Print of the Week

Another one from along the Trans Canada Trail on Vancouver Island. (Sorry, but I can't bring myself to use the re-branded "Great Trail" name.)

I have no idea what kind of flower this is - anyone know? I like the contrast of the yellow/green foliage and the colorful (fuschia?) flower. The depth of focus worked out well with the flower and a few leaves in focus with the background nicely out of focus.

White Pelican

Always good to see the pelicans on the river. This one let me get fairly close (I only had my little ZS100). Although most of the them hang around the weir, a few of them explore up and down the river. This one was on its own.

The bump on the beak is a sign that it's a breeding adult. Later in the summer it will be gone.

There have been lots of pelicans around. I counted 40 of them near the weir one day.

Garter Snakes

Hiking along the Trans Canada Trail on Vancouver Island, I spotted this medium sized (75cm / 2.5ft) garter snake in the grass and I managed to get some decent photographs of it.



A woman came along on a bicycle, and to her credit she slowed down to see what I was looking at. And amazingly, she didn't say "eek!" or "yuck". She stopped and said she'd like to get a photograph of it too. Thankfully I was pretty much finished photographing it so I backed away. Since she seemed to be a nature lover I thought she would approach carefully, but no, she jumped off her bike, pulled out her phone, and proceeded to shove it about six inches from the snake. Like any self respecting snake, it immediately disappeared into the bush. I think the woman was a bit put out - why did the snake let me photograph it, but not her? What she hadn't seen was my approach. As soon as I'd seen the snake (from about 10 feet away) I'd stopped and slowly backed up to 20 feet away, taken off my pack, got out my camera, and then approached very slowly, not making any sudden movements. I took photographs as I approached, knowing that it could "run" away at any time. I was lucky I had spotted it from a decent distance. Often you only see the movement as they leave the scene.



A bit later I was taking photographs of these Spring Azure butterflies puddling. (They're a brilliant blue on the top of their wings when they're flying but not very colorful on the ground.) I was so focused on the butterflies that it wasn't till I finished taking a whole series of photographs that I realized there was a small garter snake (about 30cm / 1ft long) just past them. I'd moved slowly approaching the butterflies so I hadn't spooked it. It had quite different coloring from the larger one. I don't think this was age related since I saw other larger ones with even darker coloring. Garter snakes have quite a range of coloring. There are even some totally black melanistic ones. (the opposite of albino)



These ones were close to the water where there was ample food in the form of tadpoles and frogs. (Garter snakes are excellent swimmers.) But I also saw some in quite dry areas where they probably eat insects and worms.

Print of the Week

I like to photograph bees visiting flowers but it can be challenging. The bees are always moving and when they do stop at a flower they often crawl inside. This was a lucky shot as the bee was hovering beside the flowers.

There was lots of light so the shutter speed was fast enough (1/1500) to freeze the movement. The blurred background (f6.3) makes the flower and bee stand out. This was shot at 600mm equivalent (with the Tamron 18-400). The versatility of this lens really suits my style of opportunistic photography.

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

The Art of Stillness

In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still. 

Pico Iyer, The Art of Stillness 

Photos of the Week

I'm so happy that spring is finally arriving and the cold sterile days of winter are past.

I've been watching eagerly for the arrival of the crocuses. I checked on Friday April 20 and couldn't find any signs. But by Sunday April 22 they had started to push up out of the ground.





The next day they were a bit higher. However, I was checking for them on my way to work, early morning, so the flowers weren't open. I imagine they were opening later in the warmth of the day.



The gophers are out and about. This one let me get a little closer than most.



Those claws look fit for digging.



The first of the perennials are emerging at Innovation Place. The gophers usually feed on these since they're some of the first greenery, but they don't seem to have found them yet.



And the first of the trees are starting to flower. This was in the morning:



And by the end of the day they had already progressed quite a bit: (same branch)



And here is two days later. It would be interesting to see a time-lapse of the process.



A group of Bohemian Waxwings has been hanging around Innovation Place, eating last years fruit:



and juniper berries:



and drinking from the puddles:



And my friends the jackrabbits (with dirty feet!)



This one was digging in the dirt and finding something to eat. It looks like some new dandelion leaves, perhaps it's the dandelion roots as well. Occasionally it would roll in the dirt as well, but I didn't catch any photos of this.





The other morning it was a pair of Canada Geese. This morning it was a pair of Mallards checking out the pond.



Last spring there was a big "outburst" of water boatmen in the pond. So this year I've been watching for them. Up to now I'd only seen the odd one, although still impressive that they can swim around amongst the ice. On my way home this day there were a few groups of them trying to get out of the water onto some floating bark. I'm not sure why since they usually stay in the water. Maybe to warm up in the sun?



They're quite attractive if you look at them close up. I've also been watching for the fishing spiders but haven't seen any yet.

And of course, the pelicans are a true sign of spring in Saskatoon.



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