Night Walk At Bidadari Cemetery (10 Mar 2017)

It has been more than 2 years that I last went to the Bidadari Cemetery for my macro-photography session. My friend HW and I was just talking about it and so we decided to go there for this week's night macro-photography session.

When we reached the place, my heart sank a little when I saw all a long construction fencing at the location that we intended to have the photography session. As we were already there, we decided to skirt around the fencing and ended up at a place that is still not touched by the construction.

Here's a photograph of a Long-legged Flies (Family Dolichopodidae) which I was glad to be able to photograph at the place. I have not been able to get a good shot of this fly as it is very skittish and would fly away upon detecting camera flash.

The first beetle that came into view was a brown color 5 mm Leaf Beetle hiding under a big fig tree.

A stone's throw from the Leaf Beetle was another 4 mm metallic color Leaf Beetle.

Coming to a fallen tree, I was glad to find a Darkling Beetle (Eucyrtus anthracinus). This beetle is commonly found at night on fallen logs in our parks.

We came to a spot where there were a number of this commonly encountered Chafer Beetle (Apogonia expeditionis). This particular specimen was found on a fern.

Near to the Chafer Beetles was a small 3 mm Darkling Beetle on a small tree.

Next to the Darkling Beetle was this small and active 1 mm Fungus Beetle.

Near by was a large patch of Singapore  Rhododendron plant (Melastoma malabathricum) where several of this Chafer Beetle (Adoretus compressus) were found.

After a bit of searching, HW found this lovely Darkling Beetle (Strongylium erythrocephalum) on a small tree.

Coming to a patch of long lalang grass, HW found this 45 mm rarely encountered Large Cockchafer (Lepidiota stigma) clinging to a blade of grass. This is the second time I found this type of beetle at Bidadari Cemetery and I hoped that this beetle (and other beetles) will survive the constructions and continue to thrive at the place.

A few meters from the Large Cockchafer was another Chafer Beetle that looked like the Apogonia expeditionis Chafer Beetle except for the brown coloration of its elytra.

Moving along, we came across a low Noni fruit (Morinda citrifolia) where a number of this big 25 mm Chafer Beetle (Phyllophaga marginalis) were munching on its leaves.

Interestingly, the place seemed to have many fallen trees and on one of them was this lone Fungus Weevil (Eucorynus crassicornis).

We came to a spot with several Common Acacia trees (Acacia auriculiformis) where this pair of Chafer Beetle (Aprosterna pallide) were found on the grass below one of the trees.

On the tree trunks of the Common Acacia trees were a number of this 5 mm Darkling Beetles.

There were several of this Chafer Beetles (Maladera castanea) on the leaves of the trees, but they were exceptionally skittish and I was only able to photograph this not so pretty specimen.

The last beetle for the trip was also the highlight of the trip as it was a first-time-encountered Click Beetle. This beetle is the largest Click Beetle that I have encountered so far in my 4-5 years of photographing beetles in Singapore, and it was about 35 mm in size.

Although the number of beetles encountered at this place was relatively small compared to places like Venus Drive, it is still a good place to visit. My only hoped is that the constructions that are going on at the place would not destroy too much of the natural habitat and its inhabitants.