Short Walk At Punggol Track 22 (20 Jun 2014)

It was a last minute decision to go for a night shoot and so I decided to go to Punggol Track 22. From my previous experience, the place was not particularly fruitful due to the aggressive development in the area. Not much of "wildness" remained as forested areas made way for roads and new developments.

The purpose of me visiting the place was also to "catch" whatever remained before they are gone forever. The place used to be home to many wildlife especially snakes and frogs, but they are all gone ever since the Punggol 21 Programme started. What used to be heavily forested areas are now manicured parks and gardens.  

For those who are not familiar with Punggol Track 22, many years ago it used to be a 400 meter tarred track leading to a mudflat. Now the track was closed to vehicle traffic and overgrown with grass and creepers. The mudflat has been filled in and became a part of a Park Connector Network that span across the whole of Singapore.

Here's a shot of an interesting egg-case that I found at the place. From the look of it, it should belong to a spider.

The first beetle that I found at the place was a Fungus Weevil. I am surprised to find it moving on a healthy looking tree as I mostly find them on rotting or dying tree logs.

There is a stretch of Sea Hibiscus (Talipariti tiliaceum) that used to have a colony of this small 3 mm Leaf Beetle, but sadly the colony seemed to have disappeared and I was only able to find only a few of them there.

The surprised find for the trip was this Long Horned Beetle (Aeolesthes holosericeus) resting on a blade of grass. I have never find this type of beetle in grass bushes.

The Long Horned Beetle drew my attention to the large stretch of tall grass and I decided to look carefully for beetles. Interestingly I found a 6 mm Leaf Beetle resting on the tip of a blade of grass.

Combing through the tall grass, I was pleasantly surprised to find a Net-winged Beetle (Dictyoptera aurora) sleeping on a blade of grass. This is so interesting as it has never occur to me that such grass patch would have beetles in them.

The last beetle was a Chafer Beetle (Adoretus compressus) found under a leaf of a tree sapling. This was also my exit cue for the walk and left the place without finding any other beetles.

The trip was not particularly fruitful and it only met my minimum requirement of 6 types of beetle found before I blog about the trip. Nevertheless, I would still go back to another part of Punggol before they are gone forever.