Saturday, November 18, 2023

Butterflies at Lata Kinjang and Gua Tempurung

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Located in the Chenderiang village, Perak, Lata Kinjang is one of the tallest and famous waterfalls in Malaysia. The car journey to this waterfall took more than an hour, navigating through some small and winding kampong roads for the last few kilometers.

The view of the waterfall cascades is quite nice.

Though the weather was good, butterfly activities were rather. At a shelter along the riverbank, I noticed a mating Common Green Metalwing (Neurobasis chinensis) damselflies. Without much hesitation, I stepped forward a few steps and snapped a series of shots before they seperated.

Shortly after this hot , they disengaged and flew off .

While walking down a flight of stairs, I noticed that a large black-and-white butterfly flying past me and landed on a leaf. This is the Malayan Owl (Neorina lowii neophyta).

The Common Maplet (Chersonesia risa ) was spotted high on a tree around noon time. It kept flapping its wings and refused to come down to the ground level.

The Light Straw Ace (Pithauria stramineipennis) was the only skipper puddling on the sandy riverbank on a hot afternoon.

While moving towards a puddling ground near a campsite, I spotted a Curetis regula and Nacaduba sanaya both feeding on the ground.

Interestingly, the Sunbeam tried to get closer to the Jewel Fourline Blue

Choy and MY spotted this Banded Swallowtail (Papilio demolion) next to the campsite.

We waited quite a while hoping to see other butterflies coming down to puddle on the sandy riverbank - but a great disappointment for us as only the Chocolate Albetross (Appias lyncida vasava) turned up.

There were a few Jamides parasaturatus flitting around near a shelter along the steps leading to the top of the waterfall.

This is another but less pristine specimen puddling on the same rock.

Another look-alike Jamides talliga was found at the camping ground. Can you spot the differences between these two species?

Before we decided to head back to Gua Tampurung before 2 pm as the butterfly activities were disappointing, I took some shots on a group of Rajah Brooks.

However, we didn't see many butterflies at Gua Tampurung also. This small creature flew past me and caught my attention - it looks like a treehopper or something else ?

The highlight of the day must be this Libythea myrrha hecura (The Club Beak). It was very skittish for more than 15 minutes and I hardly had a chance to shoot it. But once it got used to our presence, it became rather tame and cooperative for us to take many shots.