Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Butterflies@SBWR

Been heading to Sungei Buloh to otter spot and crocodile hunt but I did also spot some butterflies that were worthy of mention. While aimlessly wondering around the fresh water pond area on route 3, decided to stop to see if the Scaly Breasted Munias would come back to feed on the grass seeds. Instead of the Munias, a Blue Pansy came into sight and it became my subject. Since my macro lens was at home, the Bigma had to double up as a macro lens.
Another day, a small Lascar presented itself to me as you can tell I can't tell the Lascars apart. Thanks to Commander, I now know that the Lascar is the Perak Lascar.The butterfly that got me excited was this Lycaeninae that I spotted last Saturday. It's one which I've never seen before. It was a mid-sized Lycaeninae what caught my attention was the brilliant dark blue flashes as the butterfly flew from leaf to leaf. Again wrong lens and no flash so improvised to get a record shot. I think it is a Centaur Oak Blue. May be I haven't been paying that much attention to butterflies but it is nice to see some interesting ones around Buloh.I've not encountered many butterflies this year along my usual routes. May be their host plants have been weeded out but I am definitely seeing very few butterflies compared to the previous years.

5 comments:

Commander said...

Hi Shirl, glad that you encountered some of the 'residents' of SBWR. The Lascar is a Perak Lascar (Pantoporia paraka paraka), and you're spot on, on the other two IDs.

You're also right about the lower numbers of butterflies in the past couple of months. Our members in ButterflyCircle also observed that. Let's hope that it's just a seasonal 'downturn'.

Shawn said...

Great Shots Shirls! The Lascar looks really pretty.

Shirls said...

Hi SK, thanks for your help in identifying the Lascar.

I'm not sure if it is seasonal but I've not seen many of the butterflies I photographed at the begining when I first picked up macro photography this year. They have all gone from the Venus Drive area.

Hi Shawn, thanks. Butterflies are pretty and that's why I still love to photograph them when I can.

Commander said...

You're right about that observation about Venus Drive area. I used to go shooting there in the mid-90's too. The development of various projects by SICC and also the NParks Ranger Station affected some of the vegetation there and may have contributed to the butterflies moving elsewhere.

Also the larger numbers of people (and those who 'soak' themselves with insect repellent) may have created a hostile environment to the butterflies. Imagine 100/hour people with mossie repellent on them walking along the trails. If you were a butterfly, would you stay?

Shirls said...

Hi SK, true but it is sad not to see the butterflies around though. Hope we don't end up with only butterflies bred in captivity.