Tiny Beauties @ UPR

I went outing with BJ to Upper Peirce Reservoir (UPR) on a slightly hazy Saturday morning. Soon after we arrived at the Casurina Prata shop, the weather became cloudy and it started drizzling. Thanks to the drizzle, we were able to savour our food and tea slowly , my second round of breakfast in the prata shop. The sky cleared up eventually and we were on our hunting ground.

My very first shot of the morning was this black ant (Polyrhachis sp ?), quite large in size, roaming alone on a leaf.
This is a male Tyriobapta torrida which had the tendency to come back and rest on the tree trunk. The female seemed to exhibit the same behaviour - often resting on the tree trunk. The tree bark really provides her with good camouflage from any predators.This magnificent male Trithemis aurora, frequently perching and resting on top of a twig or stem with both wings depressing downwards is one of my favourite macro subjects. Its purplish pink thorax and abdomen really looks strikingly beautiful in the field. This is a female dragonfly which was shot around the same place as the male Trithemis aurora. But it does not look like a female of T. aurora. I am not sure what species this dragonfly is, perhaps a juvenile too. During outings, if there were no butterflies and other conspicuous critters for me to photograph, I looked for small critters. With a bit more concentration on small creatures, I could spot many little and cute beauties in nature.

I guess this is a beetle resting on a Wild Cinnamon (Cinnamomum iners) leaf.But its side view does not look like a beetle. What exactly is this little cutie ? My first impression of this small red beetle with a shiny body shell was a little circular "red dot" moving along the edge of a leaf. Not sure if it has eaten up part of the leaf. I usually saw Tiger beetles hunting for their preys on sandy ground. They were not easy subjects for macro-photography. However, I was lucky spotting this one flew past me and landed just a few metres in front of me. Not only the body, the colouration on the legs look attractive as well.
I used to ignore flies because they looked either too tiny or unattractive compared to butterflies. Since I started recording my fauna sightings on this blog, I have begun to pay attention to flies and other small insects as well. Now, I realise that there are a great varieties of fly in the forest. For example, I have never seen this small fly before. This Dark Brand Bush Brown was the only butterfly shot I took on the day when many butterflies seemed to go on mass hiding. It does not matter there are a lot lesser butterflies for me to photograph these days. I have started to train my eyes (my mind as well) to look for eggs, larvae and other tiny beauties in our nature which have always been neglected.