I was driving into our apartment’s parking area when my eldest daughter spotted an incredible stellar phenomenon last night, December 1.

“Look, the moon is smiling. Two eyes and a smile,” said Dinie. We gazed out the car’s windows and there it was ..the smile and the bright, sparking eyes in the western night sky.

Instantly a thought crossed my mind that Allah had sent a cheerful SMS, a Smiley to us mankind, like a year-end holiday greeting or something.

It sure cheered me up. It couldn’t have happened at a better time than last night when my entire family is grieving the loss of a family member over the weekend. My niece’s hubby, Abdul Rahim, succumbed to renal failure on Saturday. All of us had returned to Alor Setar upon being informed of the death to be with Aziah and her four children. The burial was held on Sunday morning.

It is my wish that the “Smiley” would help my niece Aziah and her children to bounce back from this setback in their lives and move on with renewed strength.

Millions across the globe witnessed the stellar show. A check on the Internet revealed the phenomenon was caused by Venus, Jupiter and a three-day-old crescent moon aligning at the right spot to form the Smiley. It is calculated that the another Smiley would appear again in another five years time.

Apart from the Smiley, I had another awesome sighting but more of an earthly kind.

It was decades ago when my elder brother brought home a dead Rajah Brooke Birdwings butterfly in a glass frame. It was a beautiful insect, which had fascinated me eversince.

Only once I saw a life Rajah Brooke butterfly spreading its magnificent wings on a rock at a waterfall in Yan, Kedah. I think I was only 10 years old then and I never saw another life one again despite having gone into the jungles countless times, here in the peninsula and in Borneo.

However, the insect appeared before me when I wasn’t looking out for it. After four hours of driving from Alor Setar to KL, I stopped at the Gua Tempurung rest area to let the kids run free for a moment. Gua Tempurung is our favourite stop on our way back to KL because of the scenic view, cool air and a refreshing stream nearby.

As always, I went to the stream to wash my face. Suddenly, I noticed a beautiful butterfly spreading its wings on a rock a distance away from where I stood. I immediately grabbed my camera, set it up and tip-toed closer. Yes! There it was, the Rajah Brooke Birdwings. I just could not believe my eyes. A magnificent sample right there in the clearings…

The insect is from the animalia kingdom. Its binomial name is Trogonoptera brookiana. Synonymously referred to as Troides brookiana.

The Rajah Brooke butterfly is a distinctive black and electric-green birdwing butterfly from rainforests in Borneo and Malaysia; this rarely sighted butterfly is the national butterfly of Malaysia and is protected.

The wings of the male butterflies are black and each forewing has seven teeth-shaped electric-green markings or more like fern leaves (the smaller hindwings are also black and green markings).

The wings of the female butterflies are browner with prominent white flashes at the tips of the forewings and at the base of hindwings. The head is bright red and the body is black with red markings.

This butterfly was named by the naturalist Alfred R. Wallace in 1855, after James Brooke, the Rajah of Sarawak.