Painted Wing Lifers

Thanks to Lim Kim Keang, Lena Chow and a few others, I now pay great attention to the butterflies I see along the way when I am out birding. Some days birding can be slow so there is no harm in looking down instead of up for these painted wings zipping around or resting under the leaves.  Adding birds to my national list of 335 is getting tough, but there are still hundred plus new butterflies that I have not seen in Singapore.

It helped that my micro four thirds Olympus OM-D set up with 70-300 mm birding lens allows me to get some decent shots of these creatures without having to change to a marco lens. Of course the results are not that spectacular but good enough for posting.

Some of the butterflies that I photographed last months include two lifers to kept the excitement going during these outings.

This Malayan Sunbeam at Bukit Batok NP was so engrossed with licking on the surface of the Simpong Ayer leaf, that it did not move at all. Obviously it did not get its name from the pale underside but rather from the bright orange of the upperside. The other sunbeam is the Sumatran found mostly around the mangroves.

The dainty Psyche was flying just above the grasses while I was trying to shoot the Crimson Sunbird at the Helliconia patch at Dairy Farm Nature Park. A forest edge butterfly , both sexes look alike.

 

We were at Dairy Farm Nature Park to shoot the Jambu Fruit Dove that was feeding on the False Curry Leaf Tree when this colorful day moth Dysphania subrepleta was struggling to fly. It may have just eclosed and needed some time before flying away to the safety of the greenery.

The Lord of the Rings, the Common Five Rings is the rarest of the Rings. Found in the same localities with the three and Four Rings. It is hard to separate from the other Rings in the field, so I was told to just photographed them. This was taken at Upper Seletar Reservoir Park. A week later I had another one at the car park at Hort Park.

The Centuar Oakblue is another lifer from Bidadari. I was there to check out the returning migrants and saw it flitting around a low bush. It is the biggest of the oakblues but easy to miss.

Reference: Gan Cheong Weei and Simon Chan Kee Mun. A pocket Field Guide to the Butterflies of Singapore. Nature Society (Singapore) 2007.  Steven Neo Say  Hian. A Guide to Common Butterflies of Singapore. Singapore Science Center. 1996