A visit to Lorong Halus

Lorong Halus is is/was a landfill site which has currently been designated as a nature conservation site. It is the oasis of peace and calm in your vibrant, noisy city where one can spend a leisurely afternoon viewing births, fauna and other wild life in an undisturbed environment.





Frederick, KY, J-tography and I went to the site for a short visit. After crossing the gate, we were immediately greeted by a whiff of fresh air that one hasn’t smell for years in your urban jungle.



As we journeyed up the hill, we caught sight of a pair of blue pansies and a colony of Tawny Costers.



Family : Nymphalidae
Subfamily : Nymphalinae
Genus : Junonia
Common Name : Blue Pansy
Wingspan : mm
Hostplant(s) : Asystasia gangetica (Common Asystasia, Coromandel)



Family : Nymphalidae
Subfamily : Heliconiinae
Genus : Acraea
Common Name : Tawny Coster, 斑珍蝶
Wingspan : mm
Hostplant(s) : Passiflora foetida (Stinking Passionfruit)

The Tawny Coster is one of the greatest migratory species and it has come a long way from Sri Lanka, slowly travelling for three decades, and finally arriving at our shores in 2006. Some reports claim that it has journey on to Indonesia and maybe set to cross the Wallace Line into Australia.


Wallace's Line
The Wallace Line is an imaginary line which divides the flora and fauna of the zoogeographical regions of Asia and Wallacea (which is a transitional zone between Asia and Australia). The two regions behave akin to two complementary sets having little species in common. Only Volant species are observed to cross the line.

The Tawny Coster is not particular about its food plants and predators like birds generally avoid it. From what we observed, the colony is doing well.


An unlucky Tawny Coster who still got eaten

After spending away in the area, we left, grateful to see that Singapore still has some areas untouched by urbanization and that there are still areas where our wild life can still thrive.








Lens within a lens

A walk at AHBT and Hort Park

Sunlight highlighting the brown leaf only. Location Alexander Butterfly Trail.

Today was the last Saturday of the month again and my brother and I decided to pay a visit to the Hort Park butterfly enclosure. Before going to Hort Park, we made a detour at Alexander Butterfly Trail to search for some species that we haven’t captured.
When we arrived there, it was quite disheartening to see that the butterfly species and population were lesser than the last visit. We waited for nearly 30 minutes before the first butterflies came out to warm themselves in the morning sun. In the mean time, we had the resident squirrel for company.



After failed attempts at getting decent shots, we unexpectedly came face to face with the Common Imperial


Family: Lycaenidae
Subfamily: Lycaeninae
Genus: Cheritra
Common Name: Common Imperial

The Common Imperial is common in Malaysia but rather rare in Singapore. I did not have time to compose my shots but managed to capture a decent copy for records sake.
After this, we set of to Hort Park. To our dismay, it was kind of a family day event at Hort Park and the enclosure was filled to the brim with visitors. We did not really want to queue up with the crowd and we most certainly did not want to join the group scaring the butterflies in the enclosure. Hence, we decided to hunt outside the enclosure instead.
We chanced upon a patch of Snakeweed with moderate butterfly activities.


Snake Weed: A common feeding plant for many butterflies.

To our pleasant surprise, we saw the butterflies there were the Peacock Pansy and some Blues (Cycad Blue and Pea Blue).


Family: Lycaenidae
Subfamily: Lycaeninae
Genus: Chilades
Common Name: Cycad Blue, Plains Cupid, 曲纹紫灰蝶


Family: Lycaenidae
Subfamily: Lycaeninae
Genus: Lampides boeticus
Common Name: Pea Blue / Long-tailed Blue, 亮灰蝶





Family: Nymphalidae
Subfamily: Nymphalinae
Genus: Junonia
Common Name: Peacock Pansy

It is sad to read on Butterfly Circle that the Peacock Pansy is getting more rare due to the wide spread usage of pesticides. Our future generations may not get to see this beautiful jewel in our parks.

Before we left Hort Park, we spotted some butterfly activities near the Lantana Blooms. It turned out to be the Pygmy Grass Blue, which we added to our records.

Family: Lycaenidae
Subfamily: Lycaeninae
Genus: Zizula

Common Name: Pygmy Grass Blue
Overall today was a fruitful despite the fact that we did not enter the enclosure. We managed to bag 3 from the Lycaenidae family and one from the Nymphalidae family.

