Night Walk At Dairy Farm Nature Park (29 Jan 2016)

I was looking forward to this week's walk as I am eager to test out my new flash diffuser set-up. After having seen David Ball's macro photography set-up last week, I was pretty inspired to redo my flash diffuser set-up.  Here's a photograph of my latest flash diffuser set-up taken using my handphone camera.

Having the convenience of the new DownTown Line MRT, I decided to go to Dairy Farm to test out the new set-up. Although my friend was telling me that the weather at the area was not too good, NEA's weather map showed otherwise. At the end, I decided to proceed as planned and hoped for the best.

Sadly when I reached the place, it looked like it just rained not too long. All the vegetation were wet with rain. In my heart, I am prepared for another washout trip like the previous trip to the place. Here's a shot of a House Centipede (Thereuopoda longicornis) that I came across during the trip.

The first  beetle for the trip was a familiar beetle that can usually be found under the large leaves of the Elephant Ear Plant (Alocasia Macrorrhiza). They are often ignored as they looked very much like an ant, thus the name Ant-like Flower Beetle (Anthelephia cyanea).

Not too far from the Ant-like Flower Beetle was a brown colored Chafer Beetle (Adoretus compressus).

As expected, it was after a good while before finding this tiny 2 mm beetle from the large family of Tenebrionoidea, which is commonly called Darkling Beetle.

More walking before I found this mottled colored Chafer Beetle (Adoretus compressus) under a leaf.

Near to the Adoretus compressus Chafer Beetle was another Chafer Beetle.

After walking about 15 minutes without finding another beetle, this Ground Beetle became a treat as they are not so commonly encountered because of their alertness at night.

The highlight of the trip was this bright orange Lead Beetle resting under a leaf. I am glad that it remained absolutely still despite me flipping the leaf over to get a better shot of the beetle.

Coming to a fallen log, I am glad to find this lone 10 mm Darkling Beetle.

Under another log near by was a smaller 5 mm Darkling Beetle.

The last encounter was a carcass of a late stage beetle larvae. From the look of the carcass, it looked like it was a victim of the parasitoid wasp.

As expected the trip was a washed-out with very few beetles encountered due to the rain. Nevertheless, it was still a good trip as I was able to test out my new diffuser set-up which proved to be pretty good in my opinion.