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Nobody here but us dandelions - American goldfinch

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Does the bright yellow colour of goldfinch males make them easier prey for predators? The phrase "Sticking out like a sore thumb" could be applied to male goldfinches.  Not only are they a bright dandelion yellow, but they have dark, black contrasting feathers that make them stand out even more.  What evolutionary pressures would shape such a creature? Birds of prey and predatory mammals such as cats have colour vision and sharp eyes that pick up not only the colour of the male goldfinch birds but their strong contrast too.  Female goldfinches (see below) have more subdued yellows, less black, and do not have a stark black cap.  Of the two birds, the male is more likely to be seen and hunted.  This gives the female a better chance at incubating the eggs and rearing the young. Male (left) and female (right) American goldfinches. The bright yellow of the male also acts as a signal to females of his fitness for breeding.  The bright yellow colour comes from pi...
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Western conifer seed bug - expect to see them this fall.

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 Left:  Western conifer seed bug on the siding of my house in Kelowna. Right:  Box elder bug. The western conifer seed bug is a member of the leaf-footed bugs. Leaf-footed bugs can be identified by the widened tibia seen on their hind legs.  It is common to find them around your home in the fall as they will gather by the hundreds looking for a warm place to overwinter.  Another insect that you may find with a similar MO is the box elder bug.   Western conifer seed bugs are mild pests to Douglas fir trees, although they may also feed on other conifers such as pine, hemlock, and spruce.  They do not eat cedars.  The bugs are specifically interested in the young cones and their developing seeds, although they will also feed on the needles and flowers of conifer trees.   I commonly find both species of insects at home.  They start to arrive in the fall.  It is not uncommon to find several of them each day scampering about the...
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Comparing goldeneyes - Barrows vs Common.

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Top:  Common goldeneye ducks.        Bottom:  Barrow's goldeneye ducks. I have taken the above images from photos I have shot over the years, some taken this year (the female common goldeneye) and some taken years ago (the male common goldeneye).  I used to wonder what I was going to do with the mass of photos I have collected; it seems now that they have been useful in my blogs. There are only two species of goldeneye ducks.  Common goldeneyes are found throughout North America and Eurasia.  In the Western Hemisphere, they breed in Canada and reside throughout most of the US and some of Mexico in the winter.  They also winter in parts of southern Canada; I have seen them overwinter here in Kelowna.  Barrow's goldeneye, on the other hand, has a very narrow range along the western coast of North America with some populations around the St. Lawrence River.  Barrow's goldeneyes overwinter along the Pacific coast and parts of south...
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American coot eating sidewalk worms.

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I photographed this in Leduc, Alberta, after a day of heavy rain. At the ripe old age of 66, I can say that I have seen some odd things in my time.  But I was unprepared for the truly strange sight of a coot walking along a flooded sidewalk, eating drowning worms as it went. It has been a wet summer in Alberta this year.  Rain, thunderstorms, tornadoes, and hail the size of baseballs have plagued the province.  And as each of us knows, worms come out of the soil when it gets saturated in order to breathe.  That's because an earthworm gets its oxygen directly through the skin, and water tends not to hold much oxygen.   And so, as I was walking around the Leduc reservoir, I noted a plethora of earthworms.  They were on the sidewalk, they were on the lawn, in dirt, underfoot, and in puddles.  There was a group of boys, armed with a tin can and fishing gear, collecting the largest ones they could find. The excitement in their raised voices was proport...
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Freshwater environments support terrestrial ecosystems.

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Producers (left) gain energy from the sun and fix it as living matter.  Herbivores eat plant matter and convert it to a source of food rich in protein and devoid of cellulose. Carnivores, many of them insects, consume creatures at a lower trophic level and  produce sizable larvae which, when adults, leave the aquatic environment and to on to feed many of the birds that inhabit the area for miles around the water. How aquatic ecosystems supply food to terrestrial species such as birds. They say diversity is the spice of life.  It turns out it is also necessary for a healthy ecosystem.  The number of living things, both in diversity and count, in freshwater is stunning.  Fill a glass jar with water from a healthy pond, and you will see what I mean.  And that's just the stuff you can see.  On the microscopic level, it's even more impressive. There are few creatures above the waterline that can benefit from this microfauna directly.  However, as the e...
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3D image tracking - the size of the bird in your viewfinder matters

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Black Tern, Red Deer, Alberta - the difference is how far the subject was away from the camera 3D image tracking is very handy when trying to photograph flying birds, although there are a lot of issues with it working well all the time.  Some of them I have already discussed in a previous blog .  While tracking black terns in Red Deer, I noticed a relationship between proximity to the camera, ability to get a focus lock, and the usability of any resulting image.   The further away your subject is, the easier it is to lock focus and track it.  The exception is when there is a lot of background clutter.  The greater distance makes the bird appear to travel slower, the same way that a plane can travel at 400 km/hr but seem to only crawl across the sky.  As the bird gets closer, it can dart across the field of view in no time at all.  Your motion of following the subject has to be that much faster so as to keep the subject somewhat centered.  So,...
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American Avocet - being different is not always bad.

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American Avocet at Slacks Slough in Red Deer, Alberta. I remember seeing my first avocet.  It was in Bonnyville, Alberta, and I was down at the beach.  It was a late afternoon in early summer.  Before me was a bird I had not seen before.  It had long legs, a long bill, a long neck, and was beautifully coloured.  Everything about it seemed wrong.  But it could do something other shorebirds could not. It could wade out into the water, deeper than most other shorebirds, and probe the mud with its long, upcurved bill.  The bill would plunge into the water, just to the point where the bird could still breathe.  The nares (nostrils) are located high up on the bill so that the avocet can continuously hunt for food without raising its head.  The long neck keeps the bill some distance from the feet so that potential prey are not alerted to its presence.  Its feet, equipped with long toes, prevent the bird from sinking into the mud.  The long...
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