Fungi Hunting

Sunday was fungi-hunting day seeing that we did two trails - a short one along the exercise stations starting at the far end of the carpark in front of the Visitor centre of the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve in the morning and a longer one at the new Dairy Farm Nature Park in the late afternoon. This post will feature the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve walk. The next few days could perhaps be the best time to look for fungi because of the cool weather brought about by the rains in the last two days. The wet and dampness in the parks and nature reserves are excellent conditions for fungi growth and the variety we encountered was amazing! The colours and textures were fascinating. We saw pink and orange mushrooms other than the usual white and brown ones and even found one with a slug feeding on it. There was also a black and yellow insect on a pretty pink mushroom. I guess it was also having lunch when we saw it. As long as the weather maintains its coolness for the next few days, fungi-hunting activities would be rewarding.

At the end of our walk, we saw a mushroom that has been broken off from the log it was growing on. Later in the day, there were even more such evidence of idiotic behaviour at the Dairy Farm Nature Walk. It is such a pity that when the National Parks Board opened up a prime piece of nature to the public, people could not have the decency to just leave nature alone. They had to poke and probe fungi that looked like they had survived many years in the wild and destroy what nature meant for them to appreciate and admire.