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She comes to me, day after day, and plucks my nose right off my face because those silly humans keep replacing it.  I'd love to have a little conversation before we get to the business of my nose, but....the deer wants what she wants!

Note on photo above: I have never ever ever seen the tree nymph land at eye level before and then stayed there for more than 1 minute while I shuffled around in the thick foliage, unable to get any closer.

Rare Encounters

What started off as a really bland day turned out to be one real adventure.  For starters, the tree nymph above which I had chased many a time, ignoring swipes across the face and all, decided to land just a few metres away from where I was standing, waiting for a fellow photographer (The Boy) to be done exploring an abandoned house for odd insects.

Note on photo: I've never had much luck with the skittish tree yellows.  Today they were clustery all around in groups of 4s and 5s puddling on the wet ground, totally obliging.

The butterflies came in bursts.  After the tree nymph's condenscending to be photographed, we had nothing until we hit jackpot at the water's edge on a small bank where we not only found groups of tree yellows puddling away busily, we also found an extremely friendly stork billed kingfisher. 

They continually came back in different combinations after being disturbed by our movements.  Singles, couples, trios and groups.  And I had a field day taking photos of each combo.

Note on photo above:  I think it's cute that they group together so closely to puddle, all facing the same general direction.

Note on photo above: A rare encounter!!!  And it was perched so close, this photo was taken with a 180mm Macro lens instead of a birding lens!

I've never seen this kingfisher in the wild before, much less photograph it.  What was even more amazing was that it perched no more than few metres away from us and our huge lenses.  It didn't get spooked when we used fill flash.

It's got a higher pitched, lighter laughter than the ones I hear from the white collared species.

Note on photo: A tiny blue speck turned out to be a brilliantly striped jumping spider

We also came across a blue striped jumping spider I had encountered in the forest in Kuala lumpur.  The Boy said he didn't remember seeing it here before.  So I guess it was kinda a rare find.  I was just excited because it was pretty and shiny. :P

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another bug which The Boy said was quite uncommon.  In my limited knowledge, I had only pointed it out because it looked like it got some pretty cool wings.   

Things That Go Crash In the Forest

As if the day hadn't gotten exciting enough after all the butterflies, bugs and all, things got even more exciting when I lied to The Boy and said: "Let me show you another trail" when I had never been down that way at all.

I got more than I bargained for (I think about little flitty butterflies and forget about everything else) when a nearby tree crashed so loudly both of us stopped in our tracks.

I forgot I was supposed to shut up in such situations.  I said: "WHAT WAS THAT?!" 

"... I want a photo..."

The Boy [whisper]: "Shhh... be quiet... don't move."

Me [now also whispering]: "what? .... what? ...what was that?"

The Boy [whispering]: "Could be a wild boar...."

Me [grabbing his arm, harsh whispering]: "we gotta get outta here!"

The Boy [smiling in spite of my goggling in disbelief at his calmness]: "But it's over there near the path so we can't go that way."

Me [whispering]: "What do we do? what do we do?" [look at The Boy fingering camera]: "What are you doing?!"

The Boy [fingering his camera]: "I want to get a photo..."

Me [in disbelief]: "... ... ... "

We got out of the stretch of unfamiliar trail and back onto familiar ground.  I thought all was good until there was a huge CRASH and a large black something landed together with several broken branches on the broken logs right in front of our faces and threw itself into the water so fast all I saw was a blur of black.

The Boy cussed in disbelief: "#$%#!.. what was that?"

I fell backwards on him in my fright.  I don't recall ever being this frightened in this area of the forest which I've walked over and over again by myself.

Now The Boy was either very stoic or he'd had extensive experience with large unidentified obviously quite heavy animals falling from forest trees.  He was still smiling.  I was ready to hit the panic button and start running...

I don't know what I would have done if he hadn't been around to provide some reassurance by telling me how much he wanted a photo of whatever it was.

Me: "What would you do if you saw a [wild boar/python/other unimaginable horrors in the forest]?"

The Boy: "I'd take a photo."

Me (rolling my eyes): "You'd take a photo...?!"

The Boy: "Oh yes.  Once in a lifetime you know?  Last in a lifetime actually."

Me: ".... ... .. "

Other Rare and Ahem Encounters

No we're not done yet.

I also saw emerald doves for the first time today, even though I didn't get a shot either.  They were glimmering away as they bobbed away into the cover of the foliage. 

