Colugo in the night

A few nights back, I saw a group of very small noisy nocturnal squirrels around Seletar Reservoir area so I decided to check it out today after work. This time round, I could only hear the frogs and insects, no signs of the squirrels. Nevertheless I pointed the lens at the treetops, searching cluelessly for a target. A couple of motor-bikers stopped beside me along the quiet dead end road and finding this stranger with his camera gear pointing upwards, looked into the same general direction. I was beginning to feel rather silly, when their noisy engines stirred up a furry ball on a branch 15 to 20 metres above them. One of them shouted excitedly - and following his direction, I saw this wobbly thing that I thought was a slow loris. Then, it stuck out its head and the large eyes glowed bright red in the light beam and I realised what it really was.

After explaining to them it was a flying animal but not a bat, they seemed satisfied enough to leave me alone with the beast. The recently purchased $100 torch came in handy for this and I manage to get some blurry shots but it disturbed it so much that it decided to take flight. It was a heart stopping and eerie 5 seconds - like a big brown kite about 40-50cm in wingspan, it glided, in slow motion, silently onto a tree and proceeded upwards in small leaps and was soon lost in the darkness. For people who do not know of such an animal, an experience like this on a moonlit night could easily make them weak in the knees.