Captivated By Life On Belait Seashores

By about 9.30am the morning had sprung to life with gorgeous weather that inspired me to go for a swim. It didn’t take me much deliberation to decide that the swimming pool was my immediate destination to check-in on Gowalla. Although I wasn’t pleased that the pool is closed for maintenance without notification, I was determined to enjoy a productive morning instead of a disappointing trip home.

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After a pit stop at Soi Heng coffee shop for my favourite fried Kway Teow I still refused to head home and spur of the moment decided I’m going to get some sun regardless. Other than the pesky sand-flies, the beach has never disappointed me and with my G11 in hand and a little bit of luck, I brought home some incredible moments.

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One of the many variety of FIDDLER CRABS that are popular on our beaches.

 [ Images above from May 2008 post: Beach Crabs They’re No Hermits ]

I spotted not one but two washed up jellyfish carcass (the kind without tentacles) within a stone's throw and all this discovery occurred right at the Billionth Barrel Monument beach front. Bright spot is a reflection of the noon direct sunlight.

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Around comes one crab, checks out the perimeter of the jellyfish to make sure it's safe to mount.

Typically, it's near impossible to photograph these hyper active creatures. The second you move a limb they disappear in a blink. The idea here is to stay perfectly still and let sand flies enjoy a blood feast while you have your equipment set to capture them once in view. I captured this with the PowerShot G11 with Neutral Density enabled to cut off the intense direct midday sun along with a -1 Exposure Compensation

Let's dig in—bon appétit! Though the entire crab isn't in focus in this photo, it's good enough to see that it's got small amount of jellyfish flesh on its smaller claw. I saw it feed several mouthfuls of "sushi" the entire time I kept still photographing this amazing piece.

Trying hard not to frighten the crab off with any abrupt movement, I slowly and carefully inched my thumb to activate slow sync flash and the camera metering turned the scene into what appears to be a night shot and resulted in some degree of vignetting.

[ Image below from December 2008 post: Horn-eyed crab foams at the mouth ]

Foaming process keep their gills moist and to balance the salt concentration within its body by excreting mucus to clear its airway. Another source thinks foaming at the mouth is a sign of stress.

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HORN-EYED GHOST CRAB FOAMS AT THE MOUTH

I can understand why it’s called Horn-Eyed but Ghost Crab, no clue. But thanks to Roger McIlroy, an expert on seashore life and someone with whom I had only recently got acquainted by e-mail, clued me in on its name. These were recently seen at the Seria beach right at the Billionth Barrel Monument. Just two days after I shot waves and rocks I got excited and had hoped to see the waves hitting the rocks during the day but there was none. Instead, I noticed in the distance an army of crabs marching in stride until we showed up.

The near-noon hours of a sunny morning and interesting “claw” shadows. My mom caught one and a rather large one that was trying to run away. Apparently, horn-eyed ghost crabs are commonly seen on our sandy shores but there’s supposedly more active at night. Their large holes mark the entrance to their burrows and are usually located on the landward shore near the high water mark, with large amounts of sand tossed around the entrance.

The bright spots you see below are reflections of the sun and this particular crab is quite docile. I was able to go very near it and it remained still (as near as an inch away or whatever is the minimum focusing distance of the Canon EFS 10-22mm lens). The bright spots fooled the camera metering into pulling back exposures so much it looked like a late evening scene. This is one of my favourites.

Now, this is the first time I had seen a crab foam at the mouth. I’ve seen earlier ones that spat water but not one that foamed. When I had these pictures published ahead of the words, I got asked by a few IM contacts what I had done to (presumably provoked) cause it to react this way. I searched for an answer as soon as I got back. Really, just one answer would be good enough but the more I clicked the more doubts began to fill my head. No, Steven, we did not tickle the crab into foaming and no, Lee Ming, those aren’t my hands.