Walkabout

Here's the last selection of photos from my recent walk around the neighborhood.

The hummingbirds are common but often it's hard to spot them. This one landed where I could see it, but only very briefly. Luckily I already had the telephoto lens on the camera.

This time of year the Silver-spotted Tiger Moth caterpillars are common. They feed on Douglas firs but they crawl around on the ground a lot for some reason. They're actually native for a change.

It's a wonderful treasure to have tide pools virtually right outside my door. I should spend more time exploring the abundance of life in them. The Victoria harbor isn't the cleanest, but we're towards the mouth of the harbor, and the tide going in and out keeps the pollution diluted.

The sea anemones are the most common and obvious. I think they're Aggregating Anemones. The white threads you can see at the bottom right below were also alive. They came out of holes in the sand, and were waving around, presumably catching some kind of food. I think they might be the tentacles of Spaghetti worms.

I'm not sure why this one was closing up. I like the green/yellow bubbly texture when they close up like this.

The barnacles were also feeding. I tried to catch them with their tentacles out, but you had to be quick. The one in the center has it's tentacles out. They sweep out to capture food. I realized afterwards I should have just shot some video. Barnacles are crustaceans, related to crabs and lobsters.

This crab was hiding between the barnacles. I actually didn't spot it until I was looking at the photos on the computer.

And there's lots of smaller stuff. I only spotted this tiny amphipod because it was moving.

Of course, where there's water there are ripples and reflections.

I like it when there's a lot of fine detail in the reflections like this - a result of the background and the shape of the ripples.

See all 45 photos in this batch

More Flowers

An assortment of flower photos from the neighborhood. 

These rhododendrons are right at the corner of our house where I can see them from my desk. They're wet from the sprinklers. These ones start out with a lot of color, but it gradually fades as the flowers open up.

Chestnut trees in blossom are an amazing display. Most are white like this, but there are some pink ones too.

There are so many flowers growing "wild" around here. Most of them probably aren't native. I use the PlantNet app to try to identify them, but it often struggles. It thinks this is Valerian.

This is common along the walkways, maybe Periwinkle?

I don't see these tiny (1/2 inch) flowers as often. Maybe Common Stork's Bill?

I think these are Bluebells, which are common here in the spring.

And the wild roses are blooming. There are multiple kinds here, this might be Nootka Rose.

Spiders

With the beautiful weather I couldn't resist a walk around the neighborhood with my camera. I didn't even make it out of our parking area before finding my first subjects - small spiders on the stucco wall of the garage. I spotted this small (~ 1/4 inch) Zebra Jumping Spider and took a few shots before realizing it was stalking a small moth. It slowly approached the moth and then when within range, jumped the final distance to capture the moth.

Notice the big forward looking pair of eyes, good for binocular vision for hunting.

I also spotted several of what I think are Running Crab Spiders (Philodromus), possibly Eurasian. The first black one is a male, and the other is a female.

Last but not least, I spotted this Cross Orbweaver on its web in the sunshine.

Curiously, all of these are introduced species. Why would they be more common than the native spiders? It's not surprising that they get carried between continents. But why are foreign ones common here? Why aren't Canadian spiders common in Europe, for example?

Photos of the Day

I looked up from my desk and saw a small hawk glide by and land on the light post. I watched him for a few seconds and debated whether I had time to get the binoculars. But it seemed to be settled so I thought I'd see if I could get my camera out and change lenses quick enough to catch him. Amazingly, it stayed put, even while I came out in the yard below it. The light was fading, but cameras and software can do a lot these days.

The iNaturalist Seek app only identified it as an Accipiter, either a Cooper's or a Sharp-shinned Hawk. Usually with a reasonably clear photo it's not hard to identify birds. But these two species are very similar, at least to a non-expert. I posted it on iNaturalist and it was soon id'ed as a Cooper's Hawk.

The last few mornings, when I looked out the kitchen window I could see a spider and web highlighted by the morning sun against the shaded bushes. I decided I'd better get a photo. Looking through the macro lens, all I could see was a blur. I'd triggered their defense mechanism of vibrating rapidly on their web, making it hard for a predator to see them. It soon settled down. I had to go and get my little led panel to even up the lighting between the bright sun on one side of it, and the dark shadow on the other side.

It looks like the large Cross Orbweavers we see in the fall, except this one was small, less than 1/4 inch. I posted it on iNaturalist as well, but there aren't as many spider experts as there are bird experts and so far no one has suggested an id.