Recent Photos

Being back working at the office at Innovation Place has the benefit that I get lots of chances to take photos in the gardens and around the pond.

I always look for fishing spiders but I haven't spotted as many this year. I'm not sure if that's because there are less around, or if I'm just not spotting them. It doesn't help that the water hyacinth that I usually spot them on has been drifting around the pond a lot.

I thought this fly was being rather foolish, but looking at the images closer the fishing spider already had a mouthful of something, I think a dragonfly. Perhaps the fly was hoping for crumbs?

The 12-200mm lens does a decent job at macro photography, but the 60mm macro lens produces much better results.

It's taken me many years to start to identify even a few native plants. This Blazing Star was at Innovation Place, but they've been flowering wild lately as well. I see them in similar locations as the spring Prairie Crocuses, probably because those areas are the least disturbed.

They're not native (from the Amazon) and can be a bad invasive species, but I always enjoy the water hyacinths flowers. They're probably not a risk here with our cold winters.

It never ceases to amaze me how many kinds of insects are around. In comparison, there are only a small number of mammals or birds here, we know them all, and they're mostly easy to identify. But I constantly come across insects or spiders that I've never seen before and quite likely will never see again. This was my first Elm Spanworm Moth:

My first Lupine Bug:

I always look for flower crab spiders, but I didn't realize there were also Ground Crab Spiders. I spotted this one when I was taking photos of the Grass Spiders on their funnel webs.

These are carpenter ants (New York maybe?), presumably farming aphids.

The bright red of this Lily Leaf Beetle was easy to spot. There are lots of lilies around, but it wasn't on one.

I'm not sure why this predaceous diving beetle was crawling around out of the water, but it was a good chance to photograph it.

There were quite a few of these Meadowhawk dragonflies busy mating.

I've seen several of these Yellow-legged Mud-dauber wasps. They presumably visit the pond to get mud to build their nests. They are solitary so the nests would be small, less than the size of a fist.

These Giant Mayflies (aka fish flies) are much more common. I've seen several around town lately but never had my camera. Finally I came across one on the bridge when I had my camera. The adults tend to emerge in batches and only live for a few days.

And who can pass up a butterfly with a name like Great Spangled Fritillary:

This Killdeer was sitting on the railway tracks chirping away. For a change it didn't seem to mind having it's picture taken. This was one of our smoky days from the forest fires and thus the hazy background.

See all 46 photos in this album

Native Flowers

As much as I love nature and living things, I've never been attracted to gardening. But over the years we've accumulated a few native plants around the house and I always enjoy seeing them flower.

 Prairie Coneflower:

 

Purple Prairie Clover (I love the gaudy purple and orange)

 

Anise Hyssop (not really anise or hyssop, but good for pollinators)

Wild Bergamot flowers develop in an interesting way.

I printed them as a group:

Around the Pond

On a day off from running I biked over to Innovation Place with my camera to see what I could find around the pond. I enjoyed about 10 minutes of peace and quiet before several large family groups arrived to have family photos taken. Of course, they were complete with screaming babies and hyperactive kids. Not the kind of wildlife I wanted to photograph! Despite that, I managed a few photos. I didn't find any fishing or crab spiders but there were lots of dragonflies and damselflies. Most of the dragonflies were (I think) Four-spotted skimmers.

The damselflies were mostly Bluets:

and there were also some suitably named Pond Spreadwings:

The Linden trees were blooming and the bees were taking advantage.

The water lilies were flowering:

and even where they weren't, the leaves made interesting patterns among the reflections:

A lot of the border of the pond is these plants. I'd never bothered figuring out what they were, but Seek identified this inflorescence as Sweet-flag. The good part of identifying something is that you can then find out interesting facts about it. Like that it only flowers if it grows in water. And that it contains psychoactive chemicals. It was used in traditional medicine, but it can also be toxic.

I stopped by the office to check for mail (just junk) and found outside there was a different kind of green wall this year.

These were my favorite of the little flowers. Seek says they are Moss-rose Purslane, from South America.

As I was leaving, I was checking some lilies for crab spiders and I spotted this distinctive Leconte's Haploa moth. I don't think I've seen one of these before, but coincidentally, the next day when I was out running I spotted a dead one on the sidewalk. Interestingly, they make and hear sounds for courtship, and they can also hear bat sonar and respond with clicks warning the bat they are unpalatable due to chemicals ingested by the caterpillars.

On the way I spotted a small raptor. I thought maybe it was the American Kestrels I saw in the area last year. But when I enlarged the photos on the computer it turned out to be a Merlin. Humorously, I thought the ones last year were Merlins and they turned out to be Kestrels. I think the blue wing coloring makes it the Taiga variant. It was quite far away so it's not a great photo.

See all 23 photos in this album

Print of the Week

I was looking around the yard for something to photograph and I spotted this Harvestman (Daddy Longlegs). It was further down the stem but I nudged it up to the top. It could have picked a flower that was in better shape! I used a flash to help get a sharp shot, which is why the background is black. It was missing one of its eight legs, which is common.

Most people put photos of family or pets on the fridge. Shelley gets a closeup of an arachnid :-)

Waskesiu Photos

While we were at Waskesiu for my run of the Grey Owl trail we did several shorter day hikes and I took lots of photos. I posted many of them on iNaturalist. I also used their Seek app to identify many of these.

There were a lot of these beetles running around on the trail, often in pairs. I'm not sure if the pairs were fighting or mating. They turned out to be Fiery Hunter Beetles which are endangered. They hunt caterpillars and worms.

There were quite a few butterflies and moths around.

An interesting moth on the side of a building. I think it's a Spotted Tussock moth. I photographed a Rusty Tussock moth caterpillar last summer.

There were a number of these caterpillars around. It think they are Great Tiger moth caterpillars. The adult moths are quite fancy.

There were lots of dragonflies on the Boundary Bog trail. The most common were these Chalk-fronted Corporals:

I think this next one was a Variegated Meadowhawk:

Some interesting flies that looked a lot like wasps at first glance - a Woolly-tailed Marsh Fly and a Wasp-like Falsehorn.

Of course, lots of interesting plants as well, although that isn't my specialty. There were lots of Marsh Marigolds which I know from the pond at Innovation Place.

The bright color of this Red Raspberry Slime Mold caught my eye.

This Crown-tipped Coral Fungus wasn't as colorful, but interesting looking.

Lots of Water Horsetails:

I didn't realize at first that these odd looking flowers belonged to the pitcher plants. I read recently that pitcher plants trap quite a few salamanders.

I even spotted some Labrador Tea, which I didn't realize was a kind of rhododendron. Who would have thought that Saskatchewan had rhododendrons. (Sorry, not a great photo.)

A couple more bog plants - Bogbean and Bog Wintergreen:

We see lots of Prairie Lilies in gardens, but it was nice to see some wild ones:

Last but not least, a couple of bigger animals:

Once again, all of these were taken with the Olympus EM-1 with the 12-200 lens. I love the small size and versatility of this combination.

See all 49 photos in this album