Gram blue

In the morning, I decided to have a quick walk to shoot some

butterflies. Because of the dull weather, not many butterflies

came out to play. But these gram blues came out in full force!!

These fellas are really hard to nail because of their non-stop flight.

Yup, they are also extreeemely wary and flutter off at the

slightest of movements.

They seemed to like to flit close to the ground, then land

and bask with their wings half-opened. The male topside (below)

has a brownish base colour, and is strongly shot with blue, giving

it a pale purple appearance. The female is mostly brown,

but has the basal areas (the areas closer to the body) a bright blue.

These lovely butterflies are actually pretty common in

Singapore, and they love to fly around open grasslands, where

the caterpillar host-plant, pueraria phaseoloides, grows

abundantly.

The End.

Sightings from CCA

This morning I was out again with a few other ButterflyCircle

members explore some forest trails in the central catchment area.

What I wanted to go home with - the lesser harlequin. A small, rare

and beautifuuul butterfly. Yeah we didn't spot it. In fact we

hardly spotted anything. The first butterfly I saw was this little

Sixline-blue. He was actually feeding on the minerals deposited on

the leaf.

There were plenty of bush-browns fluttering among

the grasses too, chasing each other around. Much smaller are

the ypthima species. This fella is one of them, the Common four-rings.

This is a mating pair of Common five- rings.

The 'ring' butterflies are all extremely similar looking. Here

is an excellent article about our ypthima species and how the slight

differences tell them apart. The next thing spotted was the ever-

so-wary branded imperial. This male skipped across the trail and

showed me his topside.

After bashing through the trails but to no avail at all, we decided

to head back.This huge skipper suddenly landed heavily on a leaf

in front of me. Turned out it was a female Hoary Palmer. Sweet.

I made one wrong move and off it went, just as quickly as it

came. While searching for the palmer, I noticed a (much) smaller

something darting in and out of the undergrowth. When I peeked

under a leaf, a Plain banded awl was sitting patiently. 
It had such

wonderful glossy colours that were only visible with the flash-light.

Despite the low butterfly activities, it was still great to

get back out in the forests in a hit-and-miss quest to actually

see something new (to me, of course). And in the end I did see

a couple of new butterflies, making the trip pretty worthwhile.

The End. :)

Hot morning at Eco Green

It was a while since I last went out for a nice butterfly outing,

so I decided to tag along with Uncle Khew and a few others

for a short visit to Tampines Eco Green. Our target: Singapore's

two silverline species. And our trip was successful! I went

home with shots of both our lovely spindasis butterflies. This

is the more common one, the Long banded silverline.

This male was feeding happily on the showy leea rubra

flowers, planted there for landscaping. He was sooo tame

and let us shoot from different angles. The second species,

the club silverline, usually has black bands on the underside,

instead of brick-red. The real difference lies in the forewing

basal streak (the little band at the base of the forewing). Club

silverline has its basal streak shaped like a club!

I only spotted two club silverlines though, compared

to the numerous long banded ones. They have established

themselves there, as the caterpillar host plant, acacia

auriculiformis grows abundantly. The plain tigers were also out in full force, and their graceful flight and bright colours made them attractive to watch.

It was a very fun outing on the whole, even though I was

baking in the sun. I was overcooked. I am glad to have

finally nailed my two silverlines.

The End.

Survey @ the Singapore Zoo

Last Saturday, ButterflyCircle conducted a smashing butterfly

survey at the Singapore Zoo. The species encountered would

be used as a baseline for further conservation efforts! That day,

our group of 12, spotted a total of 42 different species! One of

the most common butterflies was the Chocolate Demon.

They were attracted by the numerous Torch Gingers.

ButterflyCircle previously collaborated with the zoo to

transplant the torch gingers from the (now closed) Mandai

Orchid Garden. This was an amazing effort to save a rare

species, the Metallic Caerulean.

We were excited to spot this lovely metallic caerulean there,

as it proved that the efforts had paid off! Another beautiful

butterfly had been saved. Hopefully these jamides butterflies

will continue to strive there! Below is a much more common

relative, which was spotted as well, the Common Caerulean.

Among the wild grassy patches, a few speedy skippers

were spotted. One of them was the caltoris bromus, a new

addition for Singapore's check-list, where its presence here

was confirmed by our fantastic butterfly breeder, Mr. Horace Tan,

who first bred the caterpillars. This is another skipper that was seen,

the Yellow Grass Dart.

Another butterfly that was spotted many times that day

was this Peacock Pansy. It has beautiful orange wings, and was

very conspicuous.

With many rare species encountered, the survey was

a total success. I was very happy to be part of this wonderful

event, and I hope that I can participate in even more surveys

next time. I am still settling in to Secondary school life, but I

think I am doing all right. Kudos to ButterflyCircle for this super

conservation effort!

The End.