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Lacewing larva and adult (inset). The little green insect you occasionally see in your garden - a long body with even longer, finely netted wings, is the scourge of aphids.  The larva is the same, a vicious killing machine that dispatches plant parasites with rapidity, although it looks totally different from the adult form.  So it is with insects that undergo complete metamorphosis.  Butterflies, beetles, and flies all go from larva to pupa to adult in three distinct stages.   I can remember catching the larva and carrying it back to photograph it in my trailer.  Those jaws you see are not just for show, they have serious pinching power.  It started to dig into my hand and I had to desperately find another way to hold it.  The adults do not have the same tools for destruction that the larva have, but they too are consumers of aphids and their kin.   So, why the difference?  How is it that the larvae are basically conveyer belts of ...

Photos of birds I took while visiting Lac Bellevue in Alberta in 2016. Water.  Every creature needs it.  It also happens to be where a tremendous variety of life exhists, much of which is food for others higher up the food chain.  A lot of those carnivores happen to be terrestrial in nature, and many of those happen to be birds. The variety of birds in North America is amazing.  Around 1000 species call our continent home.  And many of them can be found in or near water.  This is one of the reasons I like to be near water when photographing nature.  I have photographed a lot of wildlife in places where surface water wasn't nearby, but I tend to have more success when around water bodies. What's in the water that is a food source for our avian friends?  Fish is the obvious answer, but insects and other invertebrates hold the key to the entire ecosystem.  Dowitchers probe the mud with their long bills looking for fossorial food.  Swallows ...

Leanne at Christmas 15 months ago against Hobbiton in New Zealand (2018), she was never there. I have to admit, the AI selection tool is remarkable.  It took me all of two minutes to put this together.  I used a photo from our New Zealand trip in 2018 as the background and found a photo I took of Leanne (my daughter) two Christmases ago and combined them.  Easy, effective, fast.   Doing it the old way would have involved a great deal of toil with careful selection, feathering, erasing, and other laborious editing to get the right image for merging with the background.  The great thing about this is that you can now take just about any background you like and the photo of anyone you choose and make it look like they were actually at that location. If you look carefully, there are a few things you may be able to pick at regarding the inset photo.  The lighting is different - which isn't too unusual when using fill flash outdoors, but there is just someth...

Morning cloak butterflies are fairly large and may have a four inch open wingspan.  When their wings are closed, the butterfly appears to be a bit of bark or perhaps a leaf.  When open, a unique and easily identifiable pattern emerges.  Morning cloaks may overwinter by hiding under leaf litter or in well-hidden crevices.  These are among the earliest butterflies to be seen; it was the first butterfly I have seen this year. The butterfly was flying around in my neighbour's back yard.  Although there are few flowers about (besides snowdrops, primroses, and such), they can obtain nutrients from sap and decaying matter.  They will also take nectar from flowers, although this is not their primary food source.  The butterflies will mate early and lay their eggs on quite a variety of plants including willow, elm, and poplar. The morning cloak is not considered a helpful insect in that it isn't much of a pollinator.  It can be harmful to small trees where...

Mirrorless cameras give you the option of including a live histogram in the viewfinder. Having grown up with SLR film cameras, I have gotten used to the optical viewfinders associated with them.  I have always liked the clear TTL view that one gets when putting your eye to the camera, regardless of whether the media is film or a digital sensor.  With the advent of live view, you could now see the world to be photographed with all the benefits of information displayed right on the screen.  Of course, this meant that you had to hold the camera away from your face, which limited stability and made it difficult to see in bright environments.  Then, along came mirrorless cameras. The EVF (electronic view finder) was nothing new to photography as compacts, bridge cameras, and video cameras all came with one.  This was a game changer for those wanting the information available on electronic viewing screens while still using the camera's eyepiece.  There was a seco...

Photographed on March 26, 2025, Mission Creek Park, Kelowna, about 9:00 AM I find that diurnal animals tend to be most active in the mornings.  I have seen this time and time again, but the thought was recently revisited last week.  I had gone for a walk with a friend early Wednesday morning along the Mission Creek walkway in Kelowna.  I saw and photographed half a dozen different species, the muskrat was the one that was least expected.  I had never seen one in that area before. On Friday, I did the same walk with another friend and saw very little.  I had my camera with me and only managed to photograph a now-defunct wasps' nest.  The time was around 1:00 PM.  The reason for the vastly different experiences is simple. Diurnal animals are not active at night and in the morning they are eager to find food.  Even though temperatures are a lot cooler, they will still go out to find sustenance.  The cooler temperatures also means that cold-blood...