Look Who's Home

Look who decided to pay an unusual visit to my home. I was back in Singapore and this was indeed my very first guest at home. A large green praying mantis.

She seemed to have just had a meal as her abdomen was bulging and she was 'licking her fingers'. Guess KFC could feature her saying "It's finger lickin' good"!

More Fun with Frogs

The minute frogs that had appeared during the winter rainfalls continued to stay for a few more weeks. During the few days I had left, I spotted them on several hunting occasions and took the opportunity to photograph them. It's a fun thing to do, making them pose for you in front of the camera. Here's one hiding in a coiled baby banana tree.

The same individual after crawling out from the coil and hopping onto another baby leaf.

Here are a few more frogs of the same species, found within young banana trees.

Some have a darker colour complexion.

Random Hunts

Went for a couple of mini hunts around my home during the last few days I spent there. I got to spot and shoot the usual creatures- tiny insects and other invertebrates. Here's a black loop caterpillar, one that's responsible for chewing up all of my mom's precious rose plants.

A butterfly, probably belonging to the grass blue family. This one's wings were of a bright, attractive brown though.

A random bug.

A mating pair of flies, no idea what species or anything.

Dragons and Damsels

Here's another collection of dragonflies and damselflies I shot during my trip to India in December 2009. As you can see, I am more than a year slow with my blog posts and have to publish them as quick as possible. Anyway, here are two Blue Sprites damselflies.

Another damselfly, this one white in colour. Never seen one this pale before.

A similar looking one, apparently dead.

Close-up shots of a large forest damselfly, which is commonly seen in areas close to water.

And it seems that there's only one dragonfly to showcase, the Slender Skimmer.

Big Catch

This huge rat was caught in one of the rat traps that we often set up in the fields just before sundown. This one here is known as a Pig Rat, mainly due to its size and look. These rodents can be a real nuisance as they can feed on and spoil a large amount of crops like potato, tapioca etc. My dogs couldn't wait to get it released. They're experts at catching rats and usually catch about 3-4 such rats a week.