Walk in the park

It has been a while since I last put up something on this blog. I did go to the park on 3rd February, which was the first day of Lunar New Year. I spent a rather limited time there, about 30 minutes. Not much could be done in the shot span of time.

Instead, I will share the sighting on last Sunday (13 February) where I roamed around the park for 2 hours.

Let's start with the spiders. There were at least 7 types seen but I had only managed to get hold of 4 of them in term of reasonably clear pictures.

(1) Mangrove St. Andrews' Cross Spider (Argiope mangal).

(2) Orange-brown spider that looked like the nymph of the Golden Web Spider (Nephila pilipes).

(3)Long-leg with white-stripe spider found on a climbing fern (Lygodium microphyllum).

(4)Tiny metallic-coloured spider on the underside of a Simpoh Air (Dillenia suffruticosa) shrub.

For butterflies and moths, I had obtained 4 pictures. Obviously, there were more of them moving around.

(1) A Dingy Bush Brown (Mycalesis perseus cepheus) butterfly.

(2) A rather long and slender caterpillar that stretched itself along the stem of the same climbing fern where I spotted a spider.

(3) A Hawk Moth caterpillar (Enpinanga Borneensis) chewing away the leaf of a Simpoh Air (Dillenia suffruticosa) shrub.

(4) A tiny caterpillar at the background. There were many of them around on the young leaves of a Syzygium plant. With the wind blowing and the threatening weaver ants guarding the caterpillars, this was the best picture I could get. This should be the caterpillar of the Common Tit (Hypolycaena Erylus Teatus).

As for other minibeasts sighted, they include the commonly seen shield bug (Pycanum rubens) and its colourful nymph, stink bug, hover fly, praying mantis, leaf beetle, tree hopper, grasshopper and cricket. I had shown just a few of them here.

(1) Three treehoppers aggregating on a stalk of the leaves. They were fiercely guarded by the weaver ants, which seemed to be everywhere.

(2) A metallic red leaf beetle standing at the edge of a leaf.

(3) The nymph of a praying mantis.

The final picture will be this fruiting wild berries (Rubus moluccanus).

I am always amazed that a small park can have that many creatures and plant species around.

Walk at Admiraty Park

Yesterday, I dropped by Admiralty Park for the second time within a month. The previous trip was about 2 weeks back. First, I went to check out the status of the caterpillars of the Malayan Eggfly that I saw previously. A few of them were still around on the Australian Mulberry plant at one spot.

There were a numbers Malayan Eggfly seen along the walk. One had even landed on the lower part of my long pants. Based on the upper wing colour, it should be a male butterfly.

Though there were plenty of other butterflies around, I only managed to take the picture of this Malay Viscount (Tanaecia pelea pelea).

Such orange skipper was rather common.

The wired looking creature is a type of Monkey grasshopper (Family: Eumastacidae).

Spiders were abundant this time round. There were a few Golden Orb Web Spider (Nephila maculata). This one shaped like a Golden Orb Web Spider except for the colour of its body and legs.

The second spider was this common St. Andrew’s Cross Spider (probably Argiope versicolor).

Another St. Andrew’s Cross Spider was found head down on the leaf of a Callicarpa glabrifolia plant, thus allowing me to take a peek of its back end where the web spinning outlet (spinneret) can be vaguely seen.

The third spider was one that I had not seen before. It had a pair of rather long structure at the front end which I cannot be sure whether they are the legs or the pincer. It may be the male Wide-Jawed Viciria (Viciria praemandibularis).

The Hover Fly (probably an Allograpta species) seemed to keep its wings extended all the time, even when it was at a resting position.

I was fortunate to see three Tortoise Beetles (part of the leaf beetles' family, Chrysomelidae). The first two were Spotted Tortoise Beetles (should be Aspidomorpha species).

The third Tortoise Beetle was smaller in size than the first two. I did not realize it was a Tortoise Beetle due to its small size until I reviewed the picture back home.

Besides the Tortoise Beetle, the other highlight of this trip was these caterpillars seen on a Common Yellow Stem Fig tree just before I exited the park. There were many of these fig tree in the park but this was the first time I spotted caterpillars on them.

A close-up picture of the caterpillar. Not sure whether they were butterfly or moth caterpillars. [Update: Caterpillars belong to the Asota Plana moth.]

As usual, it was another refreshing trip though I have come by this park many times.

Yellow fruits

Last Saturday, I came across this fruit store in Yishun that was selling this yellowish fruits. On the little handwritten price tag, the fruits were identified in Chinese as 枇杷 (translated as Loquat or Eriobotrya japonica). I was quite excited as this was the first time I seen it sold here.

I brought some home, took some pictures and ate one of them. As I had only eaten this fruit once and that was many years back, I cannot really recall its taste. It did not occur to me that this was not Loquat. The fresh part was thin and juicy. It had a fragrant smell.

The single seed in the middle of the fruit was large when compared to the size of the fruit. The texture and seed appearance resembled a mini-mango.

