMV3.
When you try to play WMV3, you get only audio, no visual, most probably due to M$'s new Digital Rights Management (DRM) structure.

By the way, WMV3 is the fourcc code of the WMV9 codec, so both are the same thing. WMV3 itself is just an updated version of Microsoft's MPEG4 codec variant and will only work in Windows.

Chronicling the first week with the iMac G5

Exactly one week ago, I received my iMac G5 and eagerly unpacked and installed it.

Plugging in the necessary peripherals was easy.

Last step was to attach the power cable and switch on the iMac G5. Gingerly I pressed the power button (located at the back) and "BOING!!!" the Apple startup sound was so damned loud I almost fell off my chair. (Sidenote: Unfortunately, the loudness of the iMac G5 does not extend to the OS sounds - all other sounds other than the startup sound are very muted even on max volume.)

I saw the grey Apple logo and a revolving thing on my screen that spins and spins for a good few minutes. After a while, I got to the registration and setup screens and after duly filling them in, I was deposited at the Finder. At last, a proper taste of Mac OS X Tiger.

I started to explore more of Tiger. The first couple of days was just spent tinkering with the OS, trying out stuff and setting preferences. Notice 'home and 'end' keys don't move to the beginning and end of a line as in Windows - I miss that. I am now trying to get use to the one-button mouse.

Switched to Mac OS X today

I collected my new (up-graded) iMac G5/2Ghz 20" from SGL today.

The original iMac G5 was with this specs :-

20-inch widescreen LCD
1.8GHz PowerPC G5
600MHz frontside bus
512K L2 cache
256MB DDR400 SDRAM
160GB Serial ATA hard drive
Slot-loading SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200
64MB video memory
56k internal modem
Includes Mac OS X Panther


After the upgrade, the specs now is :-

20-inch widescreen LCD
2GHz PowerPC G5 - BETTER
667MHz frontside bus - BETTER
512K L2 cache
512MB DDR400 SDRAM - BETTER
250GB Serial ATA hard drive - BETTER
Slot-load 8x SuperDrive (double-layer) - BETTER
ATI Radeon 9600 - BETTER
128MB DDR video memory - BETTER
56k internal modem
Airport + Bluetooth - NOW FREE
Includes Mac OS X Tiger and iLife .... plus loads of new stuff !!!

Tiger roars on April 29

  At last, the TIGER is available tomorrow - Friday, April 29, 6 pm 

The latest version of the Mac OS X operating system called TIGER is to be launched globally tomorrow at 6 pm. Three groundbreaking features are Spotlight, Dashboard and Automator.
Spotlight    - is a search engine for the desktop similar to a feature Microsoft is touting in its next Windows release, Longhorn — which won’t be out for at least another year. .
Dashboard - A visually stunning set of tiny applications called Widgets that provide weather, stock price, flight tracking and other sorts of data.
Automator - allows a user to automate repetitive tasks.

Toki No Nagare Ni Mi Wo Makase

The song you are now listening to, is the Japanese version of the Mandarin hit "I Only Care About You" 我只在乎你. The singer : Teng Li-Jun.


Here are the lyrics:

Moshimo anata to aezuni itara
Watashi wa nani o shiteta deshouka
Heibon dakedo dareka o aishi
Futsuu no kurashi shiteta deshouka
Toki no nagare ni mi o makase
Anata no iro ni somerare
Ichido no jinsei soresae
Suteru koto mo kamawanai
Dakara onegai soba ni oite ne
Ima wa anata shika aisenai

Moshimo anata ni kirawaretanara
Ashita to iu hi nakushiteshimau wa
Yakuso ku nanka iranai keredo
Omoi de dake jya ikite yukenai
Toki no nagare ni mi o makase
Anata no mune ni yori soi
Kirei ni nareta soredakede
Inoti sae mo iranai wa
Dakara onegai soba nii oite ne
Ima wa anata shika mienai no

Toki no nagare ni mi o makase
Anata no iro ni somerare
Ichido no jinsei soresae
Suteru koto mo kamawanai
Dakara onegai soba ni oite ne
Ima wa anata shika aisenai

Together again for one last time

WOW ! Shadows' fans everywhere, rejoice ! Here is the fabulous DVD of their final tour that not only meets, but exceeds all expectations. Ever since I heard their first hit "Apache" in 1960, I have been a diehard fan.
THE FINAL TOUR 
The Shads (as their legions of fans call them) had not played together in several years after their disbandment in 1968. Fortunately, due to constant fan support all over the globe, they decided to get back together again on stage for one last time on THE SHADOWS' FINAL TOUR. The tour kicked off at Scarborough Futurist Theatre on April 30th 2004 and spanned the entire UK over a massive 37 dates and culminated at the London Palladium on June 14th.
THE FINAL TOUR DVD 
November 8th 2004 saw the release of THE FINAL TOUR DVD which was recorded at Cardiff's International Arena on June 5th. Of course, the Shads are -- Hank Marvin (lead guitar)-- Bruce Welch (rhythm guitar) -- Brian Bennett (drums). They were accompanied on this final tour by two other fine musicians -- Mark Griffiths (bass) and Cliff Hall (keyboards).
I was over the moon when I bought a copy of this DVD yesterday afternoon. How nice to listen to the instantly recognisable Shadows sound and watch their famous routines in the comfort of your favourite arm-chair. The DVD running time is 180 minutes and features 42 tracks (including no less than twenty-one TOP 20 hits, five of which got to No.1.)
Having this DVD is a real coup. I am sure all Fender Stratocaster fans will definitely want to add this gem to their DVD collection.

Surfing on the fast track

My contract has ended for Singnet BroadBand 512kbps. I recontracted for 1500kbps (unlimited plan) and today is the activation day.
In 1997, when the first broadband services were launched, the equipment was untested and thus hard to set up. Also, the expected bandwidth -- at times said to be about 100 times faster than that offered by 56K modems -- was never realised.
This led to disappointment with broadband services in the early days. Until recently, broadband has always been seen as an unfulfilled promise. But things have turned around over the past year or two. Thanks to better experience and, of late, lower prices, broadband services have become attractive to those who usually would not have considered them.
For those who have not considered getting on the broadband wagon before, now is the time to do so.

At long last, I own a JAM !

I've just received my JAM yesterday evening from HELLO! at Bugis Junction. It really is a sight to behold for a Pocket PC (PPC). I never thought I'd see the day when I'd own a PPC this small and functional. Actually, I am referring to the i-Mate JAM which is another brand name for the Xda II Mini. In fact, they are also being marketed in other countries under brand names such as Qtek-S100, MDA Compact, HTC Magician and Dopod 818 (which is the Chinese version of the Mini).
i-mate JAM .... aka Xda II Mini I really like the size of the JAM. Look at the picture posted above, its smaller than my current Nokia 6150. You just got to say WOW the first time you put your hands on one of these babies....
I've had my i-Mate JAM for two days now, and it's an awesome device. The JAM is tiny (about the size of a 3G iPod, with more rounded edges) and has all the features of any PPC on the market today, minus WiFi and VGA. The lack of WiFi on the JAM does not bother me at all as I seldom go around the hotspots in town. Details of the Technical Specifications can be found HERE.
Voice quality is quite good, and the 416mhz processor is more than enough for basic PIM tasks. I intend to use a 1 GB SD card to store mp3s, (the original set comes with a 256 MB SD card).
Yeah, once you play with the Xda II Mini, you'll want one for sure, just like me.