Monday 28 May 2012

A quick walk at SBG

Today, after the Biodiversity Festival and the launch of
the amazing new caterpillar book by ButterflyCircle's Mr Horace
Tan and Mr Khew Sin Khoon, I finally felt the urge to get back out to
shoot. We decided to check out the newly completed side of SBG at
the Botanics MRT station. Not far from the entrance, we spotted a
group of bamboo tree browns at the bamboo clumps.
They were so hard to track, flying in and out of the thick bamboo
growths then landing deep in the undergrowth, and even harder
to photograph. The bamboo tree brown is an uncommon species
here. When I was trying to nail them, there were many
common palmflies that 'distracted' me. This is a male.
The most surprising encounter, however was this common
duffer. Contrary to what the name suggests, the duffer is very
rare here. I was shocked to see it there, and even more surprised
to see how large it was, since this was the first time I spotted one.
This is my pathetic record shot.
It was tattered and skittish but I was still really happy
to see this magnificent butterfly.


The End.

Wednesday 16 May 2012

Behind my house

I have not been posting very often lately. The weather hasn't
been very predictable either, but the butterfly activity is definitely
picking up. Even though I couldn't go out to shoot, I managed to
find a few common butterflies just outside my house. This is a
pristine chestnut bob resting on a blade of cow grass, its caterpillar
host plant.

It was very tame and stood still for a few photos.
The second, a pale grass blue, was settling down to rest
for the night. The fading light and the swarming mosquitoes
made her really hard to nail. This was one of the few
sharper shots I managed of this abundant little critter.
Well that's all I have for now, hopefully I will be able
to get out to photograph more butterflies soon.

The End.