They stretch from sand to stormclouds with enough lordliness for hornbills to choose them as a throne.
They sprout nuts and fruit alien to the English visitor, but welcomed by a hungry plantain squirrel.
They clothe fences built by people, sheltering reptiles in their sprawl.
This is Singapore.
People have had creative ideas about what to do with this island for generations, but for all the skyscrapers, golf courses and godowns, there is no doubt that this is first and foremost a humid, beetle-buzzed, rain-lashed benevolent dictatorship run by plants. Every square metre where something can grow, something does. They even scramble over each other, climbing high like children.
Epiphytes – plants that live harmlessly on the surface of other plants, usually trees – are as common as daisies here. Amongst them, more lizards lurk.
It would take several lifetimes to document the bewildering variety of wild living things in south-east Asia. I’m travelling around the region for the next couple of weeks, revisiting some places, venturing into new ones.
There are many more moods of plants to learn.
A Walk with Wildlife 
Recently I was watching some documentary that explained what would happen to world if people would suddenly disappear. Most of what humans built would cease to exist in 500 years or so, leaving just traces here and there. That made me remember some brief research done in Canadian Rockies when government closed one road for safety purposes, how fast the wildlife returned. Now going back to the world without people, your photographs actually show what that world would look like, and that would happen much faster than we think 🙂
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Interesting thought. Yes, Singapore’s forests would overwhelm the human influence on the island in very little time. It’s an ecosystem with an irrepressible feel to it.
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Wow, such interesting creatures. I especially like the plantain squirrel. It is like the squirrel here in the United States yet it is at the same time so different. I wonder why the eyes are different? How does that benefit this squirrel in Singapore?
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Yes, it does look like an American red squirrel, now you mention it. The plantain squirrel is part of the Callosciurus genus (known as the ‘beautiful squirrels’ – some are quite colourful). Not sure about its eyes though!
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