21.2.12 - Nature classroom at FRIM

We went for a nature walk activity in FRIM, Kepong with a group of homeschoolers. FRIM is a lovely place and we enjoy the sights and sounds of nature there. It was the first activity for our fortnightly outdoor nature lesson - Bark rubbing and leaf rubbing. We used this book as a guide: http://www.discovertheforest.org/pdf/book-of-stuff.pdf .

The walkway to the waterfall has been resurfaced and nicely done with cement. It's easier to walk up now. However, the contractors didn't throw the wood (with nails) and just left them lying on the ground, on the way up the waterfall, and that is just a sight for sore eyes 

Reminiscent of the "Sekolah Pondok" days with Uncle S as their "teacher".  

Listening to instructions 

The kids did page 3 of the above book -  Bark rubbing and leaf rubbing. 

Uncle S showing the kids how to do bark rubbing

Doing leaf rubbing 

Leaf rubbing 

Showing their leaf rubbings

Doing bark rubbing

He found another texture and decided to do stone rubbing instead 

Showing the outcome of his stone rubbing

Labelling his work 

We found several winged seeds like these. 

22.10.11 - Kuala Selangor Mangrove Tour

We went to the Pesta Sayap organised by Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) at Kuala Selangor Nature Park (Taman Alam Kuala Selangor). It took around an hour of driving using the trunk road. There wasn’t any parking at Taman Alam Kuala Selangor as the parking there was limited. We had to park at the residential nearby and walk inside the nature park.

Admission was free. There were various booths set up there with different products for sale, informational booths and activities booth.We enrolled for the Mangrove Tour of the Kuala Selangor Nature Park, which cost RM10 each. The person whom we registered with forgot to give us a goodie bag for each participant registered. Fortunately, later on, I noticed other people carrying the bags and I enquired about it. We were then given a bag which consisted of a book, several brochures and a beautiful poster of birds of KualaSelangor Nature Park. We waited almost an hour later until the event started at 10.30 am. 

Looking at the horsehow crab and the various insects preserved in tiny bottles at a booth. Horseshoe crab (known as 'Belangkas' in Malay language, is one of the living fossil and had existed 443 million tears ago (225 million years before the existence of dinosaurs). There are 4 species of horseshoe crabs and 3 of them can be found in Malaysia

At 10.30 am, we gathered at the MNS booth. We had 2 guides for our group. They were volunteers with MNS. Our caucasian female guide was concerned that the group did not bring along sufficient water and kindly made sure that we topped up our water bottles and bring along sufficient amount of water.

We passed by many monkeys on the way to the trail entrance.

We didn't realise that it was going to be such a long walk. Our guide told us that we would be going back the way we came instead of going through the whole route as that was even longer. I heard that the whole track was 1.5 km. 

The largest anthill I have ever seen. 

We climbed up this tower. From up the tower, we saw some white waterbirds perched on a tree far away.

White waterbirds

We had to walk through a path passing by many trees, akin to a jungle. While we were walking through, we saw a large heron waterbird fly. It was amazing! Not something that one would normally see everyday. 

Taking the opportunity to play with mud

The path was quite muddy as it had been raining every evening for the past few weeks. The bushes were unkempt and 'jungle-like' unlike our mangrove walk in Pulau Ubin. Halfway, before we even reached the mangrove walkway, half of our group which lagged behind us, decided to turn back after walking 75% of the way.

Finally we reached the walkway!

On our left was Mangrove trees with mangrove fruits

On our right was a snake that was in the trees, very near to the railing. 

Aerial roots for breathing

There were many mudskippers here. They can live on land. I only saw one in Pulau Ubin. The mudskippers here were of various sizes. I saw one pair 'fighting' with each other. 

Many fungi on the wood of the boardwalk. 

Mangrove tree seeds

Hmm, I'm not sure what holes are these in the ground.  

Throughout my schooling years, I had never been to a mangrove swamp. This year was the first time I've been to a mangrove swamp, and as at todate, we have already been to 3 mangrove swamps: - Taman Paya Bakau, Lumut in Perak, Pulau Ubin in Singapore and now Taman Alam Kuala Selangor. I liked the one in Lumut as it had many monkeys and Pulau Ubin's as it was very unique experience walking on the boardwalk above the seawater.

17.7.11: Big Red Strawberry Farm

In the morning, we went to the Big Red Strawberry Farm. It is branded it as Taman Agro Tourism. It was beside Cactus Valley. We parked near Cactus Valley and walked in, as we didn't know that there was more parking inside and nearer to the strawberry farm and they actually had 200 parking spaces.

Entrance was FOC. 

Koi pond at the entrance

There were cacti there.

It was a large place and we could see beautiful vegetables growing there. So beautiful, so perfect, that I began to wonder if any pesticide was used. I only saw those sticky insect mats that were pasted onto posts there and it had many insects stuck to it.   

Butterhead

My favourite vegetable - green coral. Now I know that those  green corals that I buy in the supermarket comes from Cameron Highlands. 

White radish. Wish I can plant this at home. It doesn't take up much space.

I bought some vegetables. 1 packet of vegetables such as green coral or butterhead, etc was sold for RM2 and 3 packets for RM5. It was a good price.

There was even a place with all these coin-slot kiddie rides. 

The strawberries are not so red anymore.

Small tiny plants sprouting in tiny pots. 

Visitors are allowed to pick strawberries for a fee. Strictly applicable for 10 years and above. 

These bunch of grapes were growing on the canopy walkway above us.  

Tomato plants

Juicy tomatoes

There were also pots of beautiful flowers being sold there. I wanted to buy some potted plants but was afraid that they wouldn't live in our hot climate in KL. 

Looking at the various types of flowers

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