Pasoh afterglow

Two reasons for the title; Pasoh is forever etched in my mind, for all the good times in the forest and the great people I met there. The second that the forest floor indeed has afterglow! After the sun sets, the leaf litter glows reflecting moonlight; we noticed that even when there is no moon they reflect dim light probably starlight, or perhaps the fungus on the leaf litter itself glows rather than reflecting light. We planned several times to take a tripod with us and photograph this with about an hour exposure or more, but the times we lugged a tripod it rained, so we could not capture it. It will remain a vivid afterglow memory.

We did several night walks, particularly because Pradeep from Sri Lanka and I took up nocturnal amphibians as our independent research project. The first frog-sampling evening, this calm assertive creature walked by. John Steinbeck described a land turtle's walk as it crossed the road as a determined, resilient creature, symbolizing the migrant worker's struggle!

The first night walk was quite uneventful right till the end. But then Dtoon, who is from Thailand was with us; an expert herpetologist with sharp eyes and deadly reflexes. We spotted a gecko on a tree, Pradeep gently pushed it down with a long stick and Dtoon managed to jump and catch it. We got a good look and then released it.

Next, Dtoon saw a snake on the tree bark, same sequence of events except no one jumped on to it. Pradeep carefully handled it, we photographed and released it; a non-poisonous bridled snake.

We saw some frogs too, which was the main theme for the nightwalks for our research project.

                                                                                                                

And we spotted another beautiful gecko too. We knew its home since every night we used to see the individual in the same tree bark.

We saw a few snakes in the day time too.

At the end of the project we were very tired staying up for several hours a night in the forest and turning leaf litter searching for frogs and doing the field course in the day. I am thankful to all the folks who accompanied us: Dtoon, Sze-leng, Alyse, Lillian and Panitnard to Pradeep for teaching me about frogs in Pasoh and how to find them.

Next up is a post on PITC, Perak Integrated Timber Complex in Temenggor forest reserve in Perak State, just below Thailand.