USR on 10 Dec 2011

I was away for more than a week, attending conferences in Rotorua, New Zealand and Melbourne, Australia. When I came back, I really missed the greenery and the flying jewels of our forest. So on a fine Saturday morning (10 Dec) I set off early for a solo outing to Upper Seletar Reservoir (USR) Park.

You would agree with me that the Royal Assyrain (Terinos terpander robertsia) is a beautiful butterfly which I have not seen and taken any picture of it  for more than a year.

This elusive guy has the habit of hiding or perching underneath a leaf - so I was very lucky encountering this particular male sunbathing and puddling on some dried leaves. The iridescent purplish blue upperside hindwings are simply gorgeous and eye-catching under the sun or flash light.

The purplish-blue structural colour is less intense on the forewings. This was a lucky shot of an instantaneous moment when it was opening its wings fully while puddling.

It never stayed still at any spot while imbibing moisture from the ground or fallen leaves.

There were at least a dozen of a small damselfly near a stream. Is this the Prodasineura collaris (Collared Threadtail) ? 

This is a mating pair of  a kind of cricket. What did they do before mating ? The following 2 shots showed their behaviour.

On the whole it was a very quiet day at USR in terms of butterfly activity. But the appearance of  the relatively rare  Royal Assyrain really made my day.  

Venus Trail On 19 Nov

It has been a very long time since I last visited the Venus Trail.  I decided to check out the trail on a sunny Saturday morning 

There were quite a number of Bush Brown butterflies fluttering and perching at a grass patch. This particular shot which looks more like a Dark Brand Bush Brown (Mycalesis mineus macromalayana) was my first shot of the morning. I didn't notice the water droplet when I took the shot.

I noticed an orange skipper resting on a leaf surface from far. It was rather docile, allowing me to get a few shots. I think this is a Common Dartlet (Oriens gola pseudolus), a small but quite common in grassy area especially along the fringe of the forest.

Here is another shot from a different angle.

A beautiful snake with a fluorescent green body, this whip snake can be found in our forest.

This immature cricket was lazing around on a fallen tree trunk. Who would anticipate this few minute's rest in fact was so fatal for it. Shortly after this shot, I was stunned !!

Shortly after taking the shot, I witnessed with my own eyes how a robber fly grabbed the cricket and landed on a leaf.

After reaching the Ranger Station, I decided to turn back and headed for home. Quite a few Pretty pink bugs caught my attention - here is one of them, peeping the ground beneath it.

Along the Island Club road while I was on my way out, I noticed a Large Snow Flat (Tagiades gana gana)   feeding on some Leea indica flowers. Though it didn't stay long on the flowers, I managed to snap a few shots.

A Few Critters In the Central Catchment Areas

Perhaps due to the unusual weather in October - exceptionally wet this year, two short afternoon weekend outings to our nature reserves didn't give me any excitement and surprises at all.

Bush Hopper (Ampittia dioscorides camertes) appeared to be abundant lately. The body shape and posture of this species is quite distinctively different from other orange skippers - the head section is rather "pointed" and triangular.

There were two Starry Bobs (Iambrix stellifer) darting and chasing each other around a flowering Leea indica tree. Alert and active all the time, they were very shy for photography and this is the best I could get after many futile attempts.

A lonely and pristine Chocolate Grass Yellow (Eurema sari sodalis) was puddling on the damp forest soil along a shady trail. With patience and luck, I finally nailed a shot.

I always love to shoot Ornate Coraltail (Ceriagrion cerinorubellum) - a very common but beautiful damselfly. This is a male which took an afternoon nap along a forest fringe.

An interesting squash bug (?) caught my attention - wow, mathematics teacher could set a problem asking students to find the areas of the black spots on its body.

This small skipper which looks like a Lesser Dart (Potanthus omaha omaha) was found at the entrance of a forest trail when I was about to leave for home.

Other Critters and Plants @ Semakau Island On 20 Aug

Continue from my previous post.

There were not many species of butterflies on the grassland. Fortunately, other critters and some very beautiful wild flowers kept me busy. Let me begin with some flowers.

