Have You Seen These Creatures in the Wild ? - Part 1

I went to this wild place in the northern part of Singapore on two consecutive Saturdays in March. Let me showcase some interesting critters that I encountered.

Along a forest trail, a very dark skipper perched on a leaf at my knee level. I squatted down and took a few shots at low shutter speed. This is a male Quedara monteithi monteithi.

Two small black-and-white lycaenids were flitting on the ground. They were looking for something on the forest floor to puddle on. This guy decided to climb up a "slope" and gave me a few seconds for some shots.

I was lucky to spot this rather rare White Spotted Palmer (Eetion elia) - my second sighting along the trial. In between its swift and speedy darting flights, it stopped a few times. I stayed still,  observed where it landed and with a bit of luck, I could snap some quick shots this time.  

I met N and E one early morning. Though the forest appeared to be quiet and devoid of life,  nothing could escape the sharp eyes of N who spotted this strange and beautiful critter - perhaps a kind of cricket (hope someone can come in to id this) (this is a katydid belonging to the genus Scambophyllum - thanks Zick for identifying it in Oct 2022)  

Here is another shot.

Guess what this butterfly is who was high on a leaf on performing its surveillance duty.

The undersides of this male Horsfield's Baron (Tanaecia iapis puseda) are rather dull and uninteresting. Having a tendency to visit the same high perch, he never gave me a chance to take a shot of his more attractive uppersides. 

An adventure into forest rewarded me with a few shots of this stack of butterfly eggs - I guess this is a way to protect all the eggs being parasited by other insects.

I bumped into S in the afternoon and we were very lucky to see a female Banded Swallowtail (Papilio demolion demolion) hovering around a young shrub with big leaves. She stopped and I snapped a few shots but we didn't notice she was actually ovipositing her eggs in a stack. S took a shot from another angle and noticed this unique and valuable moment.