Ulu Sembawang Park Connector Welcomed Taichung Friends

Three Taichung butterfly enthusiasts 陳元, 劉淑芬 and 張庭愷 visited Singapore in the last week of July. On 29 July (Monday), I brought them to the Ulu Sembawang Park Connector to hunt and shoot our local butterflies. What a lousy weather for us !  Shortly after we reached there, heavy showers  forced us  to wait at the shelter. Anyway, our time was not wasted as we had a good chat and exchanged knowledge about butterflies in our countries.  

The rain had to stop eventually. Yes, we could not let our guests return home without taking a shot. The sky remained gloomy and it was definitely not a ideal day for butterfly hunting but we still managed to shoot some common local species that were "new" to our visitors. The Nigger (Orsotriaena medus cinerea) was one of them.

This is Eurema simulatrix tecmessa which was feeding on some animal dropping if I saw it correctly.

The Common Sailor ( (Neptis hylas papaja) can be found in Taiwan as well - it is called 豆環蛺蝶.

A long distance shot when it perched with its wings wide open,

A dark brown skipper was resting quite cooperatively on a grass patch next to a forested area along the park connector. 

A half-opened shot of the upperside of the wings was useful for us to suggest that it might be the The Full Stop Swift (Caltoris cormasa).

We were intrigued by the look of this insect - a fly or an ant ? I think it looks more like an ant to me. My first sighting of such an interesting  insect.

We hope that our Taichung friends had memorable outings in Singapore. Let us pray that our butterfly diversities remain healthy and good and their populations will soon bounce back to a level that would entice more overseas friends to come here for butterfly hunting and photography next year.      

After Rain @ Bah Soon Pah (BSP)

What a disappointing Saturday (27 Aug) - not because it was the day for President Election (PE) but rather the cloudy and rainy morning dampened my spirit and deprived me of an outing.

The weather turned slightly better in the late morning. After casting my vote, I went for lunch and headed for BSP. The sky finally cleared up in the afternoon so I decided to find out what critters were active on this PE day.

I was rather lucky to spot a pair of mating Pea Blue (Lampides boeticus) just outside the Oh Chin Huat Hydroponic Farm. What a docile pair, they simply ignored my presence.

At the dead end of BSP road where a small plot of wasteland is, this small black-headed ant (don't know what species) behaved rather weirdly - attempting to jump from the edge of a leaf ?

This pale green planthopper flew across me and landed on a blade of Lalang grass.

A tiny spider was not too far away from the planhopper. It remained stationary for quite a while.

I have not seen this cute tortoise beetle for a long time. What a shy creature, it turned its head away when I took the shot.

Calopogonium mucunoides is a fast-growing and invasive ground creeping vine which can be found in many disturbed areas and wastelands. The light purplish-blue and pea-like flowers grow in a cluster on stalks coming out from leaf axis.

This is another pea-like flower of Centrosema molle sprawling on the ground. Other species in this genus is described in this paper. For those who are interested in knowing more about this common wasteland weed, here is a write-up on the CIAT website.