Butterfly hill

Located not far from the NPark's Ubin-HSBC Volunteer Hub is a small hill with lots of plants.
These plants attract different species of butterfly to that hill.
It was my first time shoot butterfly.
I must say that it is not easy to capture them as they hardly stay still.
Furthermore almost all the butterflies will fly away once I get near them.

I was kind of nice chasing after them but soon, I gave up.
I did manage to capture a few of them.

Parantica agleoides agleoides
Dark Glassy Tiger

Lampides boeticus
Pea Blue / Long-tailed Blue

Butterflies are definitely much more difficult to identify the species.
The same family can look so similar, with only one small detail difference to mark a different species.

Shooting butterfly is a new experience for me.

Pei Yan


*Edit: updated with the correct ID of the butterfly.

Mangrove Dwarf @ Chek Jawa

Yay...
I've added another dragonfly shot to my collection.
That makes it 8 true dragonfly species I have out of the many found in Singapore.

Raphismia bispina
Mangrove Dwarf (female)
Uncommon

My friend tells us that the male species is blue and it's too far away from the boardwalk to shoot.


Pei Yan

P.Ubin, Land of Robbers

Don't be alarmed.
P.Ubin is a safe place.

I was referring to the robber fly.
We really saw a lot of robber fly until we lost count of them.
We saw them in all sizes. From tiny ones to big ones.
Every where we turn, we are sure to find a robber fly.

This is how a robber fly looks like.

General public usually call the different species of fly, fly.

This is not just any ordinary fly, this is a robber fly.

Pei Yan

Oriental Pied Hornbills @ Chek Jawa

I heard them, I saw them.
It's the oriental pied hornbills.
I was that Chek Jawa with my photography friends at about 9am plus.
The hornbills were very active today as compared to my other visits to Chek Jawa.

We heard them as we were walking in to Chek Jawa.
Accompanying the sound of the hornbills was a woodpecker pecking at a tree branch right above our shooting location.
I didn't get a picture of it thought. It was covered by some tree ferns.
I saw them flying around at the start of the boardwalk and again at the coconut tree at House No. 1.

Later in the afternoon, I saw another pair at the butterfly hill, not far from the HSBC volunteer's house.

Taken at Butterfly Hill

A pair of hornbills

For some reason, I feel quite excited whenever I see hornbills or talk about their man-made nesting box at Chek Jawa.

I think that hornbills are great birds.

Pei Yan

Sunrise @ Ubin (part 2)

After a great sunrise and island walkabout session at Ubin on Monday, my friends and I are back again today for another round of shooting.
Today's session focuses on sunrise and macro.

The light wasn't as great as Monday's but I got to try my new set of filters.
I also enjoyed the cooling waters and waves hitting as high as my thighs as I placed my setup in the sea.
The light rain did not stop us from shooting.
We carried on despite having rain drops all over our equipment and filters.

It's kind of addictive shooting sunrise and sunsets.
However school is starting soon...

Pei Yan