I was all funned out and ready to head back to airconditioned civilisation.  When The Boy stopped in his tracks and said to wait a bit because a male macaque's "balls looked really big".  I thought he was being silly and rolled my eyes at him.

And then before I knew it, the male macaque started humping a female.  The Boy's camera was all ready and firing.  I gawked and missed my chance to photograph an "Animal Planet" moment. 

Damn.

I take The Boy very seriously now.

Note on photo above: Great eggfly in the sky...

2 Days

I am 2 days away from no longer being in my 20s! YAAAA~~~ *screams of horror* 

I wish being 30 came with benefits.  Like you get two vices with turning 18 and 21 but you don't get any 'privileges' from turning 30.  Sigh.

Note on Plain Nawab: I clomped on in my heavy boots till I was somewhere around where Mr and Mrs Gandalf lived.  And found to my surprise a Plain Nawab sitting on dog do.  Eee~~... but yet amazing.  So I laid down on the dog do laden grass and fired away at it.  Later... I made faces at myself for doing so but it's not everyday you get a puddling Plain Nawab.  So heck!

The Small Window

Today was one of those rare small windows when the sun was strong enough and the butterflies were zipping around in gay abandon.  Blue skies, white clouds and plenty of Commanders and amazing clusters of Miletinae all along the different sites I walked from morning till afternoon.

Note on photo above: Laying eggs?  Or just being finicky? Just being finicky actually.  Cos it's male.

Momentary elation

I confused the Common Tit with the Hypolycaena thecloides thecloides which I'd only ever shot in Semakau and was momentarily overjoyed until it flashed its blue upperside and then I was stuck in the patch trying to get an upperside shot of that strong inky blue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note on photo above: Trees were flowering in many places and with them came hordes of fighting and fluttering.  The Autumn Leaf is a fast flyer and the Chocolate Pansies couldn't keep up with it... but they ardently chased it around anyway...

Good Patches

There were patches of activity everywhere.  I came across 3 of the Autumn Leafs and plenty of Lascars, with 1 particularly large one which eluded me persistently and lead me along the path to this very tattered Flos Apidanus.

The Commander Baby (Caterpillar)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note on photos above of Commander:  I'm sorry to say that the caterpillar of one of my favourite uncooperative butterflies look like poop.

I came across what I thought was dried bird poo at one point but realised the bird poo was alive when it raised its tail (see Moduza procris procris (Commander) caterpillar body photo above and note the narrower end) at me like a snake about to strike.

Said pose should have an effect of frightening people away... were it not for the fact that it's so eeny that it looks like a worm raising its head to look at you.

And then it should probably have used its head cos it has such a scary face reminescent of the scaly faces in alien movies.

Note on Beast above and Blonde Beauty below: A face to scare all suitors away... ROAARRRR goes the scary caterpillar...and then it sulked disappointedly when I didn't go away.

The classic case of the Ugly Duckling who grows up to be a beautiful fast flying colourfully laced Commander and the fluffy blonde moth caterpillar below who will eventually become a shadowy, unremarkable looking, possibly short lived moth.

Tholymis Tillarga

I encountered my first not so commonly seen dragonfly in a long time.  For the past months, the only uncommon dragonfly I'd come across was the white-mouthed Pseudothemis Jorina.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a male.  Females are much paler.  And check out that beautiful wing veination.

Because of the rains, sites typically trodden bare have been left undisturbed and I was surprised to find some places now overgrown with plants again.  And even the flies seem to be much bigger too.  Eek.

Eggflies in the sky are a good thing.  Especially if the sky is blue.  The eggfly agrees and therefore it took about 10 monopod prods before it condescended to a lower perch for this shot to be taken.

Well... here we go again... after all that work, I've to start from scratch again. 

Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, I wonder why after everything that has happened, from a personal scale to an international scale (baby formula and Wall Street), tomorrow doesn't fail to come.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I met up with an old friend.  We went way back to our divemaster trainee days where I'd quit on the school because the instructor kept making racist jokes and leaving him out of training just because he was Indian.

Funny thing was.  He was well aware of that but he didn't quit.  Instead, I was the one who got so affected and angry with the school, I wrote a long letter to the owner of the school asking him to look into the matter and left.

The group couldn't figure out why I was so affected when I was not Indian.  But what race I am is not the point here.  Any racism is just unacceptable.

After that, the owner of the school promised to take care of the matter and when I checked with my friend later, the owner personally made sure that he received the training that he paid for.

