[ Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 ]

A day spent almost entirely at the cabin and it’s vicinity, as the subjects just kept coming to us. lol. Most of our time was spent with a banded flower mantis located about 20m away from our cabin.

Behind the scenes shots from Melvyn’s Sony TX5, Nicky’s Galaxy SII, David’s LX5.

1. Before heading out, we had some visitors outside our cabin


2. Curiously looking into our cameras


3. Such a poser, we had to join in the photo


4. This family was having a busy time on our cabin rooftops


5. Brunch! Some of the rest loved the coconuts~


6. Woke up early in the morning to find the long horn spiny back orb weaver still there!


7. The natural angle, as the horns are too heavy to let the spider stand upright on it’s own


8. Melvyn and Lance were chasing this cute and fat little frog, probably a Dark-sided Chorus Frog (Microhyla heymonsi)


9. Side view shows the big tummy!


10. It was jumping around, so I managed to get shots of it with different backgrounds


11. Jumped to yet another position. Record shot from the top.


12. Doesn’t it look a little overweight?


13. Finally settled down in this spot, hidden amongst the grass


14. Went back to shoot the long horn orb weaver, using different lighting techniques


15. Record shot of he side view


16. And finally, a view from behind


17. Found lots of these spiny back orb weavers, which we called the cat face.


18. Ben found yet another spiny back orb weaver, and this had horns curved downwards, like ???


19. The abdomen surface appeared to have a hint of red


20. At certain angles, it gave a bizarre array of colours!


21. Front view, highlighting the downward curve


22. While sitting at the balcony, I found this earwig running around on my chair. On closer observation, found that it had outrageously long rear horns (whatever you call them)


23. I lost it a few times, as it tends to walk off the table


24. As we came back from lunch, David found this banded flower mantis just behind our cabin


25. Wondering…


26. Like many other mantises, this flower mantis had a lot of different poses!


27. But it walked around non-stop


28. Occasionally looking up at me


29. It might turn towards me at times when it reaches a dead end


30. But still walking around, more often than not


31. Checking things out below


32. Looking straight at me


33. Yes, more shots. Can’t get enough of it!


34. Still walking


35. Sun shifted positions, and allowed me to take a back-lit shot


36. Walked a little bit further down from our cabin, and found this beautiful web. Such patterns are usually found on the neogea nocticolor spider.


37. Found this red garden spider at the corner of our balcony


38. Trying to get a face shot


39. Side view


40. Started checking out our curtain, and found several moths


41. Casually shooting around, and this pair of porcupines scrambled past our cabin – they did that every night!


42. While stretching up high to shoot a moth, Melvyn noticed that I had already been bitten by a leech!! arghh.. this was full of my blood


43. One of the moths on the curtain


44. Firefly larva with the bright glow


45. Clinging on


46. Attempt at back light


47. As the firefly larva was walking around with a glowing tail, we tried to take extended exposures to show the light trail it created


48. Walking to and fro


49. The rather uniform pattern on the light trail shows how it was walking


50. The tail has 2 luminous spots when viewed from above


51. Nice wavy trails


52. Decided to stop after it seemed to get lethargic. (oops)


53. A tiny longhorn beetle at our balcony


54. Melvyn couldn’t stand waiting at the cabin anymore, and stepped out to find more subjects. Before he could even step out completely, he found this bark mantis at the cabin steps. lol


55. Our cabin had an abundance of moths, and one became it’s supper


56. Golden face, busy devouring the moth


57. Yum yum yum


58. When it feels threatened, the bark mantis flattens itself on the bark, concealing it’s body outline


59. Even with food in front of it, it remains immobile for quite a while


60. Very unique golden face


61. It slowly stands up!


62. Close up from the side


63. Doing some weird pose


64. Animation sequence showing how the bark mantis devoured the last leg of the moth


65. Found this brightly coloured mirid bug (?). By then, most of the others had already hit the sack but we shot on


66. Colours reminded me of Brazil, Jamaica, etc


67. Facing me


68. It walks to the peak, where I would expect it to attempt to fly


69. Wings open! Attempts to fly, but remains there.


70. Final shot before it really flew away.

[ Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 ]

The complete album can be viewed here.

• khao yai national park
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