The first surprise came when I saw something hanging below a leaf at waist level which my first thought was a insect. Indeed, it was a baby cicada in moulting mode. I had seen adult cicadas and their leftover casts, but never a moulting one.

The young cicada looked more like a fish than an insect. Based on my reading, it will take about 4 hours for it to be fully transformed into a full-blown cicada. I did not have the time to wait for it to happen as I had move off after spending around 5 minutes with this cute creature.

The next excitement was just 20 minutes ahead. I saw a blooming pink flower at ground level, just by the side of the foot path. It was from a creeper with tendrils. After close examination, it appeared to be the flower from a Passiflora species. I was surprised that one can find a Passiflora species in the middle of the forest. After searching more thoroughly around the area, I did find another two flowers and some flower buds but no fruit. [Update: Passiflora vitifolia]

I had found 2 plants new to me during this trip which I had yet to identify.

One of them (photos left and below) was a climber with a fruit stalk that resembled that of a Piper species. [Update: Anadendrum latifolium]

The other one (photo right) had colourful berries that might be an Ardisia species. [Update: Ardisia forbesii]

Though there were other unknown plants (see Photo Gallery below), they were not new to me.

Due to the wet weather in the last few days, there were quite a lot of mushrooms around though I was expecting to see more. Below was just a sample of them:

The trip ended at around 3pm. It was a long day but the effort was worthwhile, just like any other field trips.