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Copper underwing caterpillar - 6 true legs and a bunch of false ones.

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You can see the caterpillar's true legs at the front (left) and its prolegs (mid and rear). While walking one of the trails between bridges along the North Saskatchewan River in Edmonton, I happened to see an interesting caterpillar.  It was unusual in that there was a noticeable hump at its back end (to the right in the image).  This is a defining characteristic of the Copper underwing caterpillar, which will become a moth after it undergoes pupation. I got an excellent side image of the beast, one that clearly shows all of its legs along the left side.  Caterpillars all have six proper or true legs and a number of false ones, often called prolegs.  The true legs are typical arthropod legs formed with joints (arthropod means joint-footed).  The false legs function through fluid movement (hydrodynamically) and have no joints as such.  Also, the true legs develop into the legs found on the adult of the species while the prolegs disappear completely. The last...
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Ruddy ducks - I always enjoy watching the male's courting display.

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Male ruddy duck, shot with Nikon Z6iii, 500 mm PF lens, FTZ adapter. When you see a duck, you expect certain behaviours.  Swimming, dabbling, perhaps diving.  But I still remember the first time I saw a male Ruddy duck do this odd thing with its head and bill.  It was like the poor bird was having a seizure.  Only it did it repeatedly.  I've seen seizures before, and none of them looked anything like that. Short video of a Ruddy Duck in mating display. It turns out I was witnessing my very first mating display of the male Ruddy duck.  I took a short video the other day (above) where you can see the display.  However, I found a much better one on YouTube that you can see here . Sometimes called the bubble display, there is a particular method which the duck uses to create the foam forming in front of its breast.  The bird inflates its neck and proceeds to beat its bill against the inflated organ.  As it does, short-lived bubbles start to form....
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There are a lot of sparrow species in Western Canada

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I photographed these sparrows this year (except for the Lincoln's sparrow). Small brownish birds are often characterized as sparrows, and while that may be true, the sheer number of sparrow species is overwhelming.  There are about 25 species of sparrow that call Canada home on a regular basis.  Some, such as the house sparrow, are not native to the continent, nor do they belong to the same family of birds.  Then there are the sparrows that do not have the word "sparrow" in their names.  These include species such as juncos and towhees.  I have photographed both dark-eyed juncos and spotted towhees. I have also photographed white-crowned sparrows, black-throated sparrows, and golden-crowned sparrows.  I have never seen white-throated sparrows, although they are relatively common.  Sparrow species I have never seen include the grasshopper sparrow, Harris' sparrow, Baird's sparrow, and almost a dozen more.   My point in these thoughts is that i...
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What to do when children (or adults) are afraid of insects.

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I caught an eyed sphinx moth and saved it for our granddaughter, Nora, who is afraid of bugs. Most fears are based not on concrete risk or horrifying experience, but rather on an unsubstantiated and unfounded belief.  That belief may be the risk of being hurt, bitten, or harmed in some way, but it can be said that it is all based in fear of the unknown.  I have seen serious fears, phobias, develop because of childhood traumatic experiences, and those can be hard to overcome.  But where there is fear of the unknown, it is reasonable to introduce the subject to them in a welcome and comforting way. I understand this to some extent based on a personal experience when I was in primary school.  I backed into a wall and ended up being covered by hundreds of baby spiders.  It freaked me right out; I remember it vividly to this day.  Walking into a spider's web causes me to do what my wife calls "The Spider Dance", where I throw my arms and body wildly around in co...
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Doing macro from a distance - my Z6iii, 180-600 lens, and TC1.4

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Bumblebee I photographed today from 15 feet away using my Z6iii system. I was experimenting today with my new system, a Nikon Z6iii, the 180-600 mm zoom, and Nikon's Ztc1.4 (the 1.4x teleconverter made for the Z system).  The problem with teleconverters is that they cause a loss of light (1 stop at 1.4x) and reduce the image quality (more glass means more distortion).  I have had good success with my 500 mm PF prime and F series 1.4tc (iii), but would the same be true with a zoom lens which typically produces poorer images than a prime does? I usually use my D500 with the 500 mm PF lens and TC which gives me a relative focal length of 1050 mm.  The Z6iii is full-frame, so there is no crop factor.  The 1.4 TC gives the system a focal length of 840 mm.  The D500 has modest noise issues at high ISOs, while the Z6iii is superb.  The fact that the system's internal VR has 8 stops of motion compensation as compared to the 500 mm PF at 4 stops means that I can sho...
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Leucistic red-necked grebe or coming into summer moult?

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Summer plumage grebes photographed at Lake Wabamun, Alberta.   Leucism is rare in birds.  Robins seem to have the highest rate of this pigmentation predicament, somewhere above 1% of the population (one study showed leucism in 8.2% of American robins, but that must have been in a very localized area, as I have seen it only occasionally, and the numbers are much less than 1 in 12 birds).  Bird populations, on average, rank at around 1 in 30,000 birds, which is just over 0.003%.  That number seems a little low, but Google knows better than I. What surprised me was seeing a red-necked grebe with obvious pigmentation issues.  Now, it's possible that the bird was still shedding its winter feathers in favour of its breeding plumage, but I photographed a red-necked grebe in Texas in its winter attire, and those feathers were gray.  Also, the neck feathers were completely normal, suggesting that it had already moulted. If we were to go with Google's 1 in 30,00...
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Foster's tern - A plunge-diving expert

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Main - Foster's tern flying.  Top Left:  Plunge diving.  Bottom Left:  Coming away with a fish. While exploring the shoreline of Lake Wabamun, Alberta, I came across an awesome sight.  Terns were using the windy conditions to hover while searching for fish.  Then, in a decisive moment, a bird would plunge headlong into the water, submerge completely, and come up with a fish.  Not every time, mind you, but I did manage to photograph one successful individual. I was using my new Nikon Z6iii and 180-600 mm zoom lens.  I had the subject selection set to bird mode (yes, that's a thing!), with continuous focusing and 3D image tracking engaged.  Photographing them while flying parallel to the shoreline wasn't difficult, but trying to keep up with them when they were diving was very challenging.  I took about thirty photos all together.  I thought I might return to take some more the next day, but this was the only day they were present....
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