Finding Nature Everywhere - the Garden City

Singapore is called the garden city and even in our first few weeks right in the city center we’ve been pleased to find ourselves in green spaces every day.

Ms.E really has an eye for nature. She points out all the birds. There’s black ones with a white strip on their wings, and dark yellow beaks and feet - and we see them everywhere. “Mommy, it’s the bird we saw before” - Ms.E had to stop and follow it at the Maxwell Hawker Centre. When I said we needed to look it up in our Singapore bird book, Ms.E said, “Mommy, I’ve looked and looked for it in the book, but I can’t find it”. We found it on the 2nd to last page - a Myna. I can't decide if they're Jungle Myna or a Javan Myna. They look very similar and in fact we might be seeing both around. Even Ms.I shouts "Myna!" when she sees one now. The Mynas especially like to steal breakfast on our hotel's patio whenever anyone gets up to grab another cup of coffee.

A pair of butterflies at Fort Canning Park caught her eye and she watched them flittering around for a good 5 minutes, even crouching down closer and closer to the ground to get a better view.

One day she found a centipede while walking down the sidewalk. Ms.E’s always the one to pick up worms at home, so we took the opportunity to remind the kids not to touch the nature here. Centipedes in particular can be poisonous. Let’s look with our eyes and not with our hands.

Above is what might be the coolest thing Ms.E has spotted so far. I think it's a Malayan Water Monitor. They're the most common lizard in Singapore and can grow up to 3 feet long. I think this one was about 2.5 feet. It was just strolling across a patio while we were waiting for dinner at Garden's by the Bay, and Ms. E very casually pointed it out to me.

We are having lots of fun learning the names of everything.