By the River

Sunday morning I was walking instead of running, so I took my camera with me, just in case. I remember thinking I probably wouldn't take any photos because I've had enough of winter. I returned four hours later, with almost 800 photos. (Don't worry, I won't inflict too many on you!)

With the temperatures and the water level in the river going up and down, there is lots of interesting ice and icicles.



As the water washes in and out, it changes the color and light and reflections so I end up taking numerous shots of each subject (part of the reason for so many photos).



I got lucky on this next shot with the "shooting star" reflection in the river.



The weir was pretty with the early sun backlighting the fog against the blue shadows.



I can't decide if I like the fast shutter (freezing the motion) or slow shutter (smoothing) version of this wave. What do you think?





If any of these photos catch your eye, you might want to click on them to view them larger. There's interesting detail that you won't see in a small version. If you're on your phone ... never mind!

There were a few Canada Geese around. I always feel sorry for the ones that hang around all winter. (If I was a Canada Goose, I'd head south!) You can see the ice on the back of this one.



Sometimes I wonder why I keep taking Canada Goose photos. I already have a zillion of them. But I keep taking more, hoping, I guess, for something better, or at least different. Occasionally I get lucky. I just happened to have the camera ready when this one decided to stretch its wings. And the sun just happened to be in the right place. (I only had time for one quick shot and I didn't get lined up well so I almost cut off its head. I used Photoshop to extend the background, which it does amazingly well, and I don't feel too guilty about.)



The other common bird on the river in the winter are the Common Goldeneye. Although you often find them along the shore, as soon as you arrive, they turn tail and head away, making it hard to get anything but butt shots! This was one of the few that was a little more cooperative.



This one was either showing off, or just stretching its wings.



And just when you're about to take their photo, they dive!



There were also chickadees around, and flocks of sparrows, but not very cooperative. At one point I heard a bird call but couldn't see the bird. It sounded a bit like a crow or magpie, but also a bit different. Eventually I caught a glimpse and it was a blue jay. It didn't want its picture taken either.

I found a few reflections by the Prairie Lily boat.



And by the Broadway Bridge



And more ice on the way home.





It was a fun photo walk, with a good variety of results.

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Fiery Sunset

As I was leaving the office to head home after work, I noticed the colorful sunset. I suspected it wouldn't last so I hustled to get to the edge of Innovation Place where I'd get a clearer view. It was already fading, but still very colorful.



The railway bridge is often a good viewpoint so I ran down the hill and up the steps. Unfortunately, by the time I got there it was almost gone.

Foggy Winter Sunrise

With temperatures around -20c and the river still open, there was lots of fog yesterday morning on the way to work. The combination of fog and frost and sunrise color were too much to resist. I had a better camera with me but my iPhone was easier to stick in my pocket so that's what I used. I only had big mitts so I had to take photos quickly with bare hands, before they got too cold.

Bird Feeders

We've had quite a few birds at our bird feeders. Mostly chickadees and red-breasted nuthatches, but also the occasional downy woodpecker. And a few magpies crashing the party. I always enjoy watching the birds - one of the few active signs of life in our winters.

I went out to fill up the bird feeders the other day and the nuthatches calmly let me approach to within a few feet. I watched them for a few minutes and they seemed quite content to have me close so I went back inside and got my camera. Of course, when I came out with the camera they immediately flew away. I waited patiently but they didn't return while I stood there.

Similarly, they usually don't mind if I watch them through the window, but if I try to take photos through the window they often fly away. Unfortunately, even when they do stay put, it's hard to get good photos through dirty windows. Here are a couple of not very good shots.





There have been a few birds of another kind that I haven't identified for sure. They might be White-breasted Nuthatches.

Recent Photos

I've slowed down a little with picture taking lately, but of course I haven't stopped :-) Eye candy first. These flowers are a bit floppy and shapeless but I love the color and patterns.



These are one of the later blooming flowers in the Innovation Place gardens:



I like how these ones seem to explode from the center like fireworks:



The water hyacinths and water lilies are still blooming:







Most of the birds have finished producing offspring but I noticed this young sparrow begging from its parent. The juvenile is almost bigger than the parent! You can see it still has the bright yellow mouth that serves as a feeding target.



One lunch time three hawks flew over the garden chasing some pigeons. One of them gave up and landed in a tree by the pond. It turned out to be a Swainson's hawk. It was hard to get a clear line of sight through the branches but in some of the photos you can see it has a metal band on one leg and a red plastic band labeled 'XN' on the other.



I noticed a funnel web and saw there was a large spider in it. It was hard to get a good shot of it, especially since when I got close it retreated down the funnel. I think it might be a Funnel Weaver (aka Garden Spider).



This was one of my last sightings of pregnant looking fishing spiders for the season. All I've seen since then have been small ones - either juveniles or males.



The water drops on this web made an interesting pattern in the low morning sun.



Dragonflies nymphs are still emerging from the pond. Their transformation from underwater creature to flying machine is right up there with caterpillars to butterflies.



And the adults are busy mating. There were probably 20 of these pairs coupling in the air over the grass beside the pond. They moved too fast to catch in the air but occasionally they would set down on the grass for a few seconds.



Notice the two sexes have different coloring. I think the red one is the male.



There are also lots of these smaller damselflies around:



There was an event in the gardens and when they were done they dumped their ice. I usually only resort to ice photos in the dead of winter, but hey, it was shiny :-)



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Crab Spiders

Continuing on the bug theme, the other day I was walking by some flowers and I noticed a fly (or wasp?) on one of them. As I got closer it seemed odd that it wasn't moving. Usually flies don't sit still for very long. Finally I realized the fly was dead and in the grasp of a crab spider. It was quite hard to see the spider since its color matched the flower and it was hidden inside the flower. Here was what I initially saw:



And the closeup view:



I checked out the nearby flowers and found another fly of the same kind, also in the grasp of a similar crab spider.

