Sunday, July 3, 2011

Three Beauties @ MacRitchie Nature Trail

What a disappointment on 25 June morning when the overcast weather gave me a clear indication that a looming heavy downpour would be imminent. True enough, many nature lovers and photographers like me were grounded at homes for the whole morning.

Late in the afternoon, sunshine finally gained control and started to penetrate through some remnants of clouds. Within 30 minutes, I was at the MacRitchie Nature Trail (MNT).

This relatively small lycaenid Semanga superba deliciosa was extremely skittish and energetic, kept flitting around.
Not only was she alert and uncooperative, she reacted quite violently to camera flashlight especially at a close distance as shown in the picture below - why this behaviour ? perhaps she was young, pristine and shy to be a model. I wonder what factors would trigger this reaction in butterfly - intensity of the light, angle or time of the day ?
Another rather rare flying beauty spotted on a quiet afternoon was this Royal Assyrian (Terinos terpander robertsia). But it din't oblige my persistence and patience of making it to come down.
It has been a long time since my last encounter with it. What a pity as it bid farewell quickly after I had taken a few long distance shots. Its uppersides are as beautiful as its undersides - this shot below does not reveal the true beauty so you can only imagine how the iridescent bluish purple will look like.
It was close to 5 pm when I saw this Common Posy (Drupadia ravindra moorei), a rather common forest species, perching tamely on a leaf of Clidemia hirta. Not a perfect specimen though, it was deserved some shots for its elegant perch and cooperation.

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