Winged denizens of Bukit Telaga (2)

These days I visit Bukit Telaga a lot more than usual because :
1. it's only 18 KM from Raub, making it one of the nearest cascades within Raub
2. there is a good sampling of butterflies present here
3. I am trying to learn to photograph them...

Here's the result-

 A tiny Skipper, Seseria affinis kermana

 The Common Imperial, Cheritra freja frigga

 The Common Caerulean, Jamides alecto ageladas

 A tiny Skipper butterfly

 The Malayan Sunbeam

 The Tawny Rajah, Charaxes bernadus crepax

 A Common Grass Yellow, Eurema spp.

 I was about to leave the place when I accidently kicked on a pile of dirt and so, I had to return to the stream to wash my leg - from the distance, I noticed an unusually large black and white nymphalid flapping about the sand bank and I immediately ran back to the car to get my camera. The rewards for the patience and chance: an extremely beautiful specimen of Glorious Begum, Agatasa calydonia calydonia. It's colours really lived up to its name as the close up shows that it is almost bejewelled like a ruby-encrusted piece of jewellry that a real begum would have had...

Lunch at the Smoke House in Fraser's Hills

It has been awhile since we last visited Fraser's Hills for a few reasons: we went a lot to Cameron Highlands - always a disappointment and yet we returned (maybe because it is "larger"), the road to Jeriau is still closed (so no possibility of birding nor taking pictures of butterflies), there's some construction going on and it's a mess in Fraser's (still on) and commercial stuff is polluting the last quiet hill station!

Well, went we did last Sunday, just for lunch. I was actually going to take some photographs of butterflies midway in Bukit Telaga but we decided that maybe if we hurry, we might just make it - and we did. As we entered through the reception, we were greeted and I asked for a table which we were promptly serviced. However, we were put in the salon cum tea/bar room where we ordered our meal and we served our drinks while lunch is being prepared (and the table too). Liked the quiet ambiance...

Everything in the Smoke House is decorated to the tune of Ye Olde England Cottage...

 It started to pour when we arrived so everything was wet outside. Asked the waiter if it has been raining the whole week and it turned out that today's rain is an isolated case...

 In the dining...(the fireplace is "mock")

 The mushroom soup - strong and solid base but I can whiff the use of shiitake mushroom - giving it an almost "pungent" odour. Ideally, it would have been better if they just use only "forestiers", meaning wild mushrooms.

 My wife had Deviled Chicken...

 Liked the private dining space on the side...could be good for a private function a l'anglaise...

 I ordered roasted rack of lamb...not bad.

Winged denizens of Bukit Telaga

These days, I guess I will be progressing with my "new" albeit more regular weekend photography sessions with Nature seing that I have finally progressed to my first DSLR (Nikon D5200). I started with the Coolpix E4300 (which took marvelous photos without a hitch), lost it in an accident back in KL in the summer of 2007, then changed to Coolpix S200 only to be replaced by a semipro Coolpix P100 and finally now...

So I went to Lata Jarum for some photos but it was too dry and hot and not a single interesting thing to photograph and so - I went again to my favourite site to try out my luck. Well, it started kinda slow without much action at midday but I dragged on until about half past one and suddenly, a burst of light came over the cloudy hills and the butterflies kept coming and coming...

Here are the results...well, they're actually worse off my Coolpix P100's clarity but detail wise - this is better. Besides, there's only so much a 105mm lense can do at a respectable distance...

The Sargeant, Athyama spp, on the tarmac...

 The Spotted Sawtooth, Prioneris thestylis malaccana

 Another Athyama spp., also on the tarmac

 The Straight-Line Mapwing, Cyretis nivea nivalis

 The Tailed Jay, Graphium agamemnon agamemnon

 A Dark Evening Brown, Melanitis phedima abdullae

 A Skipper butterfly, Tagiades spp.

A very difficult subject to capture in the wild, the elegant Large Wood Nymph, Idea lynceus lynceus. In Malay, they are called "Surat" because their slow flight with spotted translucent wings gives them the allure of a letter floating in mid-air, blown by a breeze. They rarely settle down and can be seen sometimes in a pair gliding through the mid canopy under the speckled afternoon forest, as if dancing some soft ballet in mid-air...

 This shot against the light shows the faint irisdiscent glow of the wings

 The Common Tit, Hypolycaena erylus teatus

The Rustic, Cupha erymanthis lotis 

 The Three-bar Helen, Papilio helenus helenus

 a group of Common Grass yellows, Eurema spp.

Delicate fluttering wings of the Four-bar Swordtail, Pathysa agetes iponus

Pissing trees (at Lata Jarum)

This video was taken 2 years back - on a sunny late morning in Lata Jarum. The same phenomenon of "pissing" trees was observed and this time, it wasn't even the Saracca trees that usually live on the water's edge (I suppose they have to "pee" when they took in too much water from transpiration on a sunny day). The streaming droplets are water droplets from the trees' leaves!

Denizens of Bukit Telaga

This year, the seasons are a bit of a haywire -  by March onwards the weather would have usually cleared up if we did have a wet Chinese New Year (which we did have indeed) but we are still looking at evening thunderstorms here in Raub, as well as cloudy days. As I drove up the slopes of Bukit Telaga, signs of heavy downpour were everywhere - the runoff drainage along the road was awashed with leaves from trees and signs of heavy erosions were present everywhere too - not helping is the fact that agricultural activities are creeping steadily up the slopes of the hills...

A larvae of a beetle on a granite boulder.

Delicate ferns...

a tiny Skipper butterfly on the stem of a Keladi...

thunderous waters...

Beautiful surprises - a satyrid butterfly [Coelitis epiminthia epiminthia] flapped its wings in the deep shades and a beautiful deep mettalic sheen shows under the flash - our very own Morpho...

the same butterfly resting on a leaf...

A wild Rambai-like tree bearing beautiful bunches of fruits by the stream. An Orang Asli man told me that the fruits are edible but too sour that even monkeys avoid them...

A Common Mormon (male) on the sand bank...

A tiny butterfly, the Pierrot, Caleta elna elvira by the sand banks

The same Rambai-like tree

close-up

A strange ant with a horn on its back - the Orang Asli man called this one Semut Malas Dukong Adik (The lazy ant that won't carry its siblings).

A colourful insect...