The funny part is that I've been looking for crab spiders on and off all summer. I've looked in the kinds of places where I've seen them before but haven't found any. And now two in one day in one place.

I went back to the same flowers the next day and found one of the crab spiders still lurking in wait. But without the distraction of a meal it was a bit more skittish and moved around the flower when I got too close with the camera lens.



Then a few minutes later when I went to look at another, totally different kind of flower, there was another crab spider. This one was on a white flower, and correspondingly was almost white. Crab spiders can change color to match their surroundings, a useful skill for an ambush predator.



Then when I got home and looked at my photos on the computer, I found crab spiders in two more of my flower photos! Have I been blind all summer or have they really just suddenly appeared everywhere?

This was just meant to be a photo of the backlit flower. Can you spot the crab spider?



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Paper Wasps

Sitting outside on our patio, these yellow and black wasps are regular visitors. They are a little annoying buzzing around, and make you a little nervous about being bitten. I hadn't really paid attention to what they were up to until recently, when I realized the regular visits were to collect wood fiber from our weathered table. They use the fiber to build their gray paper like nests.

Next time I took my coffee outside I brought a camera. Eventually I had a visitor. They become quite occupied once they start harvesting which allowed me to take lots of photos. I took stills and video with my new Sony RX10m3 and my Nikon 7200 + macro lens. Both did a reasonable job. Up close the wasps are actually quite attractive with their glossy black and bright yellow.



Once you watch them closely you notice that they gradually back up as they harvest, leaving a differently color stripe on the wood, about an 1/8 of an inch wide and 3/4 of an inch long. Then I realized the whole table top was marked up this way!

I couldn't really tell where the fiber was going. Were they swallowing it to later regurgitate? Once I looked at the photos and video on the computer I could see they were just collecting a ball of fiber that they then carried away. It's hard to see because they collect it under their body. Here's a shot that shows it:



You can also see it in the last clip of this video.

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Photos of the Week

A last shot of the house wren that nested in our birdhouse. At this point she was still busy feeding the young ones. The next day they were all gone. It amazes me that one day the young are in the nest being fed, and the next they're out on their own. (Although some birds continue to feed the juveniles even after they've left the nest.) I was hoping to see the young ones but I haven't seen a single house wren since they left.

I'm pretty sure this is another juvenile waiting to be fed. There were three of them hopping around in the bush. You can see the remnants of their bright yellow mouth used to attract the parent's feeding.



I think this was one of the parents. It was also hopping around in the bush making it difficult to get a decent photograph, especially against the bright sky. It looks like it managed to catch a dragonfly (a good trick!) My standing there seemed to make it too nervous to feed its offspring so I moved on.



This cute little chipmunk seemed to be quite curious about the world.



Whereas this gopher (Richardson's ground squirrel) seemed more annoyed that I was invading his territory and was giving its high pitched alarm call.



The rabbits at Innovation Place are becoming so common and tame that it's no longer much of a challenge to photograph them. This one let me get close enough for a good portrait.



I'm still enjoying the water lilies on the pond.





Some of them almost remind me of exotic sea anemones.



The water hyacinths are also starting to bloom.



Off the water, the real lilies are still delightful, especially with a little late afternoon backlight and a nice out of focus green background.



I think these next tiny flowers are one of the native ones we've planted in our garden but I'm afraid I don't remember what they are. They're pretty, even without a name :-)



There are lots of dragonflies around the pond. Not quite so many Bluet damselflies as before, but now a lot of these, which I think are Cherry-faced Meadowhawks.



One morning I rode my bike to work instead of walking and noticed a group of pelicans on a gravel bar. I left my bike in the tall grass and bushwhacked down the bank to where I could get an angle on them. The pelicans can be skittish so I tried to move slowly and stay in the bushes. I just had my little ZS100 (250mm lens) but they let me get close enough. I eventually was out in the open quite near them, but they didn't seem concerned, perhaps because I'd approached slowly enough. Or maybe they were just too busy preening :-)



After taking a bunch of photos, and with the pelicans still ignoring me, it occurred to me to take some video (which I don't often do). Although they weren't doing much, it was fun to watch see them preen and two of them turn their heads around to tuck their long bills under their wings to sleep.

I was walking by some long grass and out of the corner of my eye I noticed something on one of the blades of grass. Usually it's nothing, but you never know, so I checked it out and found it was an interesting looking spider eating a small moth. (There was also some sort of cocoon above it which I'm not sure was related to the spider.)



I enjoy searching for the fishing spiders whenever I go by the pond. Sometimes they're easy to spot, other times they are quite well hidden. I think these are six spotted fishing spiders, but that refers to spots on their underside, not the more numerous ones on their back.



Here's a female carrying its egg sac.



Since I've been observing the fishing spiders for the last few years, I've only ever spotted the nursery webs half hidden on the concrete wall of the pond. But in the last week I've spotted four of them built more or less in the open on the reeds. Maybe I've just never noticed them there before, but they seem so obvious I'm not sure how I'd miss them.



You can see the empty egg sac at the bottom of the photo. All the little tan spots are baby spiders. It's easy to see how the nursery web protects them, but I wonder what they eat at this stage? Maybe each other? Or nothing? Maybe they're just letting their skin dry out and harden ready for the outside world. They don't seem to stay in the web long, a day or two later and it will be abandoned. I never spot the babies outside the nursery - they're too small. (They are around though - looking at one of my photos of a large female, when I zoomed in on the computer I could see a tiny baby nearby.) I rarely even see the males which are about 1/3 the size of the females. I wonder if the females are out sunning (and therefore I see them) because the warmth helps the development of their eggs.

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