Monday, February 1, 2016

Fung Yuen @ Hong Kong - After 7 Years

My last visit to Fung Yuen Butterfly Reserve at Tai Po,  Hong Kong was 7 years  ago (see here). As the weather was relatively good on 30 Jan 2016 (not too cold and have a few hours of intermittent sunlight), I decided to visit Fung Yuan again.

I set off quite early at about 8:40 am as the weatherman predicted that the sunshine was shortlive. After about 1 hour plus of bus and MTR journeys from South Horizons in Ap Lei Chau where I have been living since late December 2015, I reached Fung Yuan. The surroundings of Fung Yuan has changed so much that I almost could not recognise the place - high-rise private apartments are just next to the Butterfly Garden. Following the signage, I found my destination and I  was very surprised to see  manye  butterfly photographers were already there.

Knowing that there would not be many butterflies in winter, I didn't have high expectation. So, I just walked around to find out how big the area is.  At a sunlit spot, I bumped into a Purple Sapphire (Heliophorus epicles), flitting around.  Perhaps due to the low temperature, it always perched with its wings wide open to absorb heat from the sunlight.
A few Common Grass Yellows  (Eurema hecabe) were frolicking under the intermitent sunshine. As usual, they were skittish and alert even when they were foraging on flowers. My only shot was from an instinctive squeeze off the shutter.
This brown Restricted Demon (Notocrypta curvifascia) kept zipping around me but when it landed, it always at a distance away from me and again with wings open.
There were a few Mycalesis species hopping in and out of the bushes - this may be the dry form.
A Chocolate Pansy (Junonia iphita) was resting on aleaf surface before it scooted off shortly after this shot.
The catch of the day must be this lantern bug - it flew past me and landed in front of me on a bamboo stick.
These small flowers actually were nice and attracted insects, mainly small bees and flies like this one.

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