The annotated budak

Eggscuse me!

A channel of deep blue green water separates the fringing reef flat of Semakau from Terumbu Raya, a plateau of rubble that rises from the sea during rare spring tides. The patch reef's sandy bottom and coral rock is hidden from view by a brown skirt of blooming sargassum. But with the aid of a non-problematic boat, friendly furniture and a stubborn refusal to acknowledge the possibility of falling off an aquatic cliff, it was possible to land with just the loss of a sound sense of mind. For the plectrum-shaped reef threatens to trap its uninvited guests in a bog of tidal pools which harbour creatures that seem a world away from the landward shore beyond the water. Polyps of hellfire, tiny shrimps with crusty shells and anglers on frog legs lurk amidst the pale weed and swirling minefield of invisible tentacles. Less concerned with camouflage, however, was a large nudibranch that my duck disturbed while it was minding its own business and busily draping a thin stream of vermilion over a low outcrop. The slug's size and tuberculate mantle caused my duck to mistake it for another robust species, but wiser hunters pointed to its probable true identity as a beast of foul repute. Variously dismissed as a clump, a brain, a liver, a foetid thing and a cutaneous rash, the unfortunate mollusc ended up with a shithole of a name bestowed by a taxonomist who might have been suffering severe gastro-intestinal irritability. It certainly explains my duck's unwhole fascination with an animal that probably reminded him of moments of glorious release that go plop!

I not fett

It's just that the dumb duck takes awful pictures and even worse videos of pussy porn. You can even hear him yowling at the end, as he got excited by all the hot and howling action...

Shades of grey

Outnumbered by a restive posse of redshanks, a random pair of little egrets rest on a fallen branch at an old prawn pond in Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve. Batting no eyelids at passing leviathans, they preen in the late morning sun before a not-entirely unwelcome afternoon of grey deluge. Their summer plumes are already apparent, and in a little while, they will flee to their motherland to nest and nourish a new flock of flyers. Their feathered kin who resist the call to greener pastures are similarly clad in their tailored Sunday best, and pairs of lovebirds in crimson and copper can be spotted flirting in midair or stealing the silk of spiders to feather their beds of down. Alas, this avian amour is also the aim of some who focus so much on the fowl that they at times miss the mark and lose sight of the future. Abandoned eggs, deserted chicks, exposed nests and disturbed minds are the evidence of sharpshooters who prey on the rewards of parenthood only to pay the price of feathered families captured in distress.

Music therapy

Because you are worth it.

Into the dark

On a makeshift stage by the side of a major road, a Hokkien opera troupe performs for a festival that most have forgotten. A scattering of idle old men watch from the side, reserving the best seats for sullen deities. But heavenly dictates are not enough to sustain this high art by low castes. The stages are now smaller and the singers greyer, but those who remain perform a swansong for ears of neglect and nights that drown their music in an endless din of dark light.

Cycle of eights

The huge orb web spiders that induce shocked looks in suddenly-observant passer-bys don't seem to last for very long. There are times when not one can be seen in the city's parks and forest fringes. But at the end of last year, a good number of small individuals barely an inch long could be found in the shrubbery, clinging to modest traps ringed by protective barriers of silk. They sat alone, for their homes were probably too young to be pleasing pads for uninvited guests. But the onset of spring and the final flutters of the migrant season accompany a palpable surge in sightings of both the commoner golden web Nephila and her batik-wearing cousins. Some spin their tales at eye-level, while others hang from assymetrical nets that stretch from tree to tree and harbour a community of red suitors and shiny stealers. A few probably fall prey to giant wasps or the mindwarping grubs of tinier waists. But many make a meal out of the cicadas and hoppers that blunder into their parlours and make out with small mates before descending to the ground to deposit the promise of a new cycle and bid farewell to a hubbier days.