After doing some search in the Internet, this fruit was indeed not Loquat. The real Loquat has more than one seed in each fruit.

The fruit that I bought was likely to be a Spondias species (maybe S. mombin). Though I did not manage to eat what I wanted to eat, I did get to know a new fruit.

Walk at Woodland Town Garden

Did a short walk at the Woodland Town Garden this afternoon. The first creature spotted near the entrance of the park was this lone caterpillar hidden under a leaf of the Ganges Primrose. It should be a Autumn Leaf (Doleschallia bisaltide) caterpillar.

Such orange skipper was rather common in parks.

At lease two of these skippers were seen chasing each other among the ground cover weeds. One eventually settled down after a short while. This might be the Chestnut Bob (Iambrix salsala salsala).

There was this tiny lady bug staying rather still on the leaf of a Orange Jasmine.

This wired-looking, tiny insect was actually a leaf hopper.

A battled grasshopper had lost a hind leg and part of the wing. Life must be tough on the wild side.

I spent quite a while trying to take this photo of a hovering carpenter bee. It kept flying around but return to hover on the same spot for quite a number of times. This was the best shot that I got though it still looked blurry.

Another battered insect, a Great Eggfly (Hypolimnas bolina bolina), seen on the Sea Hibiscus. It seemed to have only two of the legs left besides the tattered wings.

It was a warm afternoon despite the cloudy weather. I decided to head back home after slightly more than an hour of probing around.

Consolidation of Hawkmoth caterpillars

Although I have seen many caterpillars over the years, I do not recall seeing a Hawkmoth caterpillar until the later part of last year. Since then, I have spotted quite a few of these caterpillars which usually have a spiky structure at their tail end. Most likely, I could not recognize one in the past.

I have pulled all the pictures of these caterpillars sighted to date in this post.

(1) 2 October 2010: Enpinanga Borneensis (host plant: Simpoh Air) - Marsiling area

(2) 20 November 2010: Same type of caterpillar as above - Marsiling area

(3) 2 January 2011: Same type of caterpillar as above - Marsiling area

(4) 11 December 2010: Elephant Hawk Moth (host plant: Elephant's Ear) - Admiralty Park

(5) 24 December 2010: Unknown (host plant: Unknown) - Penang (Malaysia)

(6) 31 December 2010: Unknown (host plant: Seaside Clerodendrum) - Kranji Nature Trail

As for Hawkmoth, I have so far only seen one (a Hummingbird Hawkmoth) during its flight in July 2010 at the Dairy Farm Nature Park. This was the best picture I could get with my humble camera.

It seems that when you know what you want and start looking, you are likely to see what you are seeking --- a thought to ponder.

Walk at Admiraty Park

This trip nearly got aborted yesterday afternoon as the sky was rather cloudy. It did shower a bit mid way through the walk but fortunately, the shower was light and stopped in a few minutes.

The sighting of the massive caterpillars of the Malayan Eggfly was posted yesterday. Let me start with another rather common butterfly, Nigger (Orsotriaena medus cinerea).

This brown skipper kept rather still while I get closed to snap a few photos. It might be a Forest Hopper (Astictopterus jama jama).

Blooming flowers of passion fruit are always a beautiful sight. A number of these fallen flowers were found on the forest ground under the tall-tree canopy. These are from the species called Yellow Water Lemon (Passiflora laurifolia). The climber was probably high up on the trees as I did not see any of the plant at eye level.

The female Golden Orb Web Spider (Nephila maculata) can be considered one of the largest spider in the wild here. It also goes by the name Giant Wood Spider.

I only managed to get one shot of this shield bug before it flew off. Obviously, it was not too please with the exposure.

This is an unusual flower head (spadix) of Arrowhead Vine (Syngonium podophyllum). It was a jointed-twin spadix. A scientific write up of this plant in Singapore can be found in this link.

A grasshopper with a hind leg missing was seen on the leaf stalk of Bandicoot Berry (Leea indica). It may be a Traulia azureipennis.

The next grasshopper was more commonly seen than the one above. It is also larger in size. This may be a Xenocatantops brachycerus.

The first dragonfly picture taken with my new digital camera. I had give up taking picture of dragonfly for a while because the focus of the camera was an headache. Recently, I had found a way (though not perfect) to overcome this shortcoming.

Here was the side view of the dragonfly.

This butterfly flew across my path and settled on a leaf of a mid-size tree. As it landed rather high on the tree, I had to stretch my arm with the camera on the hand in order to have the pictures taken. Luckily, it stayed rather still. It should be a Blue Nawab (Polyura schreiber tisamenus).

These cup-like structure that contained bead-like particles were actually fungi (mushrooms). They are called bird's nest fungi (family: Nidulariaceae) with obvious reason.

Plenty of the such were found growing on the compost used to fertilize the plants. They were very tiny and hence, not easy to be spotted. The immature form of the fungi.

Overall, it was a cool afternoon due to the cloudy weather and the light shower.