All My Blogs

Northern checkerspot butterfly feeding on a strawberry flower in Clearwater, BC. A small, black and orange butterfly got my attention as we were walking along the hiking trails near Dutch Lake in Clearwater.  I followed it for 50 or 60 feet as it lit from flower to flower.  It finally stayed in one spot long enough for me to get a few good images of it. Most butterflies rest with their wings folded vertically; you can only see the bottom of the wings when they are resting.  This is common in moths.  Northern checkerspots can easily be confused with other butterfly species, namely rockslide and Hoffman's; in fact, they may interbreed.  So I am not 100% sure of the identification, but the pattern seems to be about right. The caterpillars are black and thorny - you can see one here .  I find it hard to find caterpillars as they hide so well, are often only present at certain times of the year, and have very specific plant hosts.  The northern checkerspot ...

Oregon tiger beetle - photographed at Kentucky /Alleyne Lake Park. There are about 120 species of tiger beetles in North America; most of them occur in western half. The one above is the Oregon tiger beetle; I have photographed this species before in northern Washington. Tiger beetles are active hunters with strong jaws that can inflict a painful bite if you pick one up. There is a close up of the jaws in the image below (left). Picking one up in itself is an unlikely proposition though as they see well, are very fast runners, and are excellent flyers. I have never caught one by hand. A good insect net would be highly recommended and handling them with care is well warranted. Oregon tiger beetle - Jaws that mean business (left).  A mating pair (right). The larvae are like the adults in that they are predaceous. The difference is that they are stationary. They dig holes that they live in and lie beneath the surface in wait for passing prey. When triggered, they extend out of the hol...

Eastern kingbird feeding a dragonfly to chicks, Creston, BC. If you know me at all or have followed my photography blogs, you know that a lot of the shooting I do involves birds.  My bird interest stems from my infatuation with all wildlife, but birds are by far the most common and varied group.  I have, for many years (30, at least), kept a camera system dedicated to shooting wildlife.  My equipment has ranged from film (F90x and 150-600 Tamron) through every digital camera system I have owned.  For the last number of years, it has been my reliable D500 and 500 mm PF prime.  However, I got a new system as of yesterday. It's the Nikon Z6iii (see image below), the Z180-600 mm zoom, and the Z1.4 TC (teleconverter).  I have yet to play with it seriously, but there are a few features that led me to making this purchase.  These include: faster frame rate (20 fps raw format) lower noise at high ISO (I shot at an ISO of 2000 and the noise was unnoticeable) fa...

The doors of one of the Guisachan cabins at Guisachan Heritage Park, Kelowna.   I have always liked black and white.  I learned a lot about photography when helping with the Red Deer College Newspaper the Bricklayer (a nod to my friend Alan, who had a big impact on me); we did all our stuff in black and white.  Tri-X film, darkrooms, and developer all became very familiar to me as I plied my "developing" skills.   The great thing about black and white is its ability to capture a wide range of tones.  The jpegs of today (the above photo is a jpeg) have the ability to represent about 8 stops of light. A way to get around that is to shoot in RAW, but not all raw files are the same.  Black and white negatives have tremendous latitude and can handle massive overexposure while tolerating a bit of underexposure.  They also have a much better dynamic range and can capture up to 15 stops of difference between highlights and shadows. The problem c...

Main:  Rocky Mountain cicada.  Inset:  Canadian (Somber?) cicada.  Both found in Kelowna, BC. There are about 20 species of cicada found in Canada; of those, only 3 are commonly found in the Kelowna area.  These include the Rocky Mountain cicada, the Canadian cicada, and Say's cicada.  Of the three of them, I have caught and photographed two.  I have never seen the Say's species.  You can read about them in my blogs here and here . Cicadas typically cause no significant damage to mature trees.  Newly planted trees and shrubs may be at risk, though, as they do extract a lot of low-nutrient sap from the roots' xylem.  The cicadas' bodies remove what valuable nutrients there are and excrete the rest.   Another interesting fact about cicadas is that they are not stationary throughout their larval development.  They move constantly, going lower in the soil for winter and moving from place to place for feeding.  They moult ...

Edible mushroom along the ORT near Winfield, BC. I am not a mushroom aficionado, although I admit to enjoying them in a good stir-fry or chilli.   And I have never picked mushrooms, other than to remove them from my lawn, let alone eat them.  Yet, I am strangely drawn to them; their characteristics play to the storytelling of magical worlds which we imagine in our minds and on paper.  I have often photographed mushrooms, mostly with the help of toys I keep around for just such a purpose.  See the photo below. A type of milkcap mushroom I photographed being worked on by a toy farm tractor. Shaggy mane mushrooms are very edible and delicious, although they have to be picked at the right time and used promptly.  They are also called shaggy ink cap mushrooms because, within hours of being picked, they will turn into a black oozing liquid that will likely cause a different reaction if ingested.  This is their natural fate anyway, although the process takes ...