"Tigers" @ Gardens By the Bay

Before I went on a family holiday trip to Kyoto, I dropped by Gardens By the Bay (GB) again on a fine Saturday morning (15 June), hoping to shoot or at least see the Vagrant (Vagrans sinha sinha) which CH had shot it in early June (see here).

I arrived GB early and went around the car park area where the Ixora blooms were - there still looked good and attractive. There were a few specimen of the Slate Flash (Rapala manea chozeba) feeding on Leea indica shrubs at the far end of the row of Ixora hedges.

I met some ButterflyCircle members near the car park area around 10 am. Loke spotted this Peacock Royal (Tajuria cippus maxentius) flitting around the Ixora flowers.

There were many ornamental flowering plants at the meadow, attracting quite a number of butterflies fluttering and looking for nectar. The Tawny Coster (Acraea violae) has been doing very well in many parts of Singapore. However, this was the only female specimen that I could see at GB. 

The Common Tiger (Danaus genutia genutia) is an attractive butterfly. There were at least a couple of them fluttering gracefully and feeding on the blooms. 

Take a good look at The Black Veined Tiger (Danaus melanippus hegesippus); it resembles closely to the The Common Tiger.

Just like other Tigers, it has a tendency to "feed" on the Crotalaria seed pods by scratching the surface of the seed pods.

This Common Tiger displayed the same behaviour.

The Small Branded Swift (Pelopidas mathias mathias) is a common skipper that can be found in our urban parks. The seed pod seemed to be able to attract skippers as well.

The Plain Tiger (Danaus chrysippus chrysippus) was rather abundant in GB and all except one individual were of the form-alcippoides (with large patches of hindwings) - it was a shame that I could not get a shot of the skittish specimen of the form-chrysippus.

A rather tame Common Tit (Hypolycaena erylus teatus) was feeding on the Leea rubra flowers.

On my way out, I was lucky to bump into this Common Banded Awl (Hasora chromus chromus) - very fast and alert bugger, it gave me just a few seconds for me to take two instinctive shots.  

Let us hope that GB continues to provide good feeding and breeding ground for butterflies and other fauna - this would make the garden more vibrant and attractive.