Morning Walk At Venus Drive (23 Apr 2016)

The sky was threatening to rain the night before and so I decided to rise early in the morning to go for my weekly macro-photography session at Venus Drive. Not sure what was the occasion as the car park was almost full at the time I reached, but I am thankful to be able to park in the last available lot.

The vegetation was very wet and it looked like it rained in the early morning. This is good news for us in Singapore as it has been rather hot and dry for the past few weeks, and we can surely do with more rain at our water catchment area. Here's a photograph of a red Springtail found on a fallen log at the place. This is the first time that I am able to take a close-up of a Springtail. Don't you think that it looked like a riped mulberry fruit?

The first beetle was a pleasant surprise - a Ladybird Beetle (Henosepilachna implicata). In my mind, I was thinking that this was a good start for the trip.

Near to the Ladybird Beetle was a small grassy knoll where several beetles were found. Here's a photograph of a Leaf Beetle (Lema diversa) found there. It was pretty much a challenge to photograph it as it was very alert and would fly off whenever it detected movements.

I am further surprised by the encounter of several of this lovely Spiny Leaf Beetles at the grassy knoll. I spent a bit of time photographing it as I had some problem getting good photographs of this type of beetle previously.

Flying around the grassy knoll was this skittish Leaf Beetle (Lema cyanella) which promptly flew away after two photo shots.

After leaving the grassy knoll, I came across a large Elephant Ear plant and found this lone Ant-like Flower Beetle (Anthelephila cyanea) on one of its gigantic leaves.

Sadly, the number of beetles encountered was lesser than expected. This could possibly due to the unusually high human traffic at the place, besides the wet weather. Interestingly, I encountered 3 large groups of nature lovers (10-15 person per group), 1 smaller group of fungus mushroom lovers, a small group of fellow macro-photographers, and several joggers during this trip.

Coming to a chest-height tree stump, I am happy to find this Checkered Beetle resting motionlessly on the exposed part of the tree stump. It has been a while that I last encountered this species of beetle.

Just centimeters from the Checkered Beetle was a first-time-encountered Click Beetle. At a cursory glace, it looked very much like a rat poo.

More walking before I found an area with some low bushes where several of this all-time favorite white Ladybird Beetle. As usual, photographing this beetle was a challenge due to their alertness and it would fly away upon any movements. Interestingly, when I was preparing the photographs for this blog, I noticed that there were many small translucent eggs near to the Ladybird Beetle.

By this time, the sky started to rumble with thunders and looked like it will rain in a short while. So I  pick up my paces and headed towards the "exit". Along the way, I found this small 3 mm Darkling Beetle on the side of a small tree. Interesting to note that there are two protrusions at the end of its head. This is the first time I noticed such protrusions on this type of beetles.

On a patch of lichen on a large tree was the carcass of a beetle larvae. Upon closer examination of the photograph, it looked like it could had fell victim to the parasitic wasp.

On a rubber tree leaf nearby was this small 3 mm Weevil Beetle.

I was almost at the exit of the trail when I encountered this small 3 mm Fungus Beetle.

The last beetle for the trip was a mating pair of Darkling Beetles.

The trip was not as fruitful as expected but it did provide a good opportunity to take photographs of the lovely Springtail and also the Spiny Leaf Beetle. Venus Drive is still a great place for finding beetles even if the weather is less than ideal.