That's the weird bit.  I wasn't the target of those racist jokes but I couldn't take it all the same when people who were supposed to be my friends kept expecting me to do the same just in order to be 'a part' of the group.  But I couldn't do it because it's plain stupid and I have friends of so many races that I'd known for years since university I felt I was betraying every single one of them by bowing to such pressure.  Because they meant a lot to me.  And their physical distance halfway around the world for the past 10 years is making me feel all isolated despite the emails and phone calls.

But I am affected.  I am that weak and stupid that I can't stand up for what's right and then be happy and satisfied.  I am affected by what people say and do.  Few years ago I was that much affected.  Today, I am still affected.

And all this pain arises out of another person's actions in response to group pressure.  You can say that a person who does that is not worth the trouble.

But I am affected.  I am trying to save something I know I can't save with my own effort if the very person you don't want to lose and you are trying desperately to clear your name with has already decided that group acceptance is more important than finding out whether you are innocent or guilty.

My friend sat me down in Delifrance and said that I had to make my own equation of happiness which doesn't include other people in it. 

He said as long as I was depending on other people's actions in order to be happy I would never be happy. And that's what he told himself everyday, regardless of who he met and that he would never need another person to be happy.

I asked him: "What if you fall, what if you decide to quit on yourself?  Then who's going to be there for you?"

And he said: "Even if you were not alone, there's no guarantee you wouldn't fall apart.  It's just a probability that we all have to live with."

But there are people who are important to me.  It's inevitable.  Some people are going to be more important than others.

And I keep losing people who are important to me.  Over and over and over again and I never never learn to put up enough defenses so that I can always walk away unhurt.  It always grows slowly and carefully.  And before you know it, the attachment grows and you are forced to acknowledge that when you have to pluck it out, it's going to hurt.

And all my attachment to the people who are family are in the form of responsibilities.  A knowledge that if I were to quit on myself one of these days, I would also be quitting on them and leaving my Dad and brother in the lurch.

This, in spite of the fact that my Dad has gone back to saying (I was surprised to hear it after a few months): "If you won't do it, I will." and my brother has decided to pretend that his living expenses are not his problem.

No matter how unreasonable, it's still a responsibility.

But that attachment to family doesn't transcend responsibility and allow me to talk to my father at a level that would allow me to share with him my troubles.  It stops merely at responsibility, leaving me alone in my thoughts in such disasters.  And he would never open up to me either.

Even when my mother was around, I couldn't talk to her about matters of the heart either.  We were all so distant and polite to each other even though I want to believe that we all loved each other very much. 

And the saddest thing is the knowledge that if I should be wrongly maligned...

I know nobody would be there to back me up.

And if I should fail and quit on myself...

Nobody would be there to be around to help prop me up against a shoulder.

And if I should fall...

Nobody would know a sense of loss that went beyond the loss of someone who used to be around to bear all these responsibilities.

 

Note on photo: My first birdie shot in a very long looonnnggg time.  I shot this with my 180mm Canon.

I have been vomiting and sitting on the can repeatedly since Thursday.  Gastric flu is living hell.  And 4 days of gastric flu is enough to make the happiest person wish that he/she were dead.

It doesn't help the nausea that public transport here means you have to stand on a train so crowded that you are hemmed in from all sides (literally.  I'm serious.  There is no room to move.  It's full body contact on my train to work. There's not even any such thing as personal space).

Note on photo:  The batik spider which I photographed like a few weeks back has grown tremendously, taking on a more orange browny colour from her original green and black and the male is still as puny... I wonder if she's gonna eat him soon??? (or by accident cos he's so small).  Her body length is now about 5cm and her total length is now about 15 to 18cm and the area of her web is so big I can imagine her catching small birds.

I went to Chinese Garden to take only a few shots because I felt a little better on Saturday.  Bad move.  I had only shot for half an hour but it strained me so bad I could hardly walk back.  After I came home, I retched everything I ate from noon till night until my Dad had to help me boil rice water because I could hardly stand.

Note on photo:  Brachythemis Contaminata as the name suggests, favours disturbed environments.  Despite it supposed to be pretty common around here, I have seen more neurothemis fluctuans than this guy around...I wonder if that's an ominous sign.  These critters are supposed to be more hardy.

