On assignment - Barr, Switzerland.

On work assignment again and this time it is taking me to Switzerland, one of the many destinations I always wanted to go to.

It was a long tedious flight from KL with a transit in Amsterdam and finally to Zurich, which took 16 hours.

                                 

Preconceived perception can always influence how you feel about a country and my first impression of Switzerland did not disappoint me. It was exactly what I think Switzerland would be.

                                

Clear blue skies with picture perfect lakes and a background of snow top mountains. No, I am not dreaming , it really does exist! I suppose the experience is similar to an Eskimo looking at a lush tropical island with happy sun tanned naked natives running around.

Coming from haze filled KL, the contrast is striking, now I have doubts whether I really have bad eyesight or is it the pollution affecting my vision. I seem to be able to see clearer much further in Switzerland than KL.

The town I stayed in Switzerland is called Barr, quite near to Zurich.

I had the opportunity to use their train to travel between towns a few days and I must say the trains are impressive, you can hardly hear any sound during the journey. Till than I never realized that trains can be so quiet, almost silent.

Things that I like most in Switzerland are the climate, clean environment and chocolates. They have a fantastic range of chocolates available, from very high end to budget level chocolates and they all taste good.

Color Sergeant

A butterfly with a military rank, observe the three stripes spread across the wings and you will understand why.

Apparently the more common ones we often see are the males with white stripes. The females have wings that are marked with broad orange-brown stripes.

Some excellent specimens I came across.

 

Trithemis festiva

A dragonfly species I notice if you see one you will see many, probably from the same hatchings. Observing dragonflies skimming and hovering around on a windy sunny day always cheer me up.


When you next have the chance, feel it, live it and you will understand what I mean. It will give new meaning to the phrase “stopping to smell the grass”. Some folks will say there are better things to do but what are the better things to do?

Huntsman spiders (Family Sparassidae)

It is apparently an eight-eyed spider of which I did not get the opportunity to confirm, I meant the how many eyes.

Quite big in size compared to most of the spiders we commonly see, this specimen measures about 30 mm across. It has been reported that many of this species can grow much larger than this.
As usual such encounters are always by chance, while I was on one of my week end sojourn of jungle hiking, it was dashing across the road when I notice it, surprisingly it stop half way across and took refuge maybe forgetting it is out of its element, it was on wide open tar road, wrong camouflage background, so much for being eight eyed.
After a couple of shots from my camera it took off and made it all the way to the other side of the road. Now, the million dollar question, why would a spider cross the road?

Identifying insects

Coming across insects that I could not identify is rather frustrating while identifying an insect wrongly is worse than not being able to identify it at all. Friends have often console me that there are thousands of insect species yet to be identified even by keen entomologist, so what more being just a week end amateur taking photos now and than?

Unidentified Beetles


But that doesn’t make me feel any better! Sometimes it gets to be an obssession to just find out which species it comes from or family it belongs to. Time and again I sometime hit walls with a picture of an insect that will not yield its identity. What does it matters if I cannot identify a particular insect, you might well ask. I for sure will not die if I cannot find out nor will I starve or feel pain but my burning curiosity will not be quenched, it is like a journey with no ending or a task half complete, itching and prodding incessantly to find an end to it.
Or perhap it’s the sign of ageing but surely I maybe getting old but not that old yet? Senility runs on my side of the family as often reminded by my wife, could it be? No...I choose not to believe any of that!

For all its worth, if any readers here can identify any of the insects in this posting, please write and make my day!

Unidentified butterflies



And for those who wish to inform me the species of the insect in the picture is a butterfly or a beetle, you have been a great help, thank you very much and I would like to meet you in person to see how you look like. Nothing much can surprise me anymore I actually do know a person who tells me such things with a straight face, while looking at me in a funny way wondering why I do not know my insects. It is scary.........