5/2011 - Venus Drive (26 Feb 2011)

Venus Drive is one of our favourite macro shooting sites, so I am glad to organize an outing to this place on Sat, 26 Feb 2011.

The weather was good, quite cool and the light was not too harsh. When I arrived at the Car Park (meeting point), most of the participants who had signed up were already there, with their gears all set up and ready to shoot.

Due to the previous day’s rain, the grass was a bit waterlogged, but it did not deter the shooters. Most of them started by exploring the grassy area outside the nature trail.

(Starting point of Venus Drive)

(Yeo TL in action)

(Yeo, Allan, Victor, Ming)

Thanks to a cue from Allan, we were also able to locate a group of caterpillars near the entrance to the trail. Many of us had fun taking turns to take some photos of the hungry caterpillars which were defoliating the leaves.

(Hungry caterpillars by Darren Chng)

 
I noticed the authorities had widened the trail and that was a welcome news to us. It was easier now to navigate the trail and to set up our tripods and camera without obstructing the other hikers and joggers.
 

 
As we walked further into the forest, we saw leaves glistening with raindrops that probably came with downpour the previous night. The air was refreshing with the wet vegetation.

(Forest Path by Phoebe Leong)

(Kyaw Htay, Allan, Endy, Sharon)

Quite a number of interesting subjects were spotted here such as mating two-tailed spiders, two-tailed spider with prey, a rare blue moth, huntsman spider with babies, etc.  But the one that really got us excited was a large Colugo or flying lemur hugging comfortably onto a tree trunk, about 4 to 5 metres away from the ground.

More surprises awaited us as we advanced deeper into the forest.  They were lots of dry leaves and dead logs on both sides of the trail.  However, one dead log stood out from the rest.  Hiding beneath it, was a cluster of pretty bright yellow mushrooms.  A real beauty and they looked very much like those corals found in the sea.  Allan called them “Land Corals”!

(The advantage of shooting in a group)

(When the master shoots, the rest watches!)

(Pano view of "Land Coral")

Please click the following links to see some of the pictures taken during this fruitful outing:

• On Duty by Sharon S. Lim
• Some macro pics by Kyaw Htay
• Forest Flatworm by Cai Yixiong
• Spiders & Moth by Anthony Quek
• Motionless DF by Lim Cheow Tin
• Common Two-tailed Spider
• "A" for Apple by Allan Lee
• Some Macro Pics 2 by Kyaw Htay
• Blue-spotted Flatwing Podolestes orientalis by John Wong

Participants (20) - Darren Chng (Trip Leader), Cai Yixiong, Endy Tan, Allan Lee, Sharon S. Lim, Tony Png, Anthony Quek, CT Lim, Phoebe Leong, Chan CP, Victor Loh, Kyaw Htay, Joshua Fong, Jia Yin, Yeo TL, Wong Heng Meng, Eugene Hu, Ming, Joyce & John Wong