Zooming in...

2-Oct-2011 (Sunday): Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserves was much bigger than I anticipated, and more "wild" than I imagined. Being our first time at this reserve, I have to admit we were quite inadequately dressed. Even though we "moisturized" ourselves with insect repellent, it was evident that soon, the mozzies were all over us. Without wanting to be defeated, we decided to take the "short" 500m boardwalk.

As we got near the visitor centre (a short 50m walk from the relatively small car park), I already started to get busy.. A lizard was lying on a little bush giving my first opportunity to take some zoom-ins of it.

This was the first time I had the opportunity to capture such lizards up-close. Its scales and "fins" atop its body came out well and the texture amazing.

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After paying our $1 entrance fee, I realized I was not alone in trying to catch some critters macro close-up style as another photographer (he seem to be leaving) was on the floor with a Nikon + Ring Flash + Soft-box Diffuser... I was full of envy. Was about to ask him how was his catch but he turned away and walked off in the opposite direction. Alas an opportunity to make another friend. I should try to be less hesitant.

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This little fellow was about 5mm long (body only) and right next to the boardwalk. Not sure if it was responsible for eating up the leaf it was on.. What irony, it needs the leaf to sit on, but its eating away its seat? Laying motionless, it became my only macro close-up of the day.

Having already walked probably 250m of the 500m boardwalk and after taking this shot, I kept all the macro gear and replaced it with my 70-300mm telephoto lens. And then the real fun began..

After a few shots of mud crabs and mud skippers from the boardwalk at top-down views (not my favorite perspective at all), I chanced upon this at a junction. Yelling (softly) for Lee Cher to wait-up and asked her to come see, I got this beautiful long-legged forest spider standing ground right in the middle of a very large web (probably a meter wide). Couple of its younglings were running around her making it a real "Happy Family". Gotta research into find out the species of this.. Its yellow markings on its body should be easy (I hope) to find its id.

This was a difficult shot to take as the bee was literally darting around in mid-air, not even over flowers or something so that I can try to pre-focus. Turning on the camera's AF, I was able to just focus on tracking the fellow, and I must say I'm quite happy with this shot. Looking at it again, it almost look "cartoon" like, especially like the Bee from the "Bee Movie".

As we finished the boardwalk and ventured a little into Route A, there was a crowd gathering on the bridge and a lady was kind enough to tell me they spotted a crocodile. Edging me to go take a picture of it, I walked towards the area she pointed (while staying on the track still of course). But I found no crocodile but instead, a group of tourists speaking way too loudly for the reserve. Walking back towards the bridge and to the main observation hut, I was startled by some motion in the vegetation just next to me. And I found this monitor lizard staring right at me. I can imagine it must have been startled by the noisy group of tourists that walked by just seconds earlier. I thought this was another interesting shot, kinda made me wonder; who's observing who? This place is their home, and we are really just visitors.. Its important that we are polite and well behaved when we visit, after-all we leave at the end of the day, and they stay on.

And the crocodile... din see it.

(a couple more shots below capturing the wild biodiversity of Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve)