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A mated pair of red-necked grebes building up their nest; notice the egg on the left. I had the good fortune to come across a mated pair of red-necked grebes that were attending to their nest with a single egg.  They were stacking reeds on and around it to build it in height and size.  You can see the farthest right bird with a reed.  The center bird had just placed one.  They would dive and root around for something and bring it up.  The reeds were all dead, probably from last year.  I shot a video of their activities; I am putting it in a compilation I am making on Red-necked grebes. The female will likely lay another egg within the next day or two, and then more after that, spaced out in a similar manner.  I have never seen more than 3 chicks with their parents, but clutch sizes may range up to nine eggs.  Both parents incubate the eggs and tend to the young. The eggs hatch asynchronously,  the young being spread apart in age.  The yo...

I photographed this using my Nikon Z6iii, using raw and denoising in post. Electronic noise in digital photography is affected by a great many parameters.  You probably know the main ones: ISO, sensor size, exposure time, noise-reduction filters, image resolution, and camera model.  The nature of the image also plays a part, as shadows are more likely to have noise associated with them than highlights.  I would normally not use such a high ISO to capture an image of a bird, especially one at a distance, but the lighting was terrible (heavy overcast and backlit), and I stopped down quite a bit. Admittedly, I could have gotten the same result at a lower ISO if I had shot at f/11, probably with a little less noise, but you can't argue with the end results.  The details are fairly convincing.  Part of the reason for the good results, apart from using a full-frame sensor, was that I employed a noise-reducing filter in Photoshop. The lighting improved a bit and allowe...

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...

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....

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...

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...