When my camera is not with me

Committed a cardinal sin today, I went guiding in Ubin with my camera and... no spare batteries. Well no carelessness on my part but the prof leading the students for the guiding session ran out of batteries so I passed mine to him. He has a bigger lens, a sleek mouth watering 300mm, so no question of who should be taking pictures.

We lead the group of undergraduates through the sensory trail. In the early hours of the morning, it was really a pleasant walk and en route there the park ranger, Adam, pointed out a hornbill coming down to feed on figs near the Ubin visitor center. I had to restrain myself from taking my camera out or asking my friends to snap pictures. I had to suppress my natural instincts and use my other senses to register this beautiful encounter. Till now I can still visualise the striking greyish white head and the manner which the bird shook the branches while it moved along to pick up the figs. Moving along the sensory trail I finally saw the Jobs Tears plant, Coix lacryma-jobi (Poaceae). The fruits of the plant are so hardy and woody that they were used as beads in various trinklets. And as we moved along, I saw Coffea robusta (Rubiaceace). The coffee drinker finally gets in touch with the coffee plant.

Towards the end of the trail, along the shore, we saw the beautiful beautiful flame lily, (Gloriosa superba Lind), this amazing flower has bright red petals which points up towards the air (like five firey tongues), leaving a set of 6 anthers pointing laterally like the spokes of a wheel and a stigma at the center. Did I also mention the common changeable lizard (Calotes versicolor)nestled nicely amongst the branches of a plant, with the nice yellow afternoon sun on its face?

Hope my words did justice to the beautiful encounters this morning. Think I should just go back to taking pictures, its much easier that way, you paste the picture in and caption it.