National Day Outing to Lornie Trail

It has been more than two weeks since my last visit to Lornie Trail on our 45th National Day. Attending a conference and a paper presentation in Tokyo last week was my excuse for not updating the blog in time.

This female Knight (Lebadea martha parkeri) flew across the forest trail and landed a few meters in front of me.

I like to observe how butterflies, small and big feeding on the Leea indica flowers at one of my favourite spots along the trail - the flowering trees could give me surprises at times.

This rather pristine male Malay Lacewing (Cethosia hypsea hypsina) was feeding on the flowers voraciously, demonstrating all sorts of stunts with flapping wings - giving me a hard time to photograph it.

Here is another shot showing its blue iridescence on the forewings caused by either refractions, diffraction or interference of light traveling through the tiny wing scales which are made of chitin and arranged in layers with air space in between. This optical process gives rise to structural colours which are usually metallic blue or green colours.

If you want to find out more about this gorgeous species, read the BC's blog on its life history.

The underside wings are more attractive. The brilliant colours coupled with the delicate patterns and the wave-line wing borders with v-shaped white markings make this lovely butterfly a favourite subject for photography.

There were at least half a dozen of Chocolate Grass Yellows (Eurema sari sodalis) flitting and feeding on the L. indica flowers.

A very common forest denizen, Yellow Veined Lancer (Pyroneura latoia latoia) can be easily seen feeding on the L. indica flowers in our forests. For a change, I chose to take a shot of this pristine specimen. A robberfly was basking in the afternoon sun. Or was it waiting to strike its prey that came near within its reach ? I have noticed that robberflies usually facing the forest trail when they perch.
I usually look out for dragonflies at the reservoir edge next to the SICC golf course. I think this predominantly blue damselfly is Pseudagrion microcephalum, a common species in many parks and nature reserves.

The way this damselfly perching - wings spreading outwardly was different from many other species - my second encounter of a male Lestes praemorsus decipiens at the same spot. I hope to see and photograph a mating pair in the future.