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There are quite a few different long-horned beetle species, but few of them have antennae as long as the one I found today.  This particular one looks similar to the Asian Longhorn beetle, an invasive insect from Japan that is chewing its way through the eastern US, but I don’t believe it to be that species.  It is similar to other longhorns I have photographed but this one has white markings on its elytra (wing covers).  I think it may belong to the flat-faced long-horned beetles; there is one in one of my many field guides that seems similar to it.  This would be the white-spotted sawyer.  The antennae of these beetles can be three times as long as the body, which applies to the ones I found.  The males have the longest antennae. There was one remarkable aspect to the beetle.   There were quite a few eggs laid on its pronotum.   You can see them in the right image; just behind the head there is a rough, reddish patch.   On closer inspecti...

American badger seen in Waterton National Park on June 29, 2025.  It was a welcome site, although I was not expecting it.  We were visiting the Buffalo paddock at Waterton National Park yesterday and my wife called out, “What are those?”  My eye caught two burly grayish and very low to the ground mammals scurrying to my left.  “Badgers.”, I said.  Two of them.  And they were making a B-line for their den. Badgers have quite a wide range over North America, but their populations vary radically where there are only a few hundred known to be left in Ontario and they are doing slightly better in British Columbia.   In the prairies it is a different story in that they are doing well and not considered endangered.   The ones I photographed yesterday were in a protected area in western Alberta. Badgers are considered fossorial carnivores, which is another way of saying they eat things that dig in the dirt.   This mostly includes rodents such as ...

Waterton National Park - Buffalo Paddock - Photographed by me this morning (June 29, 2025). You've heard the term buffalo and bison used somewhat interchangeably.  Or maybe you have heard that buffalo is singular and bison plural.  Of course, then there is the idea that bison is both singular and plural (like moose or sheep) and refers to North American Bovidea while buffalo is for Old World ones.  Which is it? Well, it turns out that the last of the three possibilities is the correct one.  Bison are North American bovids and are not naturally occurring elsewhere in the world.  Buffalo are bovids found in Asia and Africa and include water buffalo, cape buffalo, swamp buffalo, and an impressive number of others.  Bison include two living species, the plains bison (above) and the wood bison.  There are other members of the bison family recorded in paleontology, such as the ancient bison, which is substantially bigger than any living member. We visited th...

Above:  Rainbow I photographed today while visiting Waterton National Park - no polarizer used. Below:  The same rainbow, but the polarizer took the polarized light away, making it almost vanish.   We have been at Waterton now for 4 days and have one day left.  I like to get moving early in the morning because the light is usually better and there are less people about to get in the way.  We were heading to Red Rock Canyon to photograph the gorge when a rainbow appeared ahead of us.  It was a pretty good one and I pulled over right away to photograph it. I have shot numerous rainbows, but have never had a polarizer with me and I used it for the second photo.  The rainbow magically disappeared, or nearly, and only a trace of it was left.  This, of course, is something you don't want to do when photographing one, but I was curious what the result would be. It turns out that rainbows are caused by polarized light.  In order to have a rainbow you...

Bear cub looking at a group of us watching safely from a bridge. Yesterday we toured through Waterton National Park and saw five or six brown bears.  I managed to get photos of four of them.  This is one of my favourite shots - I was a long way away and the image is heavily cropped.  The cub, probably starting its second year, was with its mother and a sibling.  I have another photo below. Bear cub and mother.  The second cub is not far away. If you click on the photos, you will see a much larger version - they are posted as high-definition.  I have a half dozen shots that I really like.  Some of them I can make nice prints of. I dedicate these photos to Nancy Marshall.  I watched her memorial today and am very saddened at her passing.  I think she would have liked these. Thanks for reading. Eric Svendsen      www.ericspix.com

Lace bug on the underside of a leaf.  The black spots are excretions. This is the second time I have seen lace bugs.  Lace bugs - almost an oxymoron - these strange little creatures are true bugs (Hemiptera) and not aphids (Aphididea).  However, like aphids, they feed on the juices of plants through leaves.  They typically can be found on the underside of leaves, leaf discolouration may be one of the signs that they are present. The dark spots on the above image are the insect's droppings.  Areas where the creature has fed usually produces stippling - small white or yellow spots discolouring the surface of the leaf.  A light infestation usually is of no importance, but a large infestation can weaken a plant and cause premature leaf drop.  One way to get rid of them is to use a strong spray of water - possibly from a pressure water set to its widest setting and set back far enough from the plant not to tear leaves off. They are very small - The above sh...