Peacock Pansy

It is named Peacock Pansy.

The eye-spots on a peacock's tail help to attract a mate while performaing a courtship dance, but those found on a butterfly mean to intimidate its predators by resembling the eyes of their enemies.

I do not have any enemies, so I never get frightened.

This Peacock Pansy is another magicain that can change from orange-yellow (upperside) to ochraceous brown (underside) in a flash. Furthermore, it is fun to know that the eye-spots on its underside will disappear during the dry season thus to camouflage themselves in the brown brush.

Those eyes alternate during each fluttering. What happen if the mask of Zoro shows up in between?

Will the predatory birds be caught by this greatest surprise? Or only Batman is better known to them?

I am lucky

I woke up when the rain was falling, but it stopped immediately the moment I made up my mind to go ahead with my weekend hiking. Wow, what's a good lucky day.

Yes, I told my son who else can be luckier than me to have a four-feet long wild boar banged on the side of my car this morning. It must have not learned to look right, left and right again before crossing a road, or it might think it could make it with a lightning speed.

It bounced back to the roadside, its back on the road, its four legs struggling in the air, and then was the moment of silence. It must only be fainted. It was no more there when I made my way home.

Yes, I am a lucky guy as was rewarded with surprises continuously.

I chatted with a wise grasshopper after the hike. It told me that "you can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses."

I do not know why. I see the grasshopper more like a little fish. Is it due to the thick black line at its back?

It was a little fish in disguised. It was here merely because of me. I am lucky all the way until the end.

We are going gaga.

David Ogilvy told me to "develop my eccentricities while I'm young. That way, when I get old, people won't think I'm going gaga" yesterday. The problem is that I only develop mine while I am old, now.

I must be gaga right now....

I do not know how old this six-legged little thing is; it sure thinks that it is very much younger than me to develop its eccentricities, and it does these with all its legs.

The more it does, the more it confuses me. It is finally trapped by the so-called eccentricities which grow bigger and bigger. They cut across each others, and cut across my brain wave.

I am an eccentric because of these "eccentricities".

I am gaga, and so the little one is.

A surprise always hides itself

Sometimes accidental shots do bring unexpected surprise and joy.

When I thought I had capture another butterfly, a Narrow-banded Velvet, nectaring at a flower, it turned out that it left the spot faster than my click.

But I somehow managed to capture it flapped to a full wingspan in my picture later.

I heard their singing and went tracing those little cicadas in the jungle. It is a very difficult task because of their size, colour of tree trunks and darkness inside the jungle.

They are remarkable alert; their always stop singing and disappear immediately while I am still searching for them. I managed to see one this morning.

When I thought it must be a failure this time since it flew away the moment my camera started to flash, but somehow my clicking speed was fast enough to retain this flying cicada permanently in my picture.

I realised then a disappointment is not always a good friend of a failure. A surprise always comes in disguise.

When Fern and Spirits Intersect

(I wonder why hiking never tear me down, but has me murmuring instead).


Episode 1

A reincarnation is in embryo while taking in the essence of morning light. The fern is unfolding. There will not be any shaking of the Earth, or cracking of the sky.

Tokun Hill will be as quiet as now. Reincarnation is a silent simplicity that happens now and then.

What can I see through the center of the "coil of fortune"?

Episode 2

Are the silky threads holding the fern, or is the fern providing the webs a foot-hold?

We are not Independent, somehow or other.