A Re-visit To A Park Connector @ Mandai

My second visit to this wild place near the zoo on a cool Saturday morning in the second last week of November rewarded me with a few shots of an uncommon skipper - please read on to find out !

The golden yellow flowers of a wild ground creeper (appeared to be Vigna reflexopilosa) were everywhere. There were ants congregating at the flower buds - perhaps they were attending to or even protecting some lycaenid larvae in a symbiotic relationship - but I could not see one in this picture.

There were many Gram Blue butterflies (Euchrysops cnejus cnejus) fluttering around but I could not spot any Silver Forget-me-not (Catochrysops panormus exiguus) which I saw a few in my last visit (see here).

This is an upperside shot of a female Gram Blue. I noticed that they didn't usually open their wings completely to sunbathe.

A grayish white small critter was perching on a stem of the creeper. Is this is a nymph of a squash bug or something else ?

This species of Squash Bug was quite abundant. You can easily spot this rather prominent bug if you look carefully at those wild creepers and grasses.

Here are 3 shots of grasshopper species that I found around this area. The first two green-bodied grasshopper appear to be of the same species. Is there a on-line checklist with photos that I can identify this group of insects ?

This is another brown grasshopper resting peacefully on a leaf . I can see only four legs, where are the other two ? Anyway, this is an interesting posture.
I was fortunate to see this rather rare skipper, Dark Banded Ace (Halpe ormenes vilasina) showing off its darting speed and instinctive reaction to direct flash light around noon time. After many futile shots inside a shelter, I decided to tilt the angle of the flash light, resulting in this shot.

It came back a few times, rewarding me with more shots when it puddle on the ground outside the shelter. Look at how its coiled proboscis was about to extend outwards.

It was around 1 pm, I had enough stalking and "playing" with this skipper and the monsoon clouds began to rule the sky so I decided to pack up quickly and head to Bah Soon Pah Road.