Walking through poet Yong Shu Hoong's erstwhile workplace, one almost trips over a monitor lizard, which waddles, miffed, into the undergrowth.

The 52-year-old spent six months in 2017 as the resident writer of Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve, during which he watched migratory birds, spent a night in the reserve and penned a children's story about the huge resident crocodile dubbed "Tail-less" because of its missing appendage.