I was supposed to go diving today but I thought about the boat rocking away in the strong currents and choppy waves of Ghost Island (in Malay known here as Pulau Hantu) and decided that I was probably better off retching at home than on a boat.  With the amount of medication I was on, I ran a high risk of becoming another one of those horror stories that have happened at Pulau Hantu (yes there have been a couple of divers who have died there.  Hantu is known for its strong currents and almost zero visibility as well as some very unique and rare underwater critters which are worth risking your life to photograph.  Really.)

Note on Photo: Couldn't really make out whether this is a lesser dart or a bush hopper but it doesn't have that roundy more browny head of a lesser dart...  I am going to go with bush hopper.

Note on photo:  This palmfly looked like it was looking to lay eggs.  Cos it kept landing and crawling around with its abdomen dragging around.  After a while it settled and I moved in to take a photo.  But after I flashed it (oops), it scooted off and repeated that behaviour of landing and crawling around with its abdomen to the leaf.

There are a couple of butterflies (which are not skippers) which are photosensitive:  palmflies are one (so far the common palmfly and tawny palmfly seem to be photosensitive).  And it turns out the Centaur Oak Blue is another.  I saw the Centaur Oak Blue again at the small corner of Chinese Garden and again it eluded me before I could get close enough to take a photo.

It flashed me its pretty blue backside before going into one of its erratic flight patterns and then I lost track of it.

Another strange occurence is the Pseudothemis Joria which appears to be sensitive to light also when all the other dragonflies I photographed don't seem to react to it.  That makes this list of photosensitive critters:

1) All moths

2) All hesperidae (skippers)

3) Two palmflies (tawny and common palmfly)

4) One arhopala (centaur oak blue)

5) Pseudothemis Joria

Note on photo: This larger than usual skipper posed on so many spots while I was kneeling on the grass trying not to vomit on the butterfly patch.  I counted the spots on the wings and decided to go with conjoined swift. 

By the time I got to the patch where I had found the Centaur Oak Blue, I was ready to retch again.  And watched helplessly as a Painted Jezebel floated by high above way out of reach.

Note on photo: I wanted to get a side shot of it since it was so willingly seated on a flower.  But I thought I might risk vomiting on it if I moved so I just took a shot of it in this angle instead.

What an adorable chipmunk face.  I wonder if any butterfly had ever died from getting drowned in vomit before.  What a strange way to die.

The Friendliest Green Baron You Could Ever Meet

Today is the day of the Green Baron.  Because I spent at least half an hour with what I would say is the friendliest butterfly ever encountered to date:

1) Didn't run even when I got so close I was putting my lens less than half a metre away from it

2) Didn't run even when I reached out my finger in front of it.  It put two feet on it but then changed its mind and moved to a nearby leaf

3) Didn't run even when I struggled with my monopod right in front of it with the leafs and bushes rustling and all

4) Didn't EVEN run when I blew on its wings so that it would close up its wings so that I could get a side shot.

The thing IS... I thought it was a commander butterfly because a lot of butterflies in that family range have that characteristic lacey underwear.  It reminds me of English lace, of doilies and the kind of petticoats I used to wear 15 years ago.

And later when I got home, I checked the butterfly expert's checklist and a reference book on butterflies of the malay peninsula and realised that the butterfly WAS wearing the lacey petticoat but it was also wearing a pair of stripes on its shoulders   Also the edging of the hind wing of the Commander was different.

I had thought the Commander couldn't be this calm around people when it was such a skittish butterfly.  Guess I was right. 

The Knight That's Afraid of the light

I am adding several moret to my list of photosensitive butterflies.  So this is my current list:

1) All hesperidae (skippers)

2) Two palmflies (tawny and common palmfly)

3) One arhopala (centaur oak blue)

4) Green Baron Euthalia Adonia Pinwilli

5) The Knight Lebadea Martha Parkeri

6) The Caron

I flashed this guy and this is the look on its face just as it flies away in fright.

Maybe they should name it The Fright...instead of the Knight.. heh heh...

The Knight/Fright: "AAAAHHHH!!!! The light!!!"

There it goes again.  Heh.  Can't figure out why some butterflies are sensitive whereas others are not.

 

And there's the knight when he thinks all is fine and dandy (shot without flash.  Can't see squat about the wing details...).  Always resting with the wings flat instead of up.

The Baron That Had Light Sensors at the Back of his Head

I flashed the baron from behind and it flew away without turning to see what it was.

My Third and Fourth Plus Ones

Besides the Green Baron and the Knight these were two more plus ones for me.

This butterfly is intriguing.  Its feelers are so long it's almost half the wingspan and it has such weird twig like long legs.  One of those butterflies with really strange body proportions.

