loomins_zoomins's Favorites

With @loomins_zoomins

Thought the heron was flipping over a mudskipper so I showed it to Lumin as a joke, little did I know it was actually a stonefish -- and a rare one at that! Really proud to have gotten an in situ shot of this cool boi ☺️

A mega target lifer for me with @phonebutterfliessg!! First 2 shots by her too! Never expected to get this amazing fish so soon and that it is the first in-situ photo on iNaturalist, alongside being the first in Singapore!

As an invertebrate-focused macro photographer, the thought of being able to see and shoot a Slow Loris seemed impossible until this fateful night alongside other insane sightings. Thankful to the people I was with for helping to track its movements while I film a good several minutes of it!

Shot with phone and telescope lens.

First observation here for Singapore I believe for now.

This is a rare species and unbelievably hard to shoot! So happy to be able to get this photo of it nonetheless! Such an unexpected encounter with this interesting species.

I present to you: the largest dragonfly in the world, featuring my face for size comparison! :P Photos simply don't convey its sheer size and bulk but hopefully having something for comparison helps.

Anyway, story time! This guy was flying around erratically for at least an hour and a half since we arrived - I assume due to the missing wing half. I hadn't seen it myself but a couple of my friends had, and it somehow hit me in the side of the head and quickly flew off. :P
Anyway, while we were all chilling around the river, it decided to fly straight into the waterfall (in the background in pic 3) and was promptly swept downstream. What else could I do?? I jumped in and chased after it! 😂
As you can tell from the photos, my swim was successful, and I ended up with the most enormous dragonfly I have ever seen right before me. :P I can't even properly describe how enormously huge it was. And those amazing cerci! I gave it some time to dry off, but being humid tropical Queensland, it wasn't happening very quickly. It was more than happy to sit on my hand and so I wondered if it would prefer somewhere a bit higher and drier :P
So that is how it ended up on my face! As it dried and we were plagued by march flies, the obvious solution was to give him one to eat. He accepted it gratefully and somehow ate the entire thing in a single bite. Hopefully that goes a way into showing just how huge and formidable these guys are! Not content, he then sliced his huge mandibles into my nose -_- and had to be gently prized off. He slowly lapped up blood for a while after but luckily didn't do any more biting! If I squint in the mirror I can still see a faint line there now :P
He sat for about an hour before we had to leave and I left him on a shrub. I hope he was okay with half a wing missing, but there wasn't much else I could do. All in all one of the best experiences of my life! :D

First photo is by Haley Harding because I am incapable of taking selfies :P