From Lornie Trail to Rifle Range Link Part 1

It has been quite a few weeks since my last visit to the forest. So on a fine but slightly cloudy Saturday (26 March) morning I decided to go for a long hike from Lornie Trail to Rifle Range Link.

A bunch of Malay Lacewing (Cethosia hypsea hypsina) caterpillars was hiding below a leaf. There were not many big leaves left, I wondered how many of them would survive ultimately.

The host plant is a forest vine with thick and big mature leaves. The life history of this species can be found at BC's blog here.

Along the trail some pink flower buds (I could not remember the name of this plant) attracted my attention. On closer look, I saw something else - what ants are these ?

I stopped at my favourite spot waiting for the first early butterfly to show up. Once this hungry Psyche (Leptosia nina malayana) woke up from its sleep in a shade, it started feeding voraciously on the Mile-a-minute (Mikania micrathan Family : Asteraceae) flowers.

Having a feeble flight pattern and flitting close to the ground most of the time, Psyche is one of the skittish and alert butterflies in the wild. So I was indeed very lucky to be able to take some photos of this particular little beauty - the greenish thin striae on the underside hindwing show us what "beauty of randomness" is about.

This Ciliate Blue (Anthene emolus goberus) liked to open its wings partially whenever it settled on a new perch and stayed like this for a while.

Demonstrating about the same behaviour, this brown skipper likely to be a Contiguous Swift (Polytremis lubricans lubricans) also kept opening its wings whenever it landed on a sunlit spot.

However, if we react fast enough we may be able to get a shot of its underside like what I did.

There wasn't any other butterfly species preventing me from advancing forward. Towards the end of the reservoir edge, I spotted this rather dark and medium-size dragonfly perching on a twig - it looks like a male Idothemis limbata.

Besides joggers and trekkers, I could hardly find any other animals from Golf Link to the Jelutong Tower. At last, this Malayan Bush Brown (Mycalesis fusca fusca) with distinctive reddish-orange underside wings hopped across the trail and landed in front of me.

After taking a short break at the Jelutong Tower, I continued moving towards the "Spa". In part 2, I would feature a few puddling butterfly shots.