East Coast life Cream of the crowd Shrike while the iron is hot. Does it hurt Invisible birdies Caughtcroach Marina grey A wet junket Muddy on Hantu Crab! It's that day again Velcro Crab (Camposcia sp.) at Phuket. A litter mangrove junket The usual Monday crab Porcelain fiddler crab (Uca annulipes) at Noordin Beach, Pulau Ubin. Super trooper Yellow bird Budgie found in carpark lot. No end to crabbiness Charybdis sp. at Beting Bronok. Crab, it's Monday Episesarma sp. at Chek Jawa, Pulau Ubin. Weaver of mystery Some have suggested that this orb web weaver is Nephila kuhlii, while others believe it is a different colour form of the common Nephila pilipes. In places where they occur, such as portions of the trail at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve, the spiders hang from webs in close proximity, hinting perhaps at shared origins and a common wind of dispersal. Monday blue Pteraeolidia ianthina at Beting Bronok. Beach wear Just when you think it's safe to get in the water Somebody's overgrown pet is prowling the shores of MacRitchie Reservoir, not too far from a cheerful corner where pintsize paddlers wobble and wet themselves in two feet of pre-drinking water. There's plenty of fish to snap at but what will it eat when it gets this big? Half a blue bird... ... is better than done. But in this case it's a bird that's half blue plus his 'mate' who's mostly brown. Native to northern forests, the Siberian blue robin is a perky little passerine that spends the winter in the dense undergrowth of tropical Asia. A couple, who were not necessarily conjugated but just happened to meet and hook up, were frolicking in the shrubbery by a sheltered cove one evening, taking turns with a bevy of babblers to bathe in a leafy pool of cool water. Earlier, a pair of olive-winged bulbuls had bounced in for a quick dip, as the clouds loomed and unleashed a brief shower of exasperation. It was not enough, however, to dampen the robins' spirits, for they led us on a merry round of soft 'tuks' before settling down to soak their breasts and duck their heads in for a final splash of lucidity before the still and cyan hours. Damsel before dark Some call this the pinhead wisp, for it's no larger than a needle and nearly as thin. Just about an inch long, these Agriocnemis femina swoop upon minuter flyers and fall prey themselves to larger members of their tribe. Forced by ducky indiscretions to lie low by an urban pond one evening, I found a number of these tiny damselflies resting on the blades of short grasses. They flew with reluctance, clinging to their perches despite the disturbance as if they were in greater danger of losing their way in the darkening passages through the dry rushes. How about a shake? Many of her kind drop like a rock at the first sign of disturbance, free-falling into the undergrowth or a handy leaf to avoid avian assaults or waspish stings. After a while, they climb back to their web via a safety line of silk. This lady, though, preferred to stay put in her hub, responding to ducky pokes by vigorously shaking her bottom to present a hazy figure of distraction. After about a minute, she would tire of using her web as a sticky trampoline and settle down to ponder the ground, even allowing my duck to prod her gently to a sunbeam that exposed her horizontal stripes and revealed the hairy truth of her true colours Fluffy Waxy bales of white wool hung from the branches of a tall hedge under attack by an unknown species of Flattid bug. The long, sticky filaments form the protective coat of the bug nymphs, which gather in loose aggregations to suck out the sweet juice of their host plant. Resembling buds with powder blue stipules, a number of adults perched in untidy rows to mull the mess of their youth. Disturbed by my presence, they shuffled to the other side of the twig to avoid having to view my duck. Some took off like moths on soft wings that flap so slowly they vanish from the sight of fast eyes, leaving my duck pale and peppered from head to woe with hemipteran fluff. Chew on this Behind a stall laden with local durians, Mr Vincent Chew skins pineapples on a quiet Saturday at Pulau Ubin. "It's always like this before Chinese New Year," he says. "People are busy shopping or doing other things." A few easy riders spin around the village square to test their gears, while mutts and mongrels look on from every corner. In the mid-morning shade, skinny cats doze under tables and idle vans. One lucky driver got to ferry a crew of three to Chek Jawa, whose nuptial outing ended in a shot of bridal gloom. Clad in singlets and shorts, children play with buckets and tins on the bare floor of the Chew Teck Seng Provision Shop, as visitors sniff the stock and voice their hope that their chosen fruit, despite their modest size and being out of season, would burst out to hit the sweetest spot.  