Uni wonders

Hey all. I am attending University now. The National University of Singapore to be precise and as expected of me, I have been looking for wildlife. I didn't get much luck at the beginning but today I am extremely pleased to say that I have found the wild life I have been be looking for. Four bird species in one day. No big right? Well if they were Javan Mynahs, Eurasian Tree Sparrows, rock pigeons and crows I would agree with you. But how about a (likely) Sulphur- crested cockatoo, an Oriental white eye, Pied Imperial Pigeon and a Common Iora? All four appear to be new species to me and all with exception of the last do not appear in my bird guide book. I am very pleased indeed. Four new species in one day, what a joy. :) And right beside the canteen too. Haha, guess it pays to keep your eyes open; even if your friends prefer you don't. Sorry, but these treasures are worth my friend's displeasure. They make me happier than a good book and that's saying something.

Anyways, without further ado, here are the pics!

 This lovely and surprisingly big bird is a Pied Imperial Pigeon. I must confess that I have never seen one before. I got me fairly excited.





And this is an Oriental White-Eye. Again I have never seen this before. Lovely isn't it? It's fairly small and quick. I was lucky to get a picture of it at all. At first I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It looked like a fake bird. But I saw it fly so I knew it had to be real.

This is the only bird out of the four that I am somewhat familiar with. It is a common Iora and as it is missing a black colouration on the top of its head, I suspect that it's a female. This particularly bird seemed to like teasing me. It kept flying away as soon as I was able to take a good shot of it. Ha, it under estimated my camera. Zoom cameras are essential in this hobby.


I am not putting up the picture of the Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo because the picture was taken from about 50-70 metres away at about 7.50 in the morning. Even my camera has limits given that it is just an ordinary camera with exceptional zoom. The picture looks more like a silhouette than anything else. Thank goodness Cockatoos have a very distinctive look.

So that's all for now. May Out!

Ciao
May K. 

So close yet so far

Ok everyone I have a challenge for you. What do you see in this picture?

 Anyone see anything besides leaves? Well if you saw something that looked like a butterfly, congrats! You have a very sharp eye. For the rest of you, let's try again. Here's a closer but unfortunately blurry shot.

See anything yet? Nope? Well to those of you who have well done! You also have a fairly sharp eye.

Now this, everyone, is the butterfly you were looking for in the previous two photos. If you can't see it now, I am afraid you might need to make a visit to the eye doctor because I can't make the butterfly anymore obvious than this. This butterfly is known as the Common Five-Ring and it is fairly common in Singapore. Though I must admit, this is my first memory of ever seeing one. I found it yesterday at the Singapore Botanic gardens and it looked exactly as it did in the first photo. As you can see, it is very hard to spot from the wrong angle and if I had not seen it land, I must confess that I might not have seen it myself. This just goes to show how butterflies and other wildlife can actually be so close to you but yet, so far. To see them, you need a keen eye for movement and even then, you might still miss them. It took thirteen years for me to reach this point where I seem to find wildlife everywhere. So, I recommend patience when doing this. Lots and lots of patience.

This is also to those who say butterfly spotting is easy. In some ways yes I must admit that it is true. Some species such as the Grass Yellows, seem to be everywhere and it's child's play to see them. Others on the other hand, are so perfectly camouflaged that they look like leaves. They are difficult to spot and worse still, they are brown, the same colour as the leaf litter which they land on. Those butterflies certainly do not make spotting them easy. Perhaps it to remind us that butterflies aren't just flying beauties, they are also prey to birds and lizards and do not always want to be seen. It's a tough dangerous world that they live in after all.

Another so close yet so far fun fact about this butterfly is its remarkable similarity to the Malayan Five-Ring. The Malayan Five-Ring is a moderately rare butterfly in Singapore and when I was identifying the butterfly above earlier today, I thought that it might just be the Malayan Five-Ring. Sadly, it wasn't to be and my search for a rare butterfly continues. The two butterflies look remarkably similar the difference is seemingly trivial. In the Common Five-Ring, the third spot from the top is bigger than the second spot but in the Malayan Five-Ring, the second spot is bigger than the third spot. And so, this small difference turned a butterfly from moderately rare to common. Alas, what can I say?

So close yet so far

May

A fruitful trip

I went to the Singapore Botanic gardens yesterday morning. There were a lot of butterflies and birds and etc. there and I managed to get some photos. So here are some of the wildlife I spotted.

This one here is a chocolate pansy. One of its wings has been damaged. I wonder how. Hopefully it's not because some pesky kid tried to grab its wings. Note to all kids! You can pick up a butterfly by letting it slowly crawl onto your hand. There is no need to grab its wings!

And this cute little creature is a red bellied Squirrel. I found it in the frangipani garden and we mutually surprised each other. Surprisingly, it let me get really close and I managed to get within 1 to 2 meters of it. Isn't it cute?

 As for this flighty little bugger, I have absolutely no idea what it is. Found it on the outer edge of the frangipani garden near the rolling stone fountain. It kept hopping from up and down the plant and from twig to twig. Terribly difficult to take picture of. Especially if you are using zoom so as to not scare the bird away. I recall talking to myself as I took this picture. Wonder what the lady nearby must have thought.

This lovely bird is called a Magpie Robin. It wasn't so common in Singapore a while ago and when the  bird guide book I'm using was published, it wasn't very common at all. The book mentioned that they had introduced breeding pairs into the botanic gardens and it appears that their efforts had paid off. This was one of the most common birds I saw in the gardens.

