In My Garden #2

A lime tree is usually the favourite place for butterflies to lay eggs, thus routine check before seeing most of the leaves become victim of the caterpillars is always in my "must" checklist. This gave me the hint to look for crawling caterpillars in the tree. Anyhow it was too late to see caterpillar, instead I found a chrysalis hanging from the bottom of a leaf.

The aerodynamic design helped this chrysalis to withstand strong wind, I see. But please do not be mistaken, this is only my part of theory.

Observe carefully you may find the chrysalis was attached to the bottom surface of a leaf by a silken pad spun by the caterpillar. I counted there were totally three thin silky threads holding the chrysalis in place.

Once I shook the twig, the chrysalis vibrated like a swing but remained intact. This is another fascinating design of the nature.

I came back the next morning after a heavy rain at the break of dawn. My garden was wet, fallen leaves from grape tree were scattered around. The chrysalis was still there, with a hot couple misusing its abdomen. It was helpless, immovable and largely defenseless, what it could do was only crying silently. Can you see the tear holding for the last minutes before tearing apart from the chrysalis?

This last picture shows two of the silky threads much clearly for your view. The hot couple focused too much on their affairs, though in the open, they remained ignorant even I kept changing angles looking at them.

In My Garden

My wife was busy clearing the garden. My garden, though not big, is full of plants. Full always equals to a mess. Clearing was necessary in order to make the garden presentable, at least to ourselves. I was busy as well, busy at taking pictures. Actually I was inspired earlier by an article on snapshots of insects, they were great. That's why I started to hunt around in my garden for something. These "something" were nothing in my mind at first, I did not know what I could get.

The exploration started from plant to plant, from distant watch at the corner of my eyes to closer look from top to bottom. The effort finally paid off at the end. These "something" stimulated me so much, I re-visited my garden again this morning. I am going to tell you bit by bit from now on as too much excitement is not good for health.

The first wonder was on my longan plant. It hid under a piece of leaf and was well covered by others. It was a mini honeycomb. These bees had never paid any attention to my presence and the flash. And I had forgotten that bees might sting, luckily not these.

The next day, or to be precise, this morning visit had confirmed they were still there. Heavy rain had not ruined or wetted the structure. The architecture and design were simply great.

Looking closer I could see there were membrane with opening at the entrance of the cells. Further research confirmed that the bees seal the cells with wax when they are filled with honey.

The eyes of bees were black and big. They had not stared at me while concentrating on their work. Their bodies were slim to be envied by many.

To stay with them for half an hour confused me a little. I saw them moving here and there, there and here. I did not understand what value-added they had done. I am not a bee, they might not be busy for nothing.

Anyhow, they created my first wonder of the day.

Wild Flowers

I had these flowers with me this morning, alone in the jungle.

The off-the-trail journey had me exploring the jungle as though it was solely mine.

Actually I was partially wrong, I could see some visitors who were having different interest around the corner. The up-close look exposed their presence. I am off from my routine work; today is Labour Day. But the black ants were still busy at work. Their government must have forgotten to declare this public holiday.

These wild flowers chose to live close to each other. Their squeezed and distorted shapes have not reflected the vastness of the rainforest.

The Park

Read about moss all the while and saw even in up-close thus suggested me to picture some. I really tried within lapse of seconds during which any passer-by was temporary blocked by the "twist and turn" of the trail. Yes, how can I get a good picture in seconds without a second or more try. I had not managed to dance with the moss successfully at where the moss grew picturesquely, somehow I did manage to do something on this trail as long as I want.

This is the path leading to a pavilion besides the stream with a series of falls that we can see at the background. A rolling stone gathers no moss, but spoils the moss. We do not have any rolling stone nor many people coming here, this is the reason why this moss could have stayed for all these times.

I was here hoping to uncover every hidden wonder that yet to be registered. I might not get it this time but continuous effort would surface a hoard of gold later.

Peeping leftward was one of the two car parks available at Cerok Tokun and this is the smaller among the two. Anyhow adding up both is still a problem for us during the peak hour in the morning. Then you may understand why I had to grab any opportunity happens within seconds if I wish to bend and squat for a lovely picture before I turn out to be a clown in front of the crowd.

This is a better parking lot whereby the other one seems to invite frequent visits of monkeys. I did see once a monkey played around on top of a car bending and pulling the aerial of car audio.

Not much excitement from today, but continuous non-stop excitement is tiring and harmful to health.

Good night...........

Monkey and the Cat

I would like to bring you back to the dam for a short line before telling you my new encounter today. I checked through my hard disk and discovered the first picture. Feeling kind of uneasy if I have not registered it in my website. That it's.

As usual, I had my hunting for something interesting with my camera ready on hand after the one and half hours trek. Of course, I was soaked in sweat and stank to high heaven. Surely you would not like to get any nearer.

This was what had happened to a monkey. I spotted it, I got closer, anyway it tried to move away for a safer distance. Was that assumption right? Absolutely no, there were actually something that had attracted this monkey. If you look carefully, you may find many raw green fruits on the ground. They were Rambutan. I am not going to tell more about them today. But I'll come back when these hairy fruits are fully ripen in red colour.

As I moved step after step, this monkey somehow finally reached to the bottom of a Rambutan tree. My next move will then see it going up the tree, leaping to the next and back to the wild.

Incidentally, a cat should have observed our game and appeared suddenly between us from nowhere. This was a very close encounter that kept the monkey in surprise. It was alert, it screamed, it jumped, its eyes looked as much fierce as you could imagine and it signalled why not go for a fight. The cat seemed to be not interested to go nearer. The monkey kept jumping and waving its hands in an aggresive mode. Before a real fight started, the cat roared and retreated quaickly to the underneath of a car.

All these happened within seconds, though it is lengthy in writing.

It was weird to see such a rare happening.