Due to bad weather on a stormy Saturday morning (11 Apr), my weekly photography-cum-walking outing was postponed to the next day. Strolling along the Prunas Boardwalk on a quiet Sunday afternoon at the MacRitchie Reservoir Park, I noticed a late instar larva of the Acacia Blue (Surendra vivarna amisena) resting motionlessly on a young shoot of a Petai tree (Parkia speciosa).
Many butterflies in the family Lycaenidae display a myrmecophilous association with ants - here is another shot demonstrating this mutually-rewarding relationship between the Acacia Blue larva and the ants. These ants were climbing over the body of the larva to benefit from the secretions of the nectary organs. An excellent write-up the life cycle of this species can be found here.
After completing half of the boardwalk, I branched off to check out a stretch of the forest fringe along some private houses. Some tiny Pygmy Grass Blues (Zizula hylax pygmaea) were seen fluttering around.
A solitary Yamfly (Loxura atymnus fuconius) was flitting past me. It finally perched on a leaf of the Singapore Rhododendron.
I followed it closely whenever it changed its perch and rewarded with a a few more shots.
A surprise for me in this late afternoon outing was the sighting of a worn out male Magpie Crow (Euploea radamanthus radamantus) - my first encounter of this species at MacRithchie Reservoir. It liked to rest on the brickwall and use it proboscis to "taste" the wall.
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