In addition to the animals mentioned above, I also saw two bird's nest, a suspected lemon emigrant (butterfly), multiple leopard butterflies, a whole lot of centipedes, some common palmflies (butterflies. I think I saw them. hard to say, they are brown like chocolate pansies), ducks, way too many ants and these were big and a common five-ring (butterfly) which I will elaborate on in the next post.I think I also saw a common Mormon (butterfly) but alas I could not take a picture of it. I took my eyes off it for one second and poof! It vanished. Oh well, better luck next time. I mistook it for a common rose at first but now I think it must be a common Mormon. It's an easy mistake to make, the common Mormon mimics the Common Rose and the main difference between the two is that the Common Rose has a red abdomen while the Common Mormon had a black one. Talk about similar huh? The butterfly world is full of look alikes but again, more of that on my next post.

Ciao
May

Update 21/6/14

I have just been checking out the butterflies of Singapore blog which is up kept by the same people who wrote the butterfly guide book that I am currently using and guess what I found? That there have been new butterflies spotted in Singapore! And not only that, one of the new butterflies is called Red Helen and it looks remarkably like the butterfly I saw in the Botanic gardens. Could it possibly be the Red Helen that I saw? Man! I wish I could have taken a picture but it was just too fast. Now I am not sure if it was a Red Helen or Common Mormon that I saw. Ah, the ups and downs of butterflying.

May

A Blue Pansy

Alright, to clarify, this Pansy is a butterfly and one of the most beautiful butterflies I have ever had the pleasure of encountering. It is also uncomfortably skittish and the photo below took ages to take. As I recall, I was in a patch of green grass in one of the more populated areas in school when I saw this pansy. Naturally, I wasted no time in trying to take a picture of it but it was so flighty that I ended up chasing it. It flew here and flew there and so I followed it here and I followed it there. On reflection, I must have looked like a proper fool but honestly, I would do it again. The photo you see below is the work of patient and aggravating stalking of a butterfly that just won't stay still. Thanks to some help from a cleaner who was watching my efforts, I got close enough to take a picture. Note to self: Zoom cameras are a necessity for taking pictures of skittish butterflies.

Anyways, back to the Blue Pansy. This butterfly is of a good size. Not to small to be overlooked nor too big to be noticed immediately. It is an exceptionally beautiful butterfly and one of my personal favourites. While orange, red, white and yellow are common amongst butterflies, the male Blue Pansy has a deep blue colour. The females have a more neutral brown instead. It also possesses striking red eye spots which I suspect are made to resemble eyes. Personally, I think the blue and black colouration of the butterfly make a pleasant contrast.

May

Mistaken identity

I keep getting two birds mixed up. The first in an Asian Koel and the second is the Asian Glossy Starling. Both are black and both have red eyes. The main difference as far as I can tell is that the feathers of the Asian Glossy Starling has a greenish hue to it. But I didn't notice this until recently so I kept mixing them up. I have seen both in my old JC and some are definitely Koels. Koels have a very distinctive and unfortunately loud call. It's name is derived from its call and sounds like Koooeeel! You tend to notice this call when the said bird is right above your head. Boy! Ain't it loud. In some places, the bird calls in the wee hours of the morning. I can imagine that the residents in those area would be less happy then me to find a Koel in their backyard. I have heard complaints about being woken up by the bird's call. Some people, including my dad, find the call spooky. Perhaps the reason I don't is that I know the bird behind it. Still, I do find it annoying. I have told the bird to shut up several times. Needless to say, it usually doesn't listen to me.

 This bird is an Asian Glossy Starling. Unfortunately, I have yet to take a picture of a Koel. Notice the greenish hue of the feathers? That's how you tell these two birds apart. As for these birds on the left, I took them eating on the oil palm in my old school. They were good and obliging photo subjects. Or in other words they didn't move too much. Wish more of the butterflies I took were as obliging. I must have spent ages chasing them down.

May

P.S. I just took a look at the internet and the Asian Koel also has a paler, more greyish beak that isn't black unlike a Asian Glossy Starling's. Boy! If I only I had known earlier. That is a lot easier to spot! So slight emendation to my statement earlier about the main difference between these two birds. The main difference is the beak colour and not the greenish hue of the feathers.

The incident that drove me dizzy with happiness (butterfly eggs)

The mother

I call this incident "butterfly eggs". Sure, it sounds like no big deal but if you had been interested in butterflies since you were eight and only managed to see their eggs ten years later, you would get pretty excited. I was spending lunch in the 'quiet place' in my old junior college. It is a nice peaceful place. Lots of grass, some trees, plenty of wild flowers, birds and butterflies and that day was no different.

I was walking along the wall of my JC when I noticed a Tawny Coaster butterfly perched awkwardly o a leaf. On closer inspection, I saw that its abdomen was bent towards the leaf and I knew that it must be laying eggs. I took several pictures but the light was all wrong and I didn't dare get too close. Consequently, my pictures were blur and... well, not great. However, when the butterfly left, I managed to get a fairly decent shot of the eggs. I was ecstatic. Not only had I seen actual butterfly eggs but I had seen freshly laid ones! I even knew which species they belonged too! It sent me over the moon and I think my friends thought I had gone a little nuts. But I didn't care. I had finally seen butterfly eggs! :)

The eggs :)

Heya!

Hi everyone! This blog is to act as a chronicle/archive of my and my family's encounters with wildlife. Most of the photos here would be taken by me or my family members. Hope you like these creatures as much as we did! :)

May