Sunday, June 22, 2014

Lornie Trail in a Late Afternoon

A cloudy and rainy Saturday morning on 7 June confined me to staying indoor at my in-law's place for the whole morning. After getting some work done and with sunshine beginning to pierce through the thin clouds, I decided to drop by Lornie Trail (LT) en route to home.
Though it was quite late in the afternoon when I reached LT, a few critters were still active flitting around along the forest trails. A small but beautiful dragonfly was seen on a dry leaf -  Is this an immature Rubescens rubeola ?
A male Malayan Lacewing (Cethosia hypsea hypsina)  was visiting some flowers of a Leea indica shrub at the reservoir edge - one of my favourite spots for shooting butterflies.
A lovely male Crimson Sunbird  (Aethopuga siparaja)  was perching and feeding on a row of  Heliconia flowers. I approached it closer and snapped a few shots while it kept surveying the surroundings.
One of my field observations of Lycaenids was that they were more likely to open their wings for sunbathing in the late afternoon. The uppersides of the male Common Red Flash (Rapala iarbus iarbus) were stunning. But getting a good shot at this beauty above my eye level was too great a challenge for me.
The wings began to open up slowly (but partially most of the times) whenever it landed on a sunny new perch. 
I sped up my pace walking towards the boardwalk. Beside the SICC golf course, a few skippers caught my attention even though they were resting in some shade. I believe this was a Palm Dart (Telicota augias augias). 
This is likely to be a Lesser Dart (Potanthus omaha omaha).
A wasp was busy feeding on some flowers of the Mile-a-Minute. 
Just before the Golf Link boardwalk, I noticed a a Logania  marmorata damis kept fluttering erratically. It finally perched underneath a leaf where some ants were present too.
I turned back as time didn't allow me to wait for this skittish guy to perch again. On may way home, on the same Leea indica shrub, a Yellow-veined Lancer (Pyroneura latoia latoia) was hooked on one isolated flower for a long time.
The female Malayan Baron (Euthalia monina monina)  was puddling on the trail leading to Lornie Road.
I was quite surprised that the butterfly activities were quite good in the late afternoon. Perhaps it was due to the morning rain that they had to feed late in the afternoon to get enough food for next day.

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