A walk at Tampines Mountain Bike Trail

I remembered it was after work on a Thursday when Frederick, KY and I decided to take a short trip to the Tampines Mountain Bike Trail to scout its macro potential. It was 2pm when we arrived there and we started work immediately.



Due to the hot weather, we did not see many butterflies there. However, the entire area was teeming with dragonflies. We managed to capture at least 4 species of dragonflies and one damselfly in action. For dragonflies and damselflies, I realized that I have to use a rather small f-stop (f10 to f13) in order to prevent increase the depth of field. This resulted in less than satisfactory bokeh but it is rather acceptable.


Agrionoptera sexlineata
ORDER: Odonata
Suborder: Anisoptera
Family: Libellulidae


ORDER: Odonata
Suborder: Anisoptera
Family: Libellulidae
Pantala flavescens


Ictinogomphus decoratus
ORDER: Odonata
Suborder: Anisoptera
Family: Gomphidae



Tyriobapta torrida
ORDER: Odonata
Suborder: Anisoptera
Family: Libellulidae





However, it is kind of disappointing not to shoot any butterflies after a long journey. However, my disappointment faded when I was suddenly rewarded with a Lesser Dart in the under growth.



Family : Hesperiidae
Subfamily : Hesperiinae
Genus : Potanthus
Common Name : Lesser Dart

All in all this a place with great potential and I will be visiting this location quite frequently before it gets urbanized.

P.S. I am not a trained in biology. Please feel free to correct me if I had identified the species wrongly.

A slight detour

I remembered walking along East Coast Park on the 30th of December looking for butterflies and other critters to shoot. I was an inexperienced shooter then and I was searching for butterflies at 4 pm in the evening. Needless to say, there was nothing in the macro sense for me to capture. However, the hot sun did give an advantage in another form of photography i.e. infrared red photography. In infrared red photography, the sensor used in the camera is sensitive to infrared light which is invisible to our naked eye. All objects emitted infrared radiation under heat and when we use a camera sensitive to infrared radiation to capture these images; it presents false color images that are quite beautiful in the abstract sense. I shot these two images at ECP and was so enthralled by its effects that I went to PRP the next day to shoot again.



Street Lamps at ECP



Lone Tree at ECP

The Nikon 12-24 is perfectly suited for IR photography. There are no hotspots and the "colour" comes out pretty well. It could be due to the ED glass in the lense. Here is one more shot from PRP and another two from Fort Canning.



Empty Chair



Fort Canning



In some of these pictures, I was using something called the Orton Effect to produce the paint like effect. It is a pretty interesting method dated from the film era which we could still replicate in the digital era.

Butterflies in captivity

Shot this Magpie Crow in the Cameron Highland butterfly enclosure during my first honey moon. I remembered when I just started out on butterfly photography, I wanted to capture as many species as possible and have a large catalog which I can induce in self satisfaction. However, when I capture a shot of this Magpie Crow and compared it against those that I shot in the wild, this butterfly seems to have lost something. Freedom, pride or the will to live, I do not know. Every butterfly I shot in that enclosure seems to have this forlorn look. I could not bear to shoot anymore butterflies that day. It just seems so fake. Now, I rather have the satisfaction of shooting one butterfly in the wild then to shoot a hundred in an enclosure for tourist attraction.



Family : Nymphalidae
Subfamily : Danainae
Genus : Euploea
Common Name : Magpie Crow

A small step out

This is something that I have procrastinated over for a long time and finally decided to do something after seeing Frederick do something similar (okay I know I am lazy and unmotivated). I remember it was around 3 years ago when Frederick introduced me to the art of macro photography. I had tried streets, night sceneries, dabbled a little into portraits but never really finding much interest in any of them. With macro however it was a joy as I got to enjoy learning about nature and appreciating the little things in life.

This is among the first butterflies that I have shot. It is quite a common species that many of us over look while walking to work or strolling in the park. But when viewed closely, there is a symmetrical beauty that is beyond human comprehension. Only God could have made something so simple and elegantly beautiful.


Family: Nymphalidae
Sub Family: Danainae
Ideopsis vulgaris macrina
Blue Glassy Tiger