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A vesper sparrow on a fence post near our campsite in Leduc, Alberta. Although the breeding range of the vesper sparrow is a wide swath across the North American continent, I have only ever seen the species a few times, and only in Alberta.  Its range extends through grasslands and fields where it feeds on grass seeds (among other seeds) and insects.   Vesper sparrows' main field mark for identification is the brown shoulder patch you can see in the photograph I took the other day.  The word "vespers" denotes singing in the evening, often being related to church services with an emphasis on prayer and worship.  Vesper sparrows tend to sing at twilight, which is where the name originated.   Identifying a vesper sparrow in the field may be difficult.  Every vesper sparrow I have ever seen had to be identified after I took the photo, and only when I had time to look at it closely on a monitor.  The photo below shows a vesper sparrow with the tel...

Left:  A tachinid fly is unaware of the nearby spider.  Right:  A flower crab spider. I think the above scene illustrates the situations we get ourselves into from time to time, when we are completely unaware of the danger around us.  Or perhaps we are aware, but are so used to the fact that we no longer heed it.  I think both are true. In the first instance, it is impossible to know what lurks in the mind of our fellow man.  Or, while walking along a trail, what creatures may be nearby without our knowledge.  In the second instance, driving down the highway poses tremendous risk.  Yet we do it without much attention to the fact that tons of metal are flying past us mere feet away.  The truth is that the Spectre of Death is just around the corner.  Yet, life goes on.  It has to; we have little choice. In the animal kingdom, survival is achieved through a myriad of means.  It comes down to being more about the species rather tha...

My dad and Roberta.  She was his soulmate.  He was her rock. My dad taught me what it means to be faithful and stoic in difficult times.  His first marriage, to my mom, was challenging due to her alcoholism and emotional burdens.  Despite the serious hardships he suffered, he stood the course.  She stopped drinking in 1980 and passed away 17 years later.  She died, as my dad would say, a friend to him. He met and married his second wife a few years later.  Unfortunately, she developed Alzheimer's three years later and passed away after 6 years of marriage to my dad.  She was the love he never knew; it was obvious she healed much of the torment he felt.  Then came Roberta. If there was ever a couple who were meant to be together, it was Roberta and my dad.  Like-minded, with a love of exploration, they travelled the country together.  I took the above photo of them while we were camping together in Oregon.  I shot the inset when...

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...