Red-breasted Sapsucker

I saw these several times from a distance without getting a good look. (on Vancouver Island) They appeared to be some sort of woodpecker, but when I searched for woodpeckers in my bird app, there were none in my area with the entire head red, just ones with a bit of red. Eventually, I found Red-breasted sapsuckers, and the description said "Medium-sized woodpecker".  I'm not sure why it didn't come up when I searched for woodpeckers! Attractive birds, in any case.

Pond Life

I was surprised to find this Wood Frog at the pond at Innovation Place. I generally assume that the pond is too shallow (freezes to the bottom) for frogs to over winter. But if any could, it'd probably be these guys - they can survive being frozen solid. He was well camouflaged, I wouldn't have seen it if it hadn't jumped when I approached. It's interesting that only a small percentage of the photos on-line have the white stripe down the back like this one. I wonder if that's regional. The one I spotted two years ago at Innovation Place also had a white stripe. It's possible this is the same one, although I didn't see it all last summer.



The first of the dragonflies were out. That's good because despite the record dry year the mosquitos are evidently still finding places to breed!



And they were already mating and laying eggs in the pond.



The first of the water plants were flowering. I've never noticed these ones before - interesting flowers.



And last, but not least (to me) the fishing spiders are back :-)

House Spider

This won't be as appealing as the cute birds, but personally I'm quite fond of spiders.


Late in the evening I found this spider in the downstairs bathroom sink. I see spiders occasionally in the basement but mostly quite small. This one was the largest I'd seen (the body was about 1 cm long and the legs about 3 cm across) and in a good spot to be photographed. I ran upstairs and grabbed the camera and macro lens. Of course, the light wasn't great. I tried a variety of settings but wasn't getting good results. I brought in another light but that still didn't help much. Even the flash didn't seem to be doing too well.

In the morning I went to check if it was still there, and it was, so I tried a few more things. I realized I had the flash on slow sync. When I changed it to regular flash I got better results. Out of 50 attempts I got a few decent shots. One of the challenges with macro photography is shallow depth of focus. The shot above is two shots focus stacked. But focus stacking doesn't always work well with handheld shots. The rest are single shots. I was using smaller apertures (f11 and f16) to get more depth but that meant high ISO and slow shutter speeds. Luckily the spider was motionless most of the time and I could rest the camera on the edge of the sink to steady it.


Although it had been quite tolerant of my harassment, eventually it got fed up and tried to get away. It finally dawned on me that it was trapped in the sink since it couldn't climb the steep sides of the slippery porcelain. I set a cloth over the side so it could climb out. Shelley wasn't too happy to hear I'd allowed it to resume its residence in the basement. I told her it would eat flies and other insects but I'm not sure that convinced her.

Although it took me quite a few attempts, I'm pretty happy with the final results. The white sink made a good background.

Aided by the iNaturalist.org suggestions, I think this is a Giant House Spider (Eratigena atrica) although it doesn't look quite identical to the other photos. Or it might be a Barn Funnel Weaver (Tegenaria domestica). Likely someone on iNaturalist will id it. Either way, it's not native to Canada.

Backyard Birds

There have been lots of birds flitting around the backyard lately. They don't tend to sit still for long to identify them or take photographs. Leaning out my home office window with the big 600mm lens I managed to get shots of a few of them. They're not all as sharp as I'd like but good enough to identify them. (I'm not a bird expert, if I got any of the id's wrong, please let me know.)

Red-eyed vireo

Swainson's thrush

Savannah sparrow

Yellow warbler with worm

White-crowned sparrow

House sparrow with mouthful

Pigeon

And of course, one of the most common bird around, the American robins.



I've been watching to see if any of them would nest in our birdhouses. When I looked out this morning there was a head poking out of one of the birdhouses. By the time I had grabbed my camera it had left, but a House wren returned shortly with a large twig which took some maneuvering to get into the birdhouse. When I cleaned out the birdhouse that the house wrens had used last year I found they had filled up the bottom of the box with twigs and then built their nest on top of that, so it was level with the entrance hole. That's probably what they're doing again.

Forest Tent Caterpillar

Likely not most people's favorite. Even if you don't mind caterpillars, these guys seem overly destructive when they strip a tree of leaves. Of course, that's a bit like beavers when they strip a riverbank of trees. Both are natural in their own way.

Apart from that, they are quite pretty caterpillars when you look at them up close.

Barred Owl

At Witty's Lagoon near Victoria, BC. Thanks to my sister Clare for spotting it.

Barred Owls are an regarded as an invasive species on the west coast and are partly blamed for the decline of the endangered Northern Spotted Owls.

It was difficult to get a decent photo - it was a long way away for the lens I had (this has been cropped substantially) and the forest was a mix of dark shade and bright patches of sun. And it soon turned its head away from us. 

Gull versus Crab

Walking along the harbor in Victoria (BC) I saw a gull splash into the water and fly up with something in its beak. It landed on the walkway and I saw that it had a crab. But the crab wasn't going to go easily, it was putting up a fight. Luckily I had my camera ready to capture some of the action.



The gull grabbed the crab by one claw, but crab attacked with its other claw, causing the gull to drop it.



Now what?



The gull picked the crab up again and took off with it, maybe intending to drop it from a height like they do with shellfish. But the crab must have attacked again and the gull dropped it, but this time in water too deep to retrieve it. This round went to the crab.

I was surprised how many crabs I saw both in the Victoria Harbor and in the Salt Spring Ganges harbor. Maybe it was the time of year? Or I've just never noticed them before? Here's one in shallow enough water to get a photo. It was larger than the one the gull had.

Gosling

Canada Goose gosling in the rain, Granville Island, Vancouver, BC

I like the contrast between the small fuzzball gosling and the large sturdy adult.

Tulip

Tulip after the rain. Granville Island, Vancouver, BC