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Tawny mining bee are important pollinators.

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Mining bees are important pollinators for spring flowers like the arrowleaf balsamroot plant. I have written blogs on mining bees recently (click here to see), so I won't be going into their life history, but rather on their importance to flowering plants, especially ones that bloom early in the spring.  Here in the Okanagan, the plants of economic importance are the fruit trees. Mining bees are considered "sloppy" pollinators.  While honey bees are better at collecting pollen (using pollen baskets on their legs), mining bees are better at moving pollen around between flowers.  This has the advantage of increasing the likelihood that a visit results in pollination.  Carpenter bees and mason bees are even better from what I have read, and these native bee groups have a significant impact on fruit success. Honey bees have the advantage of sheer numbers; a large hive may have 50,000 workers, which means that the insects can travel a large area and have numerous visits p...
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Using knowledge and experience to identify American Wigeons.

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American wigeon ducks (center and top).  Green-winged teal for comparison (bottom). There are birds that I can identify immediately (I nail robins every time), there are birds I don't know at all, and then there are birds I may be able to name if I have enough time (a year is usually enough).  And then there are birds that I mix up.  For me, I used to mix up American wigeons and green-winged teals. Although they look quite different, the reason was due to the green teardrop shape that starts at the eye and runs backward, curved to a point.  There are a hundred other differences, but that was the one that I seemed to focus on.  And therein lies the problem.  It's the similarities that allow you to group birds by type and the differences that allow you to tell them apart.  I had become accustomed to using a narrow band of criteria to aid in identification