I was so happy when I saw this beauty through my viewfinder!!! Look at that pretty tail!  Look at those huge black beautiful eyes!

Never get Tired Of You Ever (Bossy Eggflies and Skittish Butterflies)

If there's one domineering bossy butterfly around that I'll never get tired of, it's got to be the eggfly.  But so far I've only ever photographed the Great Eggfly, the Malayan Eggfly and the Jacintha...

 

 Bossy Eggfly: "This TREE is MINE!!! Now SHOO!!!"

 

 

 

 

 I encountered many of these vividly coloured blue pansy females today.  They had that newness in the colour and texture of their wings, were sluggish and slow to fly away from me when the species is normally quite skittish and looked like they were sunning their wings.  I suspect they were newly eclosed.

 The Leopard is another irritatingly challenging butterfly.  I followed one today for much longer than the Green Baron and didn't even get a decent shot of it.

 When I inch my viewfinder up to my face, you can see the leopard beat its wings.  Once the beat slows down, it looks like it's calming down but I just inch my viewfinder a little bit up more and the wings start beating furiously again.  Ignore that and continue to move and the leopard will be off in an orange flash.

 This was a REALLY hard shot to muster.

 The Lemon Emigrant is another skittle.  Waited for it to settle on this flower for just ONE second.  *CLICK* and just as this photo was taken in that split second, the butterfly fled like a jet. 

 I usually cannot be bothered to wait for these yellows to settle before they are photographed but it just so happened that this mating pair decided to choose a very aestethic location to mate on.  Unfortunately, they were disturbed by my intrusiveness and the pair took off shyly with one butterfly dangling away comically from the other butterfly's butt.

Horrors

Now for some icky stuff.

 Found this translucent pasty white moth under a leaf.  Teased it out with my finger and realised it was the weirdest looking moth I have ever seen.  Moths have a weird way of lying on their stomachs with their feet all sprawled out that makes it hard for me to say that they are attractive in a conventional sort of way like butterflies are... but they are still very fascinating.

 I think this is a crab.  Normally I would associate crab with chilli and yummy but today I don't know why it reminds me of a hairy tarantula.

 Caught this spider eating with exactly those two legs holding a fly or some small insect to its mouth.  Still can't reconcile with spiders.  Too freaky.

 And this babe looks like a vampire with those red fangs...YEESSHH... *gets the creeps*

 Hey does this fella look like one the not so nice characters in A Bug's Life?  It looks like it was staring at me right through the viewfinder.  There were 3 of them and they were all freaky and flew off in a hovering kind of freaky way.  I hope it's just my imagination.

All of 7cm long

 This dragonfly was 7cm long.  I kid thee not.  I stood there and waited for it to land and it is one huge BOSSY dragonfly, chasing everything away (except me).

The only Plus One Bird Shot.

 

Wow...parrots sure can make a lot of noise.  I know they're pretty but boy they sure can be noisy.

 

 

 

   

 

 

Today was a totally screwed up day.  Woke up at 7 instead of 5 and missed the entire Great Eastern Run.  Decided to overcompensate by not heeding weather forecasts and heading down to an area which I'd been meaning to explore for a long time.

Unplanned exploration + never been to site + don't heed weather forecast = wasted trip

Even the one thing which might have made it worth it.. like this tawny palmfly.. refused to allow it by sitting with its wing tip to me.  And just as I shimmied over to the side, a common palmfly came along and shoo-ed the fella to grassy obscurity where I failed to locate it after it flew into an entirely inaccessible area. 

And then one would have thought that since the dark clouds had already arrived and all the butterflies quickly went into hiding, that maybe you could take that one good shot of the brave (but common) dark glassy tiger and then it wouldn't let you get any closer to allow a better photo than this.

Thankfully the sad blue eyed caterpillar of the Autumn Leaf crawled up to allow a few moments of ok-i-guess-i'll-make-do.  Must be the trip from yesterday.  Must have raised my expectations sky high.  I'll try to be appreciative.

At least the carpenter bee gave me that second chance to get a close up since the last time I screwed up the close up with my dirty sensor.

And no it seems busy carpenters are not afraid of dark rain clouds.

Neither is this male aurora.  Initially mistook it for the common fluctuans and servilia or the similarly marked luzonicum.  But after staring hard at the pictures, it turns out this strongly marked dragonfly (with a much broader tail than the luzonicum) is actually the male of the aurora.  The female is a pretty pink.

