4 posts tagged “butterflies”

Note on photo above: The reds and whites so exactly matching the pagoda flower's it's easy to imagine that butterflies are just flowers that can fly.

Beautiful Days

The past 2 days were cutouts of a child's crayon drawings of cheerful blue skies, puffy little sheep of clouds and a big yellow sun with great big rays of yellow sunshine.  It makes me want to run around waving my arms in the air screaming "whee!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note on photos above: I found flowers in bloom and berries in trees.  Who can resist such succulent colours and textures?

Blooming Beauty Everywhere

And just like a child's drawing of big red globes of apples in trees and huge pink flowers in the bushes, the trees and schrubs and plants were also heavy with fruits and flowers.  There was a heady smell of sweetness in the air.  The bees went crazy with it, and above them the dragonflies and above them, the birds.  

Note on photo above: A pristine female common mormon zipping away amongst the pagoda flowers.

The Butterflies Return

And with them, the butterflies were back in full force.  I found myself unable to leave patches of activity, with different groups of butterflies making their rounds on the same flowers... Painted Jezebels, Lemon Emigrants, Mottled Emigrants, Yellows, Common Mormons, Plain Tigers and Biggs' Brownies all fighting for space and territory.

Note on photo above: Plenty though they may be, plain tigers are not cooperative.  It wouldn't let me close enough to get a topside open winged shot...so I shot one with its face in a flower.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note on photo above: This would be my first tatty shot of a tatty Common Evening Brown in Singapore.  I'd only ever shot one in Malaysia.  Probably cos I never shoot at the hours where it's likely to waltz out of hiding in this country.  Today this particular individual obliged.  And I was happy to get my first shot of a Singaporean Common Evening Brown.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note on photos above: The dwarf crow was characteristically uncooperative as usual.  But at least it played musical flowers at a much slower rate than the emigrants and jezebels. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note on photos above:  I was surprised by the number of flying eggs on site this morning.  They were chasing each other very aggressively, flying tiring circles around each other repeatedly till even I felt tired for their fluttery wings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Troupe of 'Gibbons'

In search of 'gibbons' today, 20 or 30 of them turned up, all chattering excitedly amongst themselves.  No, actually they were trekkers.  20 of them! On a narrow forest trail!

 The group was extremely friendly and in high spirits. Even though they had trekked for probably more than an hour, judging from where they said they had come from.  It was nice bumping into happy faces instead of angry wild boar :P

Note on photo above: I was so pleased to come across this cute little butterfly today. ^_^

The 'Real Gibbons'

The crashing, mashing 'Real Gibbons' were nowhere to be found.  Perhaps they had been scared away by the huge group of 'fake gibbons'.

I consulted a friend from the zoo about the 'gibbons' but nobody came across anything similar.

Initially, we discussed and speculated that it might be an escapee from the zoo.  But none of characteristics descrbed fell neatly into some of the known species wandering around in the reserves near the zoo. 

 

Note on photo above: I had a good laugh today when an ant went up and 'felt' a mating pair of butterflies with its feelers.  I think it bit one of them cos they shifted uncomfortably.  Ant: "Get a room you two!"

Note on photo above: This very good looking cream and custard butterfly previously had been pretty uncooperative with the underside shots.  This evening, it obliged.  And even posed on two different spots so nicely.  I'm just dazzled by its silvery ribbony tail.

Note on photo above: Ambon Onyx and... it's potential meal of... bird shit.... eeks 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note on photos above: Activity seems to be picking up.  There were 2 groups of lancers encountered today.

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Think searing blue skies softened by tufts of cloud, white sand beaches washed in clear green seas, wandering water buffaloes in light green paddy fields, and eagles soaring over majestic mountain ridges reaching up into the clouds… and it’s easy to see why Langkawi is a tropical paradise.

But then Langkawi was a little bit more than that.  For starters, the car that we rented (Proton Wira Auto) didn’t have more than 3 gears, restaurants still used carbon papers to write receipts and certain fines are negotiable.

