The Busy, Busy Dragonflies
It has been an incredibly long time since we did our last day shoot, and decided on doing one this weekend to practise for our coming trip to Sarawak. It was a wet day at Venus Drive, with the usual crowd walking past us with curious looks, while on the way towards the tree-top walk. With the little bits of “ponding” here and there, we were able to spot more pond skaters and some dragonflies laying eggs (I think).
We spotted some dragonflies busily flicking droplets from the surface of puddles, and were repeatedly doing it at a rapid pace. We were not sure what those dragonflies were doing, and took some shots anyway. On further checks, we found that these dragonflies could be laying eggs and flicking the eggs away from the water to avoid getting eaten by other organisms in the water.
#1 This was the best shot I could get with the dragonfly in focus and with the initial spurt of water being flicked.
#2 Another dragonfly doing the same action
#3 A pair of mating pond-skaters (or water striders)
#4 A Common Garden Spider (Parawixia dehaani)
#5 Another view, using fill flash
#6 It was still early, so many ants were still at rest
#7 A very tiny longhorn beetle. The horns are tucked neatly behind.
#8 Side view to show the tucked horns
#9 Unidentified caterpillar with an interesting head pattern
#10 David found this Wide-Jawed Viciria with her eggs almost hatching. I took ALOT of shots of this new mama!
#11 She kept moving around her eggs, but never left them alone
#12 At times, she would look down to inspect her little ones
#13 With easily over 50 eggs, she could just as easily lose count!
#14 When her eyes show a hue of bright orange, she wasn’t looking at the camera, but more likely at her eggs.
#15 Look left look right look left look right
#16 When she finally looked at me, we see a dark shade of black which is actually the retina. For more information on the eye arrangement of Jumping Spiders, check my earlier post: Marvelling at the Eyes of a Jumping Spider
#17 Occasionally wiping her face with her palps
#18 The 2 Anterior Median Eyes can be looking in different directions, which explains the different colours we see here
#19 Is it going to rain?
#20 Looking back at the little ones
#21 Doing her counting again.. 1…2…3..4…5..
#22 Oh this one looks out of place! Let me rearrange it…
#23 Found this dead robberfly with fungus growing out
#24 Side view, shows the deflated eyes
#25 One of the many copper-cheeked frogs that were spotted. Many come out during the rainy weather.
#26 A very brightly coloured red beetle
#27 When perched at the tips of branches of leaves, beetles and weevils do tend to fly off. Be careful of that!
#28 It flew, but landed on another leaf nearby
#29 Close up. Very reflective and difficult to light up evenly
#30 Last shot before it disappeared with it’s last flight
#31 A tiny praying mantis on a tree trunk, shot in natural light
#32 Another shot. Just taking more shots to ensure I get a keeper!
#33 Melvyn found this very weird Planthopper (Fulgoridae), related to lantern bugs?
#34 View of the top
#35 Parallel side view shows the extended snout
#36 Final show before we said bye bye to it
The complete album can be viewed here.
