Colorful Bird

Not a great photo, but a colorful bird at Innovation Place. Maybe a Baltimore Oriole?

Eye Candy

It's easy to get seduced by the flowers in the spring. (I know, it's almost June, but this is Saskatchewan.)



Innovation Place has lots of flowering trees to enjoy.



And the bees enjoy them too. I like the big fat bumble bees, although I wish they were more cooperative subjects!





The apple trees have plain white flowers, but the buds have a nice pink tinge.



Some of the flowering plants are also starting.



Not quite as colorful, but just as appreciated are the emerging leaves on the trees.

Spring Spiders

The weather is finally warming up, the leaves are coming out on the trees, and I'm happy to see the fishing spiders are back in force on the Innovation Place pond. They can be hard to spot at first. I crouch down beside the water and search. Nothing, nothing, nothing, ... oh wait, there's one. And next thing you know you've spotted half a dozen within a span of a few feet.





As I was sitting eating my lunch by the pond, something jumped onto me, which was apt because it turned out to be a jumping spider. I'm not sure what it was up to. It kept jumping from one part of me to another, to the chair, and back. It was only about 1/4" long and I only had my little camera so this is the best photo I managed. (on the strap of my sandal) It was a cute little guy.

Spring flowers

It's a good time of year to walk to work.





Even the Canada Geese come to visit Innovation Place in the spring.

A few photos

I haven't been taking a lot of photos lately, but here are a few.

It's always nice to see the leaves emerge on the trees and bushes.



A lot of the trees are still quite bare though.



Mourning Cloak and Cabbage White butterflies are also good signs of spring. Mourning Cloaks overwinter as adults, and this one is looking a bit ragged. It's amazing that they can survive our winters. Do they freeze solid or do they have enough "antifreeze" in them?

Belize Diving misc.

Finally, the last batch of diving photos from Belize.

We saw spotted eagle rays a few times. They are such graceful animals as they "fly" through the water. Faces only a mother could love, though :-)





Southern stingrays were more common. I think the fish follow them in hopes of getting food that they stir up from the sand.



Despite local lobster fishing, there were still quite a few around. They are the most bizarre creatures when you look at them close up.



The Channel clinging crabs were a little harder to find. They got quite large, maybe 8 inches across the body and an arm/claw span of 2 feet or so.



We always like to look inside the sponges. Usually there's nothing, but occasionally you get a surprise, like this Channel clinging crab in a big barrel sponge:



Usually all you see of the moray eels is their heads sticking out of holes. But occasionally they are out swimming around (hunting?) like this one.



It seemed curious and started swimming towards me. At first I was happy to get a closer view, but it kept coming closer and closer. I held my camera out in front of me and it bumped right into the lens! Perhaps it could see its reflection? After that it took off. They seldom attack people but they have an impressive mouthful of teeth. As well as the usual green moray eels we also saw quite a few spotted. They were usually smaller.



There weren't a lot of sharks around. We saw a few nurse and reef sharks. A lot of divers want to see sharks more than anything else. I can't quite understand it. They're just big fish, and not very colorful!



My favorites are the sea turtles. The first few days we didn't see any, and I was a bit disappointed, but our luck changed and we saw quite a few in the end. Including a few curious ones that didn't just disappear into the distance.







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Crocuses and more

I hadn't been back to see the crocuses since they were first emerging, so I grabbed a coffee and my macro lens and went to have a look. I sat and drank my coffee and admired the flowers. It seemed like a good crop this year, although it depends so much on when you visit - both time of year and time of day.



I've taken lots of crocus photos over the years, so I hesitate a bit to take any more. But there's always a new angle to explore.



With the macro lens on, I was mostly shooting closeups of individual flowers.



But there were a few nice groups as well.



I love how furry they are. (It helps insulate and conserve moisture.)



The bees were also loving the first flowers of spring. They were mostly trying to get to the base of the flowers, but in the process they were getting covered in pollen, and no doubt spreading it around.



There were at least two different kinds. One with a red abdomen, and one with stripes.



Most of the time they didn't sit still and you just had to shoot lots and hope to catch them. But occasionally one posed for its portrait.



It was windy, which made photography a little tricky, but it was also a bright afternoon which helped (by allowing fast shutter speeds).

I was trying to photograph a patch of crocuses when something else showed up in the frame - a 13-lined ground squirrel. I don't see them as often as the Richardson's.



Despite their bold stripes, they blend in well with the grass.



Of course, there were regular "gophers" (Richardson's ground squirrel) too.





There was also a tiny (1/4 inch) white flower. Thanks to Meghan Michelson, I think it's moss phlox.



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Sparkle

There was heavy fog when I got up this morning, but it had cleared by the time I was walking to work. When I reached the park, the trees were covered in water drops, sparkling in the sun. I'm not sure if it was just from the fog or if it had rained a bit in the night. Regardless, I was captivated by it and had to pull out my camera and see if I could capture a little taste of it.



I experimented with what was in focus and what wasn't, trying to get the feel of how it looked to me in real life.





When I reached the railway bridge the trees on the far side were backlit by the sun. When I reached them I found they were covered in a thin layer of melting ice, so maybe there was some freezing rain.









As I was taking photos I ran into my retired neighbor who goes out walking rain or shine. As the years go by he gets slower, but don't we all. He always has a cheerful hello for whoever he meets.



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