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What to do when children (or adults) are afraid of insects.

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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...
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Doing macro from a distance - my Z6iii, 180-600 lens, and TC1.4

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Bumblebee I photographed today from 15 feet away using my Z6iii system. I was experimenting today with my new system, a Nikon Z6iii, the 180-600 mm zoom, and Nikon's Ztc1.4 (the 1.4x teleconverter made for the Z system).  The problem with teleconverters is that they cause a loss of light (1 stop at 1.4x) and reduce the image quality (more glass means more distortion).  I have had good success with my 500 mm PF prime and F series 1.4tc (iii), but would the same be true with a zoom lens which typically produces poorer images than a prime does? I usually use my D500 with the 500 mm PF lens and TC which gives me a relative focal length of 1050 mm.  The Z6iii is full-frame, so there is no crop factor.  The 1.4 TC gives the system a focal length of 840 mm.  The D500 has modest noise issues at high ISOs, while the Z6iii is superb.  The fact that the system's internal VR has 8 stops of motion compensation as compared to the 500 mm PF at 4 stops means that I can sho...
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Leucistic red-necked grebe or coming into summer moult?

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Summer plumage grebes photographed at Lake Wabamun, Alberta.   Leucism is rare in birds.  Robins seem to have the highest rate of this pigmentation predicament, somewhere above 1% of the population (one study showed leucism in 8.2% of American robins, but that must have been in a very localized area, as I have seen it only occasionally, and the numbers are much less than 1 in 12 birds).  Bird populations, on average, rank at around 1 in 30,000 birds, which is just over 0.003%.  That number seems a little low, but Google knows better than I. What surprised me was seeing a red-necked grebe with obvious pigmentation issues.  Now, it's possible that the bird was still shedding its winter feathers in favour of its breeding plumage, but I photographed a red-necked grebe in Texas in its winter attire, and those feathers were gray.  Also, the neck feathers were completely normal, suggesting that it had already moulted. If we were to go with Google's 1 in 30,00...
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Foster's tern - A plunge-diving expert

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Main - Foster's tern flying.  Top Left:  Plunge diving.  Bottom Left:  Coming away with a fish. While exploring the shoreline of Lake Wabamun, Alberta, I came across an awesome sight.  Terns were using the windy conditions to hover while searching for fish.  Then, in a decisive moment, a bird would plunge headlong into the water, submerge completely, and come up with a fish.  Not every time, mind you, but I did manage to photograph one successful individual. I was using my new Nikon Z6iii and 180-600 mm zoom lens.  I had the subject selection set to bird mode (yes, that's a thing!), with continuous focusing and 3D image tracking engaged.  Photographing them while flying parallel to the shoreline wasn't difficult, but trying to keep up with them when they were diving was very challenging.  I took about thirty photos all together.  I thought I might return to take some more the next day, but this was the only day they were present....
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Bonaparte's Gulls - different from Franklin's Gulls

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Bonaparte's gulls have black beaks and more of the head is dark on the adults. I have always been uncertain when seeing a black-headed gull as to whether it is a Franklin's or Bonaparte's gull.  One of the key differentiators is beak colour.  Both 1st and 2nd year Bonaparte's gulls have black bills, while Franklin's gulls have reddish bills.  There are other differences as well, such as the white crescent around the eyes in the Franklin's, which is absent or relatively minor in Bonaparte's.  Franklin's gulls also have red legs that are darker than Bonaparte's. That's the thing about bird identification.  It comes down to specifics.  There is general information, such as type of bird (heron vs chickadee, for example), and then there is specific information that allows you to narrow down identification further.  I have written about my dislike of identifying gulls in the past ( click here to see what I mean ), so I won't go into my rant on the ...
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Hairy woodpecker nest - both adults involved in caring for chicks

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Male Hairy woodpecker (left) and female with chick (right).  Lake Wabamun Provincial Park. Every once in a while, I come across a woodpecker nest with young birds in it.  This year it happens to be the nest of a Hairy woodpecker.  Both male and female parents have been sharing the task of feeding. I discovered the nest because of the frequent calls of the chicks.  Their repetitive calls expressing, "Feed me, I'm hungry!" to the harried parents (perhaps that's where the name comes from?)  Its name actually comes from the long, hair-like feathers that run down the center of the bird's back.  It took me a while to find the nest; it wasn't until I saw a parent fly up to the hole that I located it.  Something that surprised me was that the hole was in the trunk of a live tree.  I often find woodpecker holes in dead trees, but few in living ones.  I don't know how many chicks are present. Hairy woodpeckers can be found throughout most of Canada and...
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False blister beetle - not so false, this thing will hurt you.

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Red-necked false blister beetle - Asclera excavata - photographed today in Clearwater, BC. A red-necked beetle?  I wonder why it wasn't in Alberta. This is a false blister beetle.  It doesn't belong to the true blister beetle family, such as the black oil blister beetle does, which I photographed a number of weeks ago.  However, it still has the potential to create blisters with the chemical cantharidin that it can release if disturbed.  The chemical gets released from its joints; it is actually contained in its blood.  The chemical doesn't affect the beetle, but is poisonous or fatal if ingested by many other creatures.   It turns out that cantharidin also affects many other insect species, so much in fact that it can be used as a pesticide.  The problem, of course, is that the chemical also affects humans adversely, and so its use is not widespread. I used to confuse false blister beetles with soldier beetles, you can see one on a blog I wrote ...
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