Two Quiet Outings to Upper Seletar Reservoir Park

After attending the annual Qingming Festival at Mandai Columbarium on 22 March, I met up with Mr Teo, CH and Dr Takashi  on 22 March at Upper Seleter Reservoir (USR) Park. Insect activities were extremely low along the forest trails and the reservoir edge. 

The four ocelli on the hindwings of this Common Four-ring (Ypthima huebneri) were exceptionally small. Perhaps this dry season form of the Common Four-ring was the result of the dry weather in February and March this year.

At the L-shaped trail, this Blue Spotted Crow (Euploea midamus singapura) was sighted perching on a leaf high on a tree. It flew away from us after we had taken a few long-distance shots.

We found quite a number of scale insects on the underside of some Wild Cinnamon (Cinnamomum iners) leaves.  It was interesting to see how this non-hostile association of the scale insects and ants benefit each other.   

  Looks like a happy family here.
I went to USR again late in the afternoon on 5 Apr after a heavy shower in the morning. Except for many long-tailed Macaques wandering and looking for food on the ground, there were nothing of interest to me.

I guess this is a Blue Brownie (Miletus symethus petronius). It was flitting erratically for a long period of time before it settled on a leaf.

Surprisingly, the next moment she knew where to look for ants to oviposit her eggs.

Based on my intuition and judging by the number of butterflies and other insects that could be seen in the nature reserves, I had a feeling that something might have gone wrong in many parts of our forest - I really hope that I am wrong.