Hello! As you can see the dumb duck is still poking his nose and other parts where he really shouldn't, despite claims to the contrary. He never learns, even when I bounce on his fat tummy in the middle of the night to give him scary dreams. Just last weekend, he disturbed a big mantis downstairs (he asserts unconvincingly that he was only 'rescuing' the insect from the neighbourhood cats). Proof that he wasn't doing the bug any favour came with the horrid screams that I could hear all the way upstairs when the duck got his pinky impaled and bitten by the angry thing. He then got his hide and face pierced by dozens of mosquitoes that made his bugstung lips even poutier than usual. Not content with that, he continued to poke his duck at creatures that should have bitten back hard to put a stop to his lurid attempts to press for happy endings. A mauveful of tentacles Save in matters of language, my duck is rather lame with colours, so shades like auburn, cerise, magenta, maroon, russet don't register at all, although teal does strike a bell. And so too mauve, now that I am forced to recognise this hue which tips the tentacles of a rather expansive anemone on Semakau. Cradled amongst a chunk of coral close to the edge of the reef flat, the cnidarian consists of a swirling mass of long tentacles that rippled lazily in the final moments of daylight. Like the folds of a Hutt, the leathery column protrudes from beneath the oral disc, revealing a surface pock-marked by pale warty bumps which are adhesive verrucae that stick to the substrate or grab hold of slow-poking fingers.Based on these characteristics, Dr. Tan Swee Hee of the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research suspects the creature is Heteractis crispa, a species once thought to be locally extinct. There were no associated clownfish in sight, and in any case, the two local species known to inhabit the anemone have not been sighted in the intertidal zone as far I know. Dr. Tan also suggests that I touch the bumps on the column to determine if they were sticky, in order to confirm that it isn't a species with similarly sinuous tentacles. But having been poked and bitten by one too many bugs both big and small in recent days, my duck wasn't in the mood to test what was left of his soft and tender hide, especially as the rest of the team were just tiny spots of torchlight on the far side of the shore, leaving this bird alone in the dark with naught but a prickly star to feather his thoughts of you. Up in the air With the abandon of careless souls, kites soar and hover over Semakau's encircling bund. High above the mangroves and shallows, the brahminys wheel within sight but never within range as they spin a slow spiral on the updrafts to survey the shoreline for scenes worth a second thought. They ignore the watchful herons that stalk the seagrass meadow for straggling fish, but venture now and then to worry the foraging flocks of reef egrets that prowl the exposed pools of spring tides. In the dry cells within, their black-shouldered cousins hover over the tall grass, casting grey shadows of death that fall upon small birds and beasts whose coats fail to hide them on the open ground. There are no strings attached to life in its natural state, where the wind sends in one breath sustenance in seed and the sharp and sudden breeze of soft, cold claws. In the sea and up the tree Yellow-lipped sea krait at Sisters' Island. Oriental whip snake at a location withheld to protect the reptile. Two uncles who passed by remarked that this creature is fond of disturbing children and would grow into a deadlier green monster. Crab, am I interrupting? Aromatic traces of Dr Dan Rittschoff???s sell-out talk on sex and the senses last March still linger on the shores, particularly in hours when ducks are out and about in search of dirty deeds. This pair of swimming crabs (probably Thalamita crenata) must have thought it safe to make out near the water???s edge at Semakau. But their copulatory embrace was disrupted by my hot and sweaty duck which crouched over them on a slippery stone to dribble over their animal passion. Lacking publicly-acceptable scent glands, humans aren???t able to rub off piles of pheromones in public spots to lure potential lovers or scare off competitors. Hence, naked apes have turned to the alchemy of amour, from the camphorous resins of fragrant bark to the musky emissions of stag glands, to ignite bawdy instincts or simply to hide