Hong Kong Lepidopterists' Society Events & Activities

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            I took the Peak Tram to the Victoria Peak early in a sunny morning. The tram was moving up hill slowly and I could even see clearly butterflies mainly Papilios, flying along the path. One of them was the beautiful Graphium sarpedon. With its swift and erratic flight, it looked like it was jumping from one tree to another. I was surprised that with its incredible speed, it could still stop precisely on tiny flowers where she had her breakfast.

            After meeting everyone at about 8:30am at the station on the Peak, James showed us the way to Loguard Road where we were introduced to a few host plants for butterflies such as Crataeva religiosa, Acronychia peduncualta, Albizia corniculata and Taxillus chinensis. James collected some leaves for caterpillars which he reared in his home. There were very few butterflies flying as it seemed it was too early to get up from bed. We found many large spiders instead and their huge webs looked as if it could catch even a small bird! To me, they looked awful especially when comparing to the beautiful and lovely butterflies.

            Later on, we took the path down to Po Fu Lam Reservoir where the sun started shining brightly direct on top of us. It was quite a difficult task hiking along while carrying my heavy camera equipment at the same time with the hot sun above us. We would easily miss the butterflies as we were getting tired. Luckily, with the help of both Lillian and Yvonne who kept their watchful eyes for us on the way, no sooner, we found a few Charaxes bernardous and Polyura nepenthes feeding on tree saps.

            The tree syrup might be too delicious for them to take any notice of our presence as we could get very close to them. I managed to take a lot of photographs and I was indeed very excited and happy. It was the first time to see these beautiful species in close proximity especially the lovely milky P. nepenthes. 

Polyura nepenthes

            These butterflies occasionally moved up and down along the trunk of the tree by walking with their legs. It was very interesting and was seldom seen.

            Lillian and Yvonne then found a tiny Lycaenid, Famegana alsulus, which had greyish colour wings ending with a sharp small black spot on the hindwings. Needless to say, we immediately took a few photographs on the butterfly. James and I even laid down on the ground to get a better angle on the butterfly.

Famegana alsulus

            We saw a few more butterflies when we walked down the reservoir road and they were, Chilasa clytia, Euploea midamus (both the mature & immature stages), Junonia lemonias, Athyma perius and Hebomoia glaucippe.

            On arriving at Chi Fu Garden, we decided to finish our trip with a nice bowl of noodles at a Wan Chi noodle shop famed for its noodle. After a good lunch, we all went home.