Laurent36’s Neighborhood

It rained.  And thus there are no butterfly photographs today.

There is, however, stir fried cod. 

And a nice video clip of one of my favourite tracks:

 

Note on photo above: Choc Albatross was sitting around a pile of sand in an Orang Asli community.

And never would you find a more unlikely trio.  And yet each so perfectly balanced in their own chaotic energy that they cancel out each other’s potency.

Note on photo: And this nawaby looking butterfly was its companion.

And this is exactly what happened last weekend when I was in KL to celebrate my Big 30. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note on photo: I encountered the same unmarked butterfly in FRIM.  The photo Record 3 is not the same butterfly as the one in the swinhoei photos.

I went over to visit The Bear of The Past, whom I’d known for 10 years.  In order to prevent The Bear from mauling me back into the memories of The Past, I decided to bring shooting/photography buddies who would decidedly prevent any 2 person scenarios where forced flashbacks were likely to occur.

Note on photo above: The Royal Assyrian wouldn't cooperate.  It's one beautiful butterfly!

I sent out at least 10 sms-es to people from various everywhere, including Mushroom who wanted to travel, Dr Plant who likes to go to KL, Alien from KL who doesn’t mind going back to KL, the trio of girls I hang out with on a regular basis who only go to KL to shop … and The Boy.

Note on photo above: This butterfly wouldn't stay put.  It eats on the move.

And everybody had something else on… except The Boy.

So it came to pass that The Boy, The Bear and The Butterfly were fated to be in the same car driving on a highway in KL with The Bear muzzled up politely upfront in the driver’s seat playing old rock favourites, The Boy in the backseat tapping the Butterfly on the head persistently, giggling to himself like a mad man, completely and pointedly ignoring The Bear and The Butterfly ready to fly out from her front passenger seat to take her chances with the hard asphalt road.

Note on photo above: I can't ID this damselfly.  And don't want to just slap it with a wrong identification with lousy guesswork.

The Bear’s purpose was blunted.  I had written a lot more about this purpose.  But realised 3 days after drafting the blog entry that it didn't mean anything to anyone.  Not The Bear.  Not to me.  .   

Note on photo above:  The red spot on the wing makes me hesitant to say that this is the Fenestrella.

To sum it up neatly and then forget it again, I finally saw him accurately as the person that he was and is with all his strengths and all his flaws without the childish veil of knights in shining armor.  But I also saw this through the perspective of an irrelevant entity, watching a nostalgic black and white movie.

For it seems that the best of things never happen with the ones gifted and attuned with understanding, but with the ones that claw and scrabble at the gate, that talk at you with strangled muffles through a screen… the ones that can never get close enough to even seem human.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note on photos above: Why did the tail-less chicken cross the road?  To distract 3 men from their winged subject.

And the best of situations are given under the compulsory condition of such uncomfortable sieges.  While the impossible lay somewhere beyond the practical realm of reality, lingering just a sliver off from within reach, flitting into and out of presence like the butterfly.

 
Something to behold.   Never to be held.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note on photo above: I got leech bites.  The stockings were not sheer enough.  Sigh.  Also photo of the friendly staff at MNS.

Enough of all that human interacto- blah blah.
This time in KL, I didn’t go to the usual FRIM region.  Acting upon a KL-ite’s recommendation, we traipsed around an Orang Asli village near Gombak instead.

A stream passes along the small village and it was here that I got my second and third leech bite (the first was in FRIM.  I didn’t get bitten in Langkawi, Endau Rompin or Sarawak… how cool is that?  The forest has been merciful).
LC handed me some tobacco to put over the bites.   You’d be surprised at how effective it was.  The bleeding stopped almost immediately and it didn’t itch during the night either.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note on photos above:  Check out the fire over which the locals cook Lemang... a type of tasty glutinous rice.

KL’s weather was just as variable as Singapore’s.  It rained quite heavily on both shooting days.  But unlike the dead silence in the fields here after a heavy downpour, the patches of sunlight don’t take long to be re-speckled by butterflies.

Stopping by various small cul de sacs of wild vegetation, we could already spot 3 different species of skippers skipping around in the wet weeds, 1 very large iridescent topside-blue restless butterfly and your ubiquitous yellows, browns and rings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The area is spotted with huts and you can find some tasty rice treats along the way such as the Lemang, a glutinous fragrant rice snack cooked over a fire and eaten with spicy chicken (see pic below):

Farm fowl roam free around the premises and even on the roads, mingling with an assortment of half-domesticated strays.  The people who live in these huts are extremely friendly and very photogenic.

Now I would write more.  But I'm going to bed.  There will be a Part 2.

Another Small Window Of Blue

Today was another small rare window of sunshine.

And Mother Nature's rare birthday gift for old undeserving me were some of my favourite skittlebugs on melastoma icky sweet sticks. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I finally got another photo of the Commander.  Unfortunately still without being able to isolate the butterfly completely in the photo.  But at least it hung around... like lollipop on a stick... colourful, bright and immobile... for a few minutes... while it drank greedily from the fruits.   

To add to my happiness, the Pandita Sinope Sinope also condescended to play lollipop on the same bush as the Commander.