Usually, when there are no butterflies or dragonflies or bees around, it's time to fall back on the hoppers which usually can be found everywhere, especially when you take a step.  They all come flying out from under your foot.

Sigh... what a way to waste the Sunday... I'm going to bed....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

When I woke up this morning, the skies were blue blue blue... so I fled from the four walls of my house and went down the road skipping like a ... Senior Citizen that had escaped from the home for the elderly...coughing all the way...

Senior Citizens Rock!

And that is the location where I got drenched in the rain enough to land myself in hospital.  But today it was sunny sunny sunny and they even gave me and a fellow photographer (the Yoda of butterflies/butterfly expert) senior citizen privileges.

I will be 29 this November 23rd!  So good that they must be able to tell! Wheee!!! :D  

The Yoda of Butterflies, the Red Eared Carrier of Sin and the Naked Man

The Yoda of butterflies stopped on a bridge and (while the whole island of joggers jogged by us because Murphy's Law says that when you are finally well enough to go out and take photos, the whole island decides to go jogging too! Whee!) told me a short ... erm... story that somebody else had told him about how:

1) You can make a terrapin carry your sin by writing it in red Chinese lettering on its shell

2) If you come across a terrapin with red letters on it, don't touch it.  You will get the curse of the sin and the terrapin will just blink and nonchalently swim away.

After explaining to me (and while I contemplated grabbing the nearest terrapin to write my sin about eating oats for the past few months...), the Yoda of butterflies proceeded to pick up his lens and take photo of said terrapin.

And while dramatic music cued in the background for the first time (and maybe the only time) ever I saw him stop to use his macro lens to take a photo of something that was not a butterfly...

a naked man (half naked jogger... sweaty, pasty white, sans (meaning do-not-have) Sylvester Stallone bod and wearing only shorts) quickly jogged up to his side to ... erm... make friends.

Naked pasty man assailed my eyes (which tried to commit suicide by turning into my skull) while asking my friend to:

1) Take photos of the horrible litter cluttering the place

2) Submit said photos to authority in charge of place

Yoda does not visibly show any recognition of how naked and pasty man is.  Yoda says: "Yes.  Mostly left behind by visitors."

And then we left and I didn't have a chance to write my sin about laughing about half naked men on the nearest terrapin.  No fair.  Would have been fun.

Such a Boooooo-teeeee-fuuulllll Daaaaayyyyy

Funny... I had this feeling I had a lot of great shots today but after posting this I realised I didn't but my giddy happiness over finally having a bright sunny day seems to have overriden any dissatisfaction with anything.

There was actually a bird on the branch.  But it flew away and I got a photo of very bright and happy leaves.  Yay!

And obscurely, this is my best photo of the day.  I don't know what it is but it's cute.  It's also very big, very coy, rather hairy and skipped around shyly in order to make me crawl on all fours to get into a bush to make friends with it.

This was supposed to be my best photo of the day.  Because I had never shot this fella before.  He was fluttering around the area where the tawny palmfly had been to compensate me for not getting a good shot that day and getting drenched enough to land in hospital instead.

[Post Edit 3rd Nov: Apparently this is not the Jamides Alecto Ageladas but the common Caerulean.... I'm very confused and small ID pictures in my reference books are not helping]

But when I got home, it was blurred and I decided to torture myself by squinting at two pages worth of very small butterfly pictures to get a match (said book is The Butterflies of the Malay Peninsula by Steven Corbet and Pendlebury).  

I would like to suggest that next time people come up with a book to identify anything, they should have 3-D pop up holograms of the real thing that people can turn around and around and magnify 20 times. 

Yoda spotted this and even then I could not get a good shot.  (This is like the x-100th time I've seen this butterfly and yet I still can't get a model shot... fah-lalalala) but nothing could spoil my silly mood today.

[Post Edit 3rd Nov: Apparently this is not the common caerulean but the metallic Caerulean which I've never shot before.... I'm very confused and AGAIN small small small eeeny weeeny ID pictures in my reference books are not helping] 

There were pretty blue Australasiae damselflies (I think) but I couldn't get any closer.  They call the above the obelisk position.  An obelisk is a snake right?  But I can only think of Asterix and Obelix... I really like that comic!  We should have an Obelix pose!

I'm sure these flowers have some really serious name.  But I'll care about that when I've stopped being giddy with sun-induced happiness!!!! Wheee!!!!!