...of Dragons and Damsels

It's been an inexcusably long time since my last post here, which I believe started on a very similar note. Ah well, I suppose a lot of us start out with the best of intentions, but somehow forget what we'd intended.

I haven't forgotten, however. I've had numerous guilty reminders of this, - and other things - which I'd started and later ignored. I guess it took just so many to get me back here, writing again.

I'm enjoying a very flexible schedule, and will continue to do so until the beginning of November. Certainly a welcome change from having the ins and outs of my life dictated by a ruthless work schedule during my internship, which ended about four months ago, in March. I have realised that this is only in passing, and thus have been almost frantically trying to make the best of it. I now visit the forest with me camera at least three times a week to take photographs, I've taken on new responsibilities (or had them thrust upon me) at school, and I've actually started running. A lot. And I'm enjoying it, which was something I'd never thought would be possible.

Over the last several weeks, I've been paying more than the usual attention to dragonflies and damselflies. I say this because this was more than just "Oh, that's cool." Perhaps it was the Red Swampdragon that started it all. I had deviated off the regular trail onto a little-used trail leading into the thick of the forest at the MacRitchie Reservoir, when I saw it perched on a twig - and since it sat really still, I thought I'd put my tripod to good use and capture the ambient light with a long exposure, instead of using the flashgun as I normally do.

The Red Swampdragon, scientifically known as Agrionoptera insignis

Further down the trail, I found several individuals of a species of damselfly beside a little pond (some of them mating pairs, even) that looked slightly similar to the Azure Damselfly, but instead of folding their wings together like most damselflies do, these had their wings spread out, like dragonflies. I took a few photographs of them and was very pleased with myself at the find. Later, from a bit of research on the internet, I was able to identify them, which added to my pleasure.

The Flat Wings Damselfly, scientifically known as
Podolestes orientalis


Podolestes orientalis, a mating pair. The male is in front,
grasping the 'neck' of the female with its cerci

My research - which didn't require much more than a couple of keywords fed into Google, followed by few clicks of the mouse - led me to a few incredibly detailed websites which document the Odonata (that's the order that dragonflies and damselflies are classified under) of Singapore. I must say they left me amazed and humbled, because I realised just how much time, effort, and patience must've gone into taking all those photographs and putting all that information together.

Here are the links to these wonderful sources of information:

http://www.greenunity.net/odonata/intro.asp by Tang Hun Bun

http://sayhitoant.blogspot.com/ by Anthony Quek

I'm truly inspired, and I'd really love to see and photograph more species of dragonflies and damselflies. Let's see where this takes me!

P.S: I came across the same Red Swampdragon perched on the same twig, when I went back a week later.