And even allowed for both upperside and underside shots... even though it did make us work pretty hard for them, circling and circling again.

Also, the hoary palmer decided to show up while we were heading back.  Yay.  Record shot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This weekend was really great.  A lot of the butterflies I've always wanted to shoot turned up.  Like the topside-green arhopala which I'd spent so much time tracing before on a different trail. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm just a little sad I'm 30 (about 8 minutes ago).  It's my birthday! *sad yay*

Even the usually skittish malay baron turned up in pairs to celebrate.  And the male even cooperated to have a nice clean shot taken.   

Where did the 20s go?  Probably the same place where the extinct butterflies of the world flitter about happily in the sunshine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SIGH!

I just kinda wish sometimes that Mum was still here to celebrate it with me.  And all the dreams of possibilities that now lay sleeping in the past.

But then again it's not like I hate being 30.  I just like being 20 better. :P

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.

It's been raining.  Raining.  Raining.

Butterflies are either not there or they are dead or they are very lonely.

I brought the smore one to a trail but he refused to walk down any of the dodgey looking trails.  He was elated to find a small farm belonging to I-wonder-who in the middle of 'nowhere' (not technically nowhere... not technically unremote either).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What can you do for rainy monsoon weekends?

Walk your dog in the sweet smell of after the rain.

What can you do if you don't have a dog?

Borrow a Labrador shaped Chocolate that belongs to someone else.

Note on photo above: Me n friends went down to check out the art museum party on Saturday.  Some of them looked they came right out of a nightmare.

1) For my actions: Because I want to be happy.

Note on photo above: Neither my friend nor I dared to enter the room at the back... it was too eerie.

2) For The Boy: Because she wanted something different.

Note on photo above: Some installations were dreamy, cosy and wonderful.

3) For The Bear: Because you hunted me down after 10 years and found me. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note on photo above: I can bring my G10 everywhere!

4) For the cheesy TV dramas with perfect families: Because you are a lie.  Blatant.  Foolish.  Lie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note on photos above: And the forest sleeps on.  Beds of flowers are left untended by their winged counterparts. 

5) For Mr and Mrs Gandalf: Because both of you evoke happy memories.

Note on photo above: I took ages to get a good shot of this pair. 

6) For Love: Because you taught me to be independent and self-sufficient.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note on photos above: Pickings are far and few between.

7) For the butterflies: Because you all irritate me so much by being so uncooperative but I can't help but be happy when I see you all flutter around drunkenly in the sunlight. 

Note on photo above: I found a stretch of quiet trail.  Where there was literally nothing except a low gutteral rumbling amongst the trees and this butterfly.  I can't figure out what's making that sound.

8) For the monsoon rains:  Because you drive me nuts when you are hot and sunny and beckoning while I'm in bed and then cold and rainy and forbidding when I'm outdoors.  But then again, recently you've been very nicely aligned with my activities so I'm grateful.

Note on photo above: What a nice lil forward strutty pose you got there with all your tails nicely straightened out.

9) For the labrador shaped chocolate: Because you just make me wanna give you a nice biiiig hugga!

10) For Raymond: Because he's pretty much disappeared and I wonder what's happened to him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11) For Nikki: Because she made so much progress in only 1 year.  And I'm proud of her.

Note on photo above: That is so true.  But only if you also learn to let go.

12) For the hunters: Because the difference between an avid hunter and a real friend is the selfish motive for a kill.

For The Ones That Matter

1) Why is it that the gates which I have opened unto the ones I love are usually the ones which my enemies use to overrun my sanctuary?  

For Your Eyes Only

2) Try this funny test: www.xrite.com

I have perfect colour sensitivity.  So they say.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For The Late

3) Why is it that people only realise that they want you to love them when you no longer do? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note on photos above: No. Steamed fish was not one of the recipes... ~_^.  Cook books are great.  But then usually I end up cooking whatever I remember my Mum cooking.  Still... I try to try new recipes.

For The Butterflies

4) Why does it always feel so much better not caring than caring?   

For the Unexpected Joy

5) Why is happiness all the small things which are not usually what you initially set your mind on?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the Sleeping

6) Why do some people never see how beautiful life can be outside of the said definitions of happiness?

For The Archdukes

7) Why do the male archdukes not feed on the pineapples?  Why do only the female archdukes come to feed on the pineapples?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note on photo above of male archdukes: The males raised their snarky butterfly eyebrows at the pineapples when offered as if I was trying to peddle them fish net stockings.  But then they hovered around the pineapples and feeding females as if they secretly wanted fish net stockings... or maybe they were attracted to the females... hmmmm?

Note on photo above: No no... he won't sit on the pineapples.  He'd sit on a fallen leaf, feed on a fallen fig and watch the females furtively from a quiet distance.

For the Labrador Shaped Chocolate

8) Why do dogs frown?  Picture on left is Chocolate holding it in uncomfortably and picture on the right is Chocolate after having gone and sprayed on multiple grass patches all over the neighbourhood.

 

 

Note on photo above: Chocolate is so chocolate coloured that I'd like to imagine she's chocolate in the shape of a Labrador.