Pulau Langkawi is the largest island in an archipelago of 99 islands off the mainland coast of northwestern Malaysia and is part of the state of Kedah.  Langkawi has a World Geopark status by UNESCO with Machincang Cambrian Geoforest Park, Kilim Karst Geoforest Park and Dayang Bunting Marble Geoforest park (Island of the Pregnant Maiden Lake) being its 3 most popular parks.

All that wiki-blah blah being said, we didn’t trip down those touristy areas but drove around in our little 3-gear car looking for dodgey little forest trails along the road.  We are just adventurous that way.  Or just plain leech-crazy.

 

 

 Note on Wizard: Man... this is one skittish butterfly!

Gunung Raya

On the first morning we went to Gunung Raya, which is the tallest natural feature in Langkawi, and myth-ed to be Mat Raya, a cursed form of a giant who lived on the island.

Note on photo above: These Helens were numerous. 

Poor Mat Raya.  You should see the landslides that were happening on him.  Not a light curse indeed.

You kinda figure the curse is somewhat love-hate because the weather on Gunung Raya was hypermaniac: sudden rain, sudden burst of sunshine followed by sudden rain.  So we adapted by alternating our jungle hats from head (sun!) to camera (rain!) to head (sun again!) to camera (rain again!)

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The peak of Gunung Raya was shrouded in mist and the winds moved the clouds so quickly over the mountain it felt as if I was watching a time lapse recording of weather changes in a National Geographic documentary.

In spite of the erratic weather, Helens abounded in numbers and Chestnut tigers wafted by. 

Stuck on Gunung Raya’s head like a pointy hat were a telecommunications tower and a small resort.  While Gandalf ran off to search for butterfly vegetation amongst the ghostly mists, we leaned over the rails and watched the clouds come and go over the meandering roads below.

Tanjung Rhu

In the afternoon, we headed to a beach in Tanjung Rhu where a man earnestly tried to get us to feed eagles and a small cat tried unsuccessfully to clean the front of our dirty boots by rubbing itself on us.

Yoda made friends with the cat (pat pat) and bantered with feed-the-eagles-man (chat chat) while the rest of us ran away down a little grassy trail next to the beach (with Gandalf quickly putting a lot of distance between himself and the car, outrunning everybody else.  Must be the traumatic effects of stuffing a tall man in a small car.  It gets to them very quickly)

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The activity here was blah.  But the scenery was beyond my expectations and I found myself shooting away on my G10 instead of my C180.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Telaga Tujuh Waterfalls
For the last 2 days, we spent them gallivanting down tiny little forested and mud trails near the Telaga Tujuh waterfalls.

And this was where I standing by myself on the trail and shot a rare Blue Begum butterfly because of the following chain of causative events:
1) I was heading up to the waterfall by myself because…
2) I got separated from the rest of the group because…
3) The rest of the group were chasing a rare butterfly and didn't realise I was not with them and…
4) When they did eventually realise I was gone, they couldn’t contact me because…
5) I forgot to bring my mobile phone 
So technically it is my fault.

But now whenever I look at this photo, I remember how the butterfly flew in while I was telling myself while walking up the trail: “DAMN it!!  Why aren’t they looking for me?  How could they not look for me?!  No.  You are not lost.  You can do this.  You’ve done this a thousand times.  How is this different? Nobody is obligated to be responsible for you!-[butterfly flies in] WHAT’S THAT?!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was no ranger station so I left a note on the car asking them to wait for me to come back from the trail and left trail markers with my name all along the way.

  
I eventually found them when I was heading back from (some way up) the waterfall and heard voices by the bridge.  When I found them, I realized:
1) They didn’t notice the trail markers I had left. 
2) And they didn’t go back to the car to look for me either because they assumed I had my mobile.  So they didn’t find the note.

 
So technically if the rain came to wash the note away (and they didn’t realize I didn’t have a mobile on me), they would have thought I was just being punk ass running around by myself ignoring my mobile and nobody would have the slightest idea where I was.

A lesson on self-sufficiency:  You can be with the best of people, but situations may arise where you ultimately have only yourself to rely on.