Short Night Walk At Punggol (08 Jul 2016)

I chanced upon a place in Punggol over the week and hence I decided to check out the place with my friend HW. Due to some unforeseen situations, we started our trip almost an hour later and thus making this particular trip much shorter than usual. Here's an interesting ant-mimic spider found on a blade of lalang leaf. It looked so much like the commonly encountered Golden Ant (Polyrhachis illaudata).

The first beetle was encountered at the place where I was waiting for HW. My eyes were drawn to a bunch of ants attacking an insect on the ground. Out of curiosity, I decided to take a closer look at it and I was surprised to find that it was a beetle.

I managed to rescue the beetle and discovered that it is a 6 mm Dung Beetle (Onthophagus phanaeides). What a wonderful way to start the trip.

After some walking, the first beetle that we encountered was a pair of mating Chafer Beetle (Adoretus compressus).

Near to the Chafer Beetle was a Long Horned Beetle which I initially thought that it was the Adoretus compressus Chafer Beetle.

While I was checking out a big tree, I noticed some movements at the base of the tree. I initially thought that it was a cockroach but it turned out to be a Darkling Beetle.

As I was scanning through the low vegetation for beetles, this lovely Net-winged Beetle popped out with its orangey-red coloration, against the green leaf. It was also while photographing this beetle that I was badly bitten by the small brown ants that I have been "complaining" about. Pardon the poorly taken photograph as due to the sneak attack by the ants, I was not able to get a proper shot of this beautiful beetle.

The place was full of different types of Chafer Beetles and here are the different ones encountered:

Chafer Beetle (Maladera orientalis).

Chafer Beetle (Apogonia expeditionis).

Chafer Beetle (Maladera casternea).

Chafer Beetle (Aprosterna pallide).

Although the trip was exceptionally short, we are still able to find a good number of beetles. This new place looked promising and I would surely go back in the near future.

Night Walk At Punggol Forest (23 Oct 2015)

The weather has been dry for the entire week and the haze PSI index was in the unhealthy level of about 239 PSI. Eager to test out my new DIY differ, I decided to go to the nearby Punggol Forest for a short walk.

At the same time, I was also testing out the manual mode of my Sony speedlite flash (HVL-F43M). I am rather frustrated with this particular flash as it would overheat quickly and refused to work until it cooled down. After reading in the manual that the power of the flash can be  reduced, I was also wanting to test out the setting.

Here's a photograph of a Painted Bronzeback (Dendrelaphis pictus) snake encountered during the trip.

The first beetle that I came across was a small 4 mm Toe-winged Beetle. This beetle was very skittish and flew off after one photograph.

The place looked very dry and it was only after walking for about 15 minutes before I found this small 3 mm Sweet Potato Weevil (Cylas formicarius).

There were several of this Leaf Beetle found through out the entire trip.

The last beetle for the trip was a Chafer Beetle (Apogonia expeditionis).

The trip was worse than the previous trip to the place, with only four beetles encountered. Guessed that I would not go to the place for a while. Nevertheless, the result of my DIY diffuser seemed to work pretty well, but the flash power reduction did not work out as well as I hoped.

The haze situation in Singapore has worsen this week and hopefully the situation will improve when we moved in the monsoon seasons next month. Here's a photograph of the haze experienced during the trip.

Night Walk At Punggol Forest (16 Jul 2015)

I read sometimes ago in a macro photography blog about a place called Punggol Forest, but I never got down to take a look at the place. As it is the eve of a public holiday in Singapore, my friend and I decided to check out the place.

 I did some homework online to see if the place is worth the while visiting. After some reading, it seemed to be a worthwhile place to visit. Although we reached the place not long after sunset, the place was very dark. As we moved towards the "entrance" where a path would lead us to the Punggol Forest, our hearts sank as the place seemed to be undergoing construction. Not wanting to just give up without checking the place, we decided to continue.

The path is the typical mud track but with a rather wide width of about 4-5 meters. Along the both side of the path are 2-3 meter tall sugarcane-like grass, with very few other vegetation. My friend was so thrilled when we encountered a Painted Bronzeback snake (Dendrelaphis pictus) among the tall grass.

Departing from my usual practice of only include one interesting photograph of the place in my blog, here's a not so common sight of a Net-casting Spider. This is an interesting spider as it uses a web-net to catch its prey. The white web at the tip of the spider's legs is a fold-up net that the spider will stretch open when it prey pass by below it.

The first beetle that we encountered was a pair of Chafer Beetle (Apogonia expeditionis).

Near to the Chafer Beetle was a pleasant surprise - Sweet Potato Weevil (Cylas formicarius). There were several of them near to each other.

As we walked closer to the entrance of the trail, another Chafer Beetle (Aprosternia pallide) was found on a blade of the tall sugarcane-like grass.

The trip looked promising since within a short distance of 30 meters or so we managed to find several beetles, including this skittish Tortoiseshell Beetle (Laccoptera nepalensis) which flew off after one shot. Pardon the badly taken photograph, included here as a record of the trip.

A few meters from the Tortoiseshell Beetle was another commonly encountered Chafer Beetle (Adoretus compressus).

Directly opposite to the Adoretus compressus Chafer Beetle was another Chafer Beetle (Maladera castanea)

Good things don't last and after encountering the Maladera castanea Chafer Beetle, we walked for a good 30 minutes or more without finding any other beetles. It was only when I looked under a patch of Morning Glory leaves that I found this first-time-encountered Tortoiseshell Beetle. This beetle is whitish in color, which is different from the Aspidomorpha miliaris Tortoiseshell Beetle, which is entirely yellow. I guessed that it could be a color variant of the Aspidomorpha miliaris Tortoiseshell Beetle.

It was another long walk before I encountered this pair of mating Tortoiseshell Beetle (Cassida circumdata). This is one of my favorite beetles as I particularly like the bright metallic coloration of the beetle.

Next to the Tortoiseshell Beetle was a first-time-encountered Leaf Beetle. Initially I thought that it is the Lema diversa Leaf Beetle but as I examined it closer, it turned out to be different in terms of the color of its elytra (which is black as compared to the metallic blue color of the Lema diversa Leaf Beetle). At the same time, the two front legs are orange in color.

Time passes by quickly and it was time to turn back. On the way towards where we have started, I found this lovely Click Beetle (Pectorcera babai).

The last beetle for the trip was this small bronze color Leaf Beetle.

The trip was not fantastically fruitful given  the shortness of time and also the construction work that is going on at the place. Just as my friend said, even though there were beetles found, I will not be in a hurry to go back to the place.