Sunday, April 26, 2009

A Casual Morning Walk In The Nature Reserve

I cannot remember when was the last time I walked on this trail in the water catchment area so you know I have not been visiting this part of our forest for a long time.

There were few insect activities in the first hour but with the cool air and the occasionally bird singing, I did not feel disappointed as I really enjoyed the fresh air and the morning breeze in a soothing forest ambiance.

Ionolyce helicon (Pointed Line Blue) is not very common . The hindwing apex is quite pointed and its almost straight terman can also be the characteristic that we use to differentiate this species from other similar-looking Blues.
This guy was quite tame in the early morning, perching on the Pitchfork fern (Dicranopteris curranii) as if it was looking at the trail and greeting the joggers.

Elymnias hypermnestra agina (Common Palmfly) is a common butterfly that can be found both in the urban parks , forest edges or trails. Not a strong-flying butterfly, it usually flies a short distance and settles on a leaf top with both wings closed. I was not presented any chance of shooting its upperside wings which show purplish-blue patches when in flight. Usually a very skittish bugger, we can get close and shoot this bugger only when it was feeding

I spotted yet another White Royal (Pratapa deva relata) along the trail. The host plant is quite abundant and some eggs and empty egg shells were found on the underside of the leaves. It is never easy to identify a brown skipper from a field shot like this, especially when the markings seem to be fading.However, some white dots on the upperside of the forewings can be seen in this shot. Perhaps these markings may be useful for someone to identify the species. I was wondering why this moth was "hanging" at this strange position and motionless when I went very near to it. I only realised it was dead when I viewed this shot on my camera's screen. Take a closer look at this shot, you should know who the murderer was.
This red dragonfly liked to perch on a Coat Buttons (Tridax procumbens ) flower and it kept coming back to the same perch - a common behaviour of many dragonflies. I could not find a good match from Hung Bun's Singapore Odonata website.

2 comments:

  1. Hi,Try google Urothemis signata to compare that red dragonfly << Yong >>

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  2. Thanks Yong for your suggestion. Indeed it looks very close to Urothemis signata

    ReplyDelete