Unplanned Morning Walk At Lower Pierce Reservoir (05 Apr 2025)

How time flies and I didn't realized that I have not been doing macro photography for about 1 year. So while waiting for an errand to complete, I made a last minute decision to go for a quick walk at Lower Pierce Reservoir and take some photographs using my handphone. 

Checkered Beetle (Omadius fasciipes) ~ 5 mm

Checkered Beetle (Anancylus griseatus) ~ 20 mm

Long Horned Beetle (Omadius fasciipes) ~ 5 mm

Weevil Beetle (Stiboderes impressus) ~20 mm

This was a short trip and I was not expecting to find many beetles. Nevertheless this is a good opportunity for me to test out if it is possible to make use of the handphone to do macro photography. Looking back I would have changed the camera settings to higher resolution. 

Night Walk At Lower Pierce Reservoir Park (26 Apr 2024)

 The weather for the past few weeks have been hotter than usual,  and based on my past experience the likelihood of finding beetles in such dry weather also decreases significantly. Nevertheless, I decided to go to the Lower Pierce Reservoir Park for a macro photography session to test out my latest macro camera rig.

Here's a photograph of a milliped encountered at the place.

Darkling Beetle ~ 2mm

Darkling Beetle ~ 10 mm

Sap Beetle ~ 3 mm

Darkling Beetle (Ceropria induta) ~ 10 mm

Ground Beetle (Catascopus dalbertisi) ~ 15 mm

Darling Beetle (Cryphaeus gazella - Female) ~ 10 mm

Darkling Beetle (Eucyrtus anthracinus) ~ 20 mm

Chafer Beetle (Adoretus compressus) ~ 10 mm

Darkling Beetle (Strongylium erythrocephalum) ~ 15 mm

Ground Darkling Beetle ~ 10 mm

Click Beetle (Pectocera babai) ~ 15 mm

Darkling Beetle ~ 3 mm

First-time-encounter Ground Beetle (Pheropsophus picicollis) ~ 20 mm

This trip was surprisingly fruitful and I was able to find a good number of beetles. At the same time, I was able to have a good test of my new macro camera rig. And most interestingly was the first-time encountered Ground Beetle (Pheropsophus picicollis). After visiting the place several times this year, I noticed that the place is infested with Sandflies recently. So if you are planning to visit the place, do apply mosquitoes repellant on your body to avoid being bitten by them.

Night Walk At MacRitchie Reservoir Park (8 Mar 2024)

 The weather was wet for the entire day but the rain stopped in the late afternoon. Wanting to test out my macro rig, I decided to take the chance of not finding any beetles, and headed to MacRitchie Reservoir Park. Here's a photograph of an interesting looking cricket. 

Darkling Beetle ~ 5 mm

Darkling Beetle ~ 3 mm

Darkling Beetle ~ 2 mm

Chafer Beetle (Apogonia expeditionis) ~ 10 mm

Fungus Beetle ~ 2 mm

Leaf Beetle ~ 10 mm

Chafer Beetle (Apogonia expeditionis) ~ 10 mm

Darkling Beetle ~ 3 mm

This trip was a frustrating trip as I was having issues with the flash triggering. Somewhere there is a loose connection that caused the flash to be triggered intermittently. The intermittent flashing took the fun out of the session and I decided to end the trip shorter than expected. Back to the drawing board. 

Surprise Find At Pasir Ris Beach (2 Mar 2024)

 I was at the Pasir Ris beach for a "me-time" to enjoy the sea breeze and sunshine, and little did I know that I will be stumbling upon a surprise at the beach.

While walking along a narrow stretch of beach as it was high tide, I came across a piece of drift wood. 

Out of curiosity, I overturned the drift wood and to my surprise, I saw two beetle larvae in the sand.

After picking up the two larvae, I started to dig around the area to see if there are any more other larvae. Lo and behold, I dug up another 5 larvae.

Here's a photo of a larvae with my hand for size comparison.

As like previous time Surprised Find From Changi Beach (17 Feb 2021), I am also not able to identify the type of beetles the larvae belong to. Nevertheless, looking closer at the larvae my guess is that they are Chafer Beetle larvae. 

I took the larvae back home as they will not survive in the sand for long. As I do not have any containers for keeping the larvae individually, I decided to put the larvae into a bin where I keep the composted soil from my compost bin. Hope they survived and turn into adult beetles in another few months time. The previous "unknown" larvae took about 4 months to turn into an adult beetle but if they are Chafer Beetle, the duration should be much shorter than Dynastes beetles (as in the previous "unknown" larvae). BTW, these larvae are different from the previous larvae found at Changi beach in that the previous larvae have hairy bodies and these larvae have smooth bodies.

That's all for now, stay tuned to see what these larvae will turn into. 

Night Walk At MacRitchie Reservoir Park (23 Feb 2024)

 The weather was pretty hot and dry for the past few days and I hesitated to go for my macro photography session, nevertheless the need to test out my new camera rig that I decided to give it a try at the MacRitchie Reservoir Park.

The rig is almost there but I am still having issues with inconsistent flash triggering, probably due to the damage camera hot shoe.

Darkling Beetle ~ 5 mm

Darkling Beetle ~ 3 mm

Chafer Beetle (Apogonia expeditionis) ~ 10 mm

Darkling Beetle ~ 3 mm

Darkling Beetle ~ 1 mm

The number of beetle encountered on this trip was miserably small but it is still a good trip as I was able to test out the new camera rig. Sadly, I will still need to settle the inconsistent flash triggering. Hopefully the issue can be resolved by the next macro photography session.

Afternoon Walk At Windsor Nature Park (16 Feb 2024)

It has been raining for most part of the week but the weather for today was forecasted to rain as well. As I have redo my macro camera rig, so I was eager to test it in the field. Taking the chance, I decided to go to Windsor Nature Park to test out my new macro camera rig.

When I reached the place, the sky was overcast and the wind was blowing very strongly. It seemed like it is going to rain, nevertheless I pressed on and proceeded with the session. Here's a shot of a cluster of white mushroom found at the base of a rotten tree trunk.

Darkling Beetle ~ 4 mm

Net-winged Beetle ~ 10 mm

Fungus Beetle ~ 10 mm

Fungus Weevil (Acorynus frontalis) ~ 15 mm

Pintail Beetle ~ 3 mm

Pleasing Fungus Beetle (Triplatoma gestroi) ~ 25 mm

Darkling Beetle (Ceropria superba) ~ 10 mm

The wind suddenly picked up and the sky looked threatening, so I decided to end the trip early and head home. Although there were only a handful of beetles encountered, it was still a good trip as I was able to test out my new macro camera rig.