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Saturday 9 March 2024

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. 


Sunday 3 March 2024

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. 

Saturday 24 February 2024

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.

Friday 16 February 2024

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. 

Friday 9 February 2024

Blessed Lunar New Year (10 Feb 2024)

Here Wishing Everyone A Blessed Lunar New Year!




 

Morning Walk At Windsor Nature Park (09 Feb 2024)

 The weather looks great so I decided to go to Windsor Nature Park to test out my modification of my macro setup. The issue of the loose hot shoe prompted me to mount my flashlight by the side. This makes manual focusing a challenge due to the weight imbalance and putting a strain on my right hand. Nevertheless, the setup works and I am able to get a much deeper depth-of-field because of the flashlight. 


Although the weather was dry when I set off, the place looked pretty wet and looked like it rained not too long before I arrived at the place. As expected, the number of beetles encountered on this trip was pathetic.




The first beetle was this 10 mm Net-winged Beetle lookalike that I am still not able to have an identity on. Do leave a comment if you know the identity of this beetle.





Net-winged Beetle ~ 10 mm



Leaf Beetle ~ 5 mm



Although the number of beetles encountered was pathetic due to the wet weather, the trip gave a good field test of my macro setup. Guessed that I will need to tweak my setup more.