Bukit TImah Nature Reserve Fungi #3

Fungi that are growing at eye level are a lot easier to photograph. The light is better, the angles that I can shoot from are more varied and it is less taxing on my back and knees. Maybe these are fairy cups planted for midnight parties for characters out of Midsummer Night's Dream.

Bukit Timah Nature Reserve #2

When taking photos of a model, the photographer gives instructions to her to elicit the kind of feeling or mood that is desirable for that particular photo-shoot. When taking pictures of flowers and fungi, I wish sometimes that I could get them to do my bidding especially in photographing fungi because they are usually found away from the mainstream of people, sometimes hidden by leaves or the ground between me and the fungi could be mushy and wet. Since this is only wishful thinking, I have no choice most of the time but step on the mud, duck under branches and pray that I will not step on a snake or a creepy crawlie. These fungi look like they were just planted right where I wanted them to be. Actually, I had to brave swarms of mosquitoes, the mud and moving a little out of the trail to get these shots. No regrets for my 'models' were worth all the inconvenience I had to bear with.

Bukit Timah fungi #1

A Sunday morning walk along one of the trails at the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve to look for fungi turned out to be a fruitful one. We saw different types of fungi and had a field day photographing them. As part of the trail we took was also a cycling trail we had to be especially wary of folks on thundering down the slope on their two-wheelers.

Fungi in Bukit Timah Hill Reserve.

These were hidden from view and perhaps that has helped its survival to this day. All photos were taken without flash and without the use of a tripod.
This was seen on the edge of the path leading to the Quarry pond near the Visitor Centre.

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.