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Friday 20 May 2016

Night Walk At Pasir Ris Park (21 May 2016)

It been a while that I went macro photography with my friend HW and so we decided to go to Pasir Ris Park for a night macro photography session together. The most interesting encounter for the night was the sighting of this crab on a leaf. Although there is a mangrove area at Pasir Ris Park, this particular crab are easily 50 meters from the nearest body of water that I am aware of.


The first beetle for the trip was a small 5 mm Chafer Beetle. This beetle looks like the Maladera castanea Chafer Beetle but differs in that it is almost half in size and has translucent elytra. The weather must be right for this beetle as I found a number of this beetle during the trip.


Near to the Chafer Beetle was another commonly encountered Chafer Beetle (Adoretus compressus) resting on a leaf.


Although this is a commonly encountered Tiger Beetle (Cicindela auarulenta) at Pasir Ris Park, it has been a long time that I last come across them aggregated in large number within a small area.  On this trip, the place was full of them and you see them almost everywhere you turn. This is how they looked when they aggregate in large number.



This time round we started off from our usual end-point where the MRT Line ends. Not sure what is going on there, but there were quite a bit of construction activities going at the spot that we usually find different beetles. Thankfully for this trip, we were still able to find several of the usual residents at the spot, such as this metallic bronze colored 5 mm Leaf Beetle, moving actively on a leaf.


Close to the Leaf Beetle was another commonly encountered beetle at the spot, a Sweet Potato Weevil (Cylas formicarius). Do pardon the poorly taken photograph as for some strange reason, the lighting just didn't turn out right even though I didn't change any of the camera or flash setting.


The highlight of the trip is the encounter of this lovely Tortoiseshell Beetle (Laccoptera nepalensis).


Walking further down the track, I was thrilled to find this 20 mm Darkling Beetle.


On a small tree nearby was this small 1 mm Darkling Beetle.


At a patch of tall grass, HW and I were busily photographing this commonly encountered Chafer Beetle (Apogonia expeditionis). The reason why we were interested in this common Chafer Beetle was that both of us were testing out our new macro rig. HW was testing out his collapsible flash diffuser that has a built-in LED focusing light, and I was once again testing out my old dual arm flash macro rig. The interest in this particular type of beetle was because of its shiny elytra which is a good test of the flash diffuser.


Just a meter from the Chafer Beetle was this small 15 mm Long Horned Beetle, which we almost missed out while focusing on the Apogonia expeditionis Chafer Beetle.


After a while of walking, I was glad to find this small 8 mm Click Beetle (Xanthopenthes schawalleri) hiding in a crevice at the base of a big tree.


On the same tree was a 8 mm Darkling Beetle.


The last beetle for the trip was a smaller 3 mm Darkling Beetle.


Although there were no first-time-encountered beetle for this trip, I am happy that I am able to field-test my dual-arm flash mcaro rig. I am pretty satisfied with the results of the photographs except for the need to adjust the arms due to my walking movements. I guessed I will need to get a stronger dual-arm flash rig.

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