Mount Faber Park On 22 Jan 2011

Thanks Cher Hern for giving me a ride to Mount Faber Park (MF) on 22 Jan. Once the car was parked, we headed straight to the Merlion sculpture which was just a few minutes of walking distance away.

I spotted this rather tame and small lycaenid butterfly The Malayan (Megisba malaya sikkima) . We had to be very patient waiting the wind to subside before we could take a few shots.

Below the Merlion Sculpture, I spotted this mating Common Line Blue (Prosotas nora superdates). Again we had to overcome the windy condition to take some shots - luckily, there were oblivious to our presence.

Along the way to a hilltop, this male Colour Sergeant (Athyma nefte subrata) was teasing me, perching here and there but always beyond our eye level. At last, I managed to get a record shot of his underside wing.

It was around 11 am at the hilltop, we surveyed the spots where we usually found our butterfly models. Perhaps due to the windy and cool weather, our "models" didn't turn up to show their beauty. So we decided to head back to the Merlion Sculpture. While shooting a group of red ants attending to some mealybugs (?) we met Sunny and Ellen who were on their way to the hilltop.

While we were walking back to the hilltop again, there were at least two Chequered Lancer (Plastingia naga) zipping around us. This was shot at a slope along a shady trail leading us to the hilltop.

On our way back to the Merlion area, we noticed this lovely cicada resting quietly on a tree trunk.

Along a hedge of shrubs near a beverage outlet, there was this rather common skipper at MF - a Zographetus doxus "sleeping" peacefully on a leaf at my knee level - but the constant wind and the poor ambient light made it tough for us to photograph this cooperative guy.

Sunny spotted a pair of "ugly-looking" lycaenid Logania marmorata damis. They were rather tame and unafraid of our intrusion into their intimate life.

There were at least two different Nacaduba species fluttering around the area. Here is a shot on one of them which TL Seow has identified it as Nacaduba kurava nemana in the BC forum here . He explained that with the broad submarginal band and its scalloped or evenly stepped inner margin this is unmistakable a N. kurava nermana.