It has been a few years since I stepped into the Central Catchment Nature Reserve. Work, life, and just plain inertia has stopped me from doing so. However, I heard that there was a masting, or synchronous fruiting event, so I decided to take a quick stroll through MacRitchie Nature Trail last weekend to take a look at the big trees.
Being lazy to walk from the start of the trail, I chose a lesser known path that cuts straight to where the primary forest reside. A little uncomfortable being alone here, but yet strangely refreshing to walk among the greens again. Felt like I'm back home again.
There was one particular dipterocarp where there was still many developing fruits hanging from the canopy. However, many of the fallen fruits were already partly eaten by animals. This is one hypothesis why masting occurs; there are only so much predators can eat at one go.
Here's one of the few intact fruits. It appeared to be Dipterocarpus kunstleri. Fruits of the family Dipterocarpaceae typically have these characteristic wings to aid in seed dispersal.
I also saw a couple of small birds along the trail, the always gorgeous Crimson Sunbird and three Pin-Striped Tit-Babblers singing to each other.
I was also quite amazed to see a flying dragon flew directly passed me and landed perfectly on the adjacent trunk. It has an extendable flap of skin from the sides of the body to enable it to glide. From the looks of it, it could be a Black-Bearded Flying Dragon.