the reek of unwashed orifices. But as any good child brought up on Dahl knows, even tailless monkeys can flood the air with compounds of base desire. Noting the preponderance of young females in the seminar room, Dr Dan hazarded a guess that there was enough estrogen in the air to send a radio immuno assay off the scale. And unlike volatile testosterone, estrogen lingers, leaving its mark long after it has diffused through the skin and into nasal pits to trigger wet dreams and naked thoughts. Guys have tried to get into the game too, with a cologne called Score. According to Dr Dan, it took nearly 15 years to isolate the key compound from human skin, distill it and obtain a concentration so strong ???that it impacted the people who worked to purify it???. Sadly, it didn???t descend into a corporate orgy. ???All the pheromone does is to make you relaxed,??? quips Dr Dan. ???So they just stopped working.??? Dr Dan also observed that the most frequent users of scented concoctions are older women, as they lack the pheromonal highs that younger dames emit as they sashay down the street. ???Women have a better sense of smell than men, so they use pheromones to maintain their attraction as they age,??? he remarks. ???They use it to mark their territory.??? So when a lady dons her signature eau and kisses her man before he trades pleasure for pasture, it???s ???her equivalent to peeing on a tree.??? Which seems to be a prudent act, given the claim that ???70% of children in all cultures don???t have the father they think they do?????? What older ladies lack in hormones they usually make up for in moolah. So what can a poor young lass do to reel in a catch? Dr Dan offers a simple prescription. ???You are training your man, like ???Come, Ralph!??? and psychophysically, the sex pheromones makes him go ???Oh, this is so exciting! I love being with her because she makes my life so wonderful????????? So what a desperate young dame can do is buy a pricey bottle of perfume and wear it while giving the bloke a night he???ll never forget. ???You buy the expensive one once, train him, and then you can buy the cheaper one and it works just fine,??? says the good doctor who probably spoke from experience. The smell of sex is vital to the love and future life of crabs as well. Studies on the mating habits of local portunids are lacking, but scientists on the Atlantic coast of North America have found it entertaining to observe the intimate habits of a related species, Callinectes sapidus, in the dubious belief that such data could contribute to the sustainable management of a popular seafood item. Female crabs can only mate after their pubertal moult, when their carapace is soft enough to permit copulation. Moulting is a risky period, so the frisky crabs venture from deeper waters into estuaries or salt marshes when cover is abundant. If local crabs behave similarly, this probably implies that coastal mangroves and seagrass beds are vital breeding habitats for the flower crabs that gourmands so favour. It turns out that the female blue crabs get to make out just once in their life. So they make the most of it and go on for up to ten days. ???They stop when they are full of sperm,??? states Dr Dan. ???They try to have as many babies as possible.??? The males, on the other hand, get a second bite of the cherry but then suffer dry spells. ???The boys can have sex twice in a row and he???s out of bullets for two weeks.??? Male crabs have it easy though when it comes to finding a friend for benefits. ???He just sits in one place and dribbles seminal fluid [in his urine], which says ???Hey! I???m loaded!?????? Meanwhile, the females run around like teenage girls ???until they smell a male, stop and pee???. She then shows him her ass and slides towards him with claws withdrawn and lets him cradle her with his legs, in a position known as a ???doubler??? or ???buck and rider???. The male carries his buddy around for a few days until she is ready to moult and bare her innermost recesses. After she has shed off all her inhibitions, he flips her over and pops his crabhood into two gonopods beneath her soft abdomen. Unlike ducks which wilt after just one shot at the money, crabs have twice the pleasure, as the males have paired organs with a heavy duty piston system that can pump in several microlitres of sperm with each thrust. ???The crabs mate for 8-12 hours,??? notes Dr Dan drily. ???If they were our size, they???d transfer two litres of semen.??? Intercourse lasts for days, with periodic smoke breaks, until the male runs out of juice and runs off to recharge his arsenal. Crabby sex, it seems, is really not that crappy at all.