Volunteer outing to Kukup and Yong Peng Heronry, Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve

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Vol 10 No 3

VIP Guests
Community Involvement Programme by Jurong West Secondary School

Photographing Nature Workshop forCommonwealth Secondary School

Experiencing Life in the Mangroves with the Canadian International School (Singapore)

Doing what they do best for a good cause: Hillgrove Secondary School

Volunteers Conduct Heron Counts at Sungei Buloh

13th International Coastal Cleanup

Wild Boar Sightings

An ASEAN Experience: Conference on ASEAN Heritage Parks

Volunteer Outing to Pulau Kukup and Yong Peng Heronry

Young Hearts for Nature: Young Naturalist Passport Camp

Volunteer Outing to Pulau Kukup
and Yong Peng Heronry, Johor, Malaysia

Jacqueline Lau
SBWR volunteer

Early morning on the 15th of August 2004, a busload of an assortment of individuals headed north-west of Singapore, towards the south-western end of Johor. For this year’s volunteer and staff outing, Pulau Kukup and the Yong Peng Heronry were our destinations.

We were provided with a tourist guide who entertained us non-stop for pretty much the entire journey, telling us, with zest, about the lands and history of the regions the coach passed through. To get to Pulau Kukup, we had to make a stop at the busy rural town of Pontian and proceed to the island by boat. But that was not before spending some time in the Johor National Park Visitor Information Centre, enjoying the exhibits they had there of their natural heritage.

Declared a Ramsar site, or a wetland of international importance, at the beginning of this year, Pulau Kukup, like Sungei Buloh, is a mangrove reserve. “ If there is one mission that unites national parks all over the world, it is the conservation ethic.” This was one sentence from Johor Parks’ Pulau Kukup website which caught my eye and provoked some thoughts. That was certainly true, especially for reserves which have such similar habitats. While at Kukup, our conservation officers exchanged knowledge with the Park Manager, who led us around Kukup, pointing out the unique fauna and flora which could be found there. We, who were used to being the guides in a nature reserve, were now the ones being guided.

We pointed out the tiniest of crabs, in the brightest of colours, “Oh, oh! There’s an orange one there!” And a few seconds later, “There’s an even smaller one here! There… you see the green one?” We were amazed at how small the denizens of Kukup were… compared to those in Buloh. The mudskippers were small. The halfbeaks were petit. So were the many species of spiders found there, and1 the caterpillars.

The animals there were either small, or were so well-camouflaged that most of them, I reckon, had escaped our notice. Those of us with cameras snapped away at this speckled moth on a bark; it greatly resembled the Peppered moth of Europe. With the cameras flashing around it, it must have felt like a celebrity. The few grey herons that we saw were not as ‘chubby’ as those we were used to seeing. All these were not a sign of a lack of nutrition though. Far from that, Kukup is vibrant, and rich with life. Our conservation officers speculate that many of them might be sub-species.

Sometimes hailed as the central structure of attraction at Kukup is a 6-storey-high aerie. As disinclined as I was to heights, I reminded myself that we had all survived the narrow 30m suspension bridge at the entrance of the Park, and scaling the aerie shouldn’t be too difficult. The little struggle up the tower was worth it. From the topof the aerie, one was treated to a 360 degree panoramic view of Kukup and its surrounds. It was a sea of green – the canopies of the mangrove treetops. And the best thing was, there was not another man-made structure in sight… it gave the feeling of what nature was meant to define.

After witnessing a wasp parasiting a poor caterpillar, we made our way back to Pontian, to enjoy a seafood lunch on a raised platform beside the jetty. Terns dive-bombed around us, and the then-greyish sky was welcomed by the photographers, who had their bazooka lenses all ready, aiming at the swooping seabirds.

It was another long journey – for us Singaporeans who have never had to travel too far to get to where we wanted – up to the famous heronry at Yong Peng. Upon arrival, nobody could be certain if that was in fact the correct destination. All there was was a row of shophouses, a bank, and a few Yong Peng residents sitting about having their afternoon coffee. Someone pointed out the back lane, behind the shophouses. We disembarked. The moment we got off the coach, we could hear the familiar hoarse calls and squawks of… herons! Did it sound like there were many of them around! The sight which greeted us was simply amazing – in a tiny patch of shrubs and grassland, a good 30-odd mixture of Black-crowned Night Herons and Purple Herons were perched on the tree branches. It was as urban a heronry as you could get. The adults and juveniles were totally oblivious to us humans with our scopes and monster lenses and cameras snapping away from not far off. I daresay we were only slightly more than 50m away.

The hour and a half that we spent there was not enough; some of us could have stayed there for hours on end. The heronry was a remarkable arrangement. There were wild, untouched lands all around, and yet the herons chose to live and nest at a location so close to human activity. Later we learnt that there was a dam near by, where the birds did their fishing, but still the main question which lingered in our minds went unanswered: what drew them to that particular patch of green and not any other? Not knowing why these feathered friends do what they do only makes us all the more in awe of them and their ways.

At the end of the day I had a little conversation with fellow volunteer Pui San, and in these words he summed up the spirit of the Buloh family: “The Buloh volunteers and staff... are a very tight-knit community. There’s a strong family spirit... a strong bond between the volunteers, and between the volunteers and staff, and that’s a very good thing.”

It is outings such as this which brings out this spirit. And it is this spirit which has been instrumental in ensuring the success of Sungei Buloh as a wetland reserve… a centre for conservation and learning.

That being said… another trip in December, anyone?