This uniquely patterned, large and showy pinkish-purple flower of the Beach Morning Glory (Ipomoea pes-caprae) is definitely attractive. This coastal ground creeper is quite invasive which has extended its territory to the scrub land. A detailed write-up on this plant can be found here.

Passiflora foetida is a vine that can grow wild in wasteland. Though its white flowers are less conspicuous, these flowers could attract insects - look carefully, there was a fly on the flower.

I guess these are the flowers of Vigna reflexopilosa. A small colony of Pea Blue (Lampides boeticus) and one or two Gram Blue buterflies (Euchrysops cnejus cnejus) were spotted around this ground creeper.

This pair of mating leaf beetle was found on a blade of grass.

This is another tiny and cute beetle - a great deal of patience and luck was needed to get a decent shot under a windy condition.

Another interesting-looking and colourful beetle (or was it a bug ?) was looking downwards, clinging on to some young leaves, making it difficult for me to take a proper shot.

This is the only spider species that I saw - a rather small one. I have no idea what it is.

I think this is a kind of lacewing (this is an owlfly, thanks Marcus) which I have never seen before.

Here is another record shot from a slightly different angle.

I am not sure if this is a kind of broad-headed bug which rested on the mimosa leaves.

I encountered quite a few small dragonflies like these shots below - they look like the Diplacodes nebulosa.

Another individual.

On our way back to the jetty, I saw this male Diplacodes trivialis dragonfly perching on the ground.

I saw a few Yellow-Barred Flutter (Rhyothemis phyllis) dragonflies hovering in the air and settling down on a twig at times.

According to John, this wasp looks a Ropalidia marginata (need confirmation). It didn't stay long enough on the ferns for me to take more shots.

I have no clue if this is a rare or common grasshopper - since it was a survey outing, I would post it here.

I am not sure what plant this is but the flowers certainly attracted some insects.

A close-up shot on the tiny flowers.

Here is another plant that I hope someone could provide me with a name.

Though the white flowers look quite small, they are quite nice and unique if we view them with a macro lens.

On our way back to the jetty, we stumbled on a pond (in fact we saw two ponds) and scared off a flock of birds resting there.

The vegetation and plants that grow on this landfill are getting more diverse, growing taller and denser. This huge grassland will be home to many more animals in years to come.

A Solo Visit to the Admiralty Park

The pre-dawn heavy rains lasted till morning forced us to abort a butterfly survey near the Eco-link bridge site on 2 Apr. Once the cloudy sky cleared up a bit in the late morning, I decided to head out to Admiralty Park in the northern part of Singapore - a park that I would not visit often due to its "remote location" from my home.

The shape of the Bush Hopper (Ampittia dioscorides camertes) is rather different from other orange skippers. Initially, it reacted to the camera flash, however after a few shots it got used to it. This dark brown butterfly which loves the grassy habitat, having a prominent white discal band across both wings is Nigger (Orsotriaena medus cinerea) - a common name that doesn't sound nice. Female Malayan Eggfly (Hypolimnas anomala anomala) was often seen to guard her a large number of eggs in a cluster. This rather old mother Malayan Eggfly was seen guarding her newly born babies underneath a leaf on its host plant. She was still alive but she was just too weak to flutter at all. I am not sure if this bee is Apias dorsata. There were quite a number of them congregating at the inflorescence of the Nipah Palm (Nypa fruticans) - an endangered mangrove palm in Singapore. I was lucky to be able to shoot this guy in flight. I didn't know another bee was following behind -what a pity that the second bee was not in focus. Shooting a nectar-feeding Yellow in the wild needs lots of patience and luck - it was no exception when I had to wait patiently near the wild flowers, perhaps a Oxalis species, to nail this shot. Displaying only one cell spot on the forewing beneath, this yellow butterfly looks like an Anderson's Yellow (Eurema andersonii andersonii). It was rather quiet in the park - not many species for me to shoot So when this pinkish orange bug, quite a few of them, appeared on one of the Singapore Rhododendron shrubs I found it attractive and worth taking some shots. Finally, I would like to end the write-up here with a shot of this rather common micropezid fly displaying its "trade-mark" style.

This park is big and the natural mangrove habitat along the river hopefully would give nature-lovers surprises from time to time.