Common Tits by The Bay

I spent yesterday's morning out at Gardens by the Bay. Nestled right in the heart of Marina, it has a surprising number of butterflies.  While the weather swayed from unbearably hot to dark and windy multiple times, the butterflies were all out and about. The butterfly I encountered the most that morning was definitely the Common tit. This is a sunbathing male, revealing his spectacular upperside.

This charming lycaenid was seen mostly at the Meadow Car park. It is a common species and can be found in almost any locality, from urban parks to back- mangrove areas. The car park was planted heavily with many ornamental ixora flowers, the caterpillar host plants of the butterfly. I saw many of them feeding contently on the brilliant magenta blooms of the leea rubra shrubs planted alongside the ixoras.

There are two 'forms' of the common tit here, a grey one and an orange variant. This male veers towards the grey side, but there is a considerable amount of orange shading on the margin of the wings. The orange form has more pronounced shading. I did see many other species, but that would be for another time. It was brilliant to see all these butterflies taking sanctuary in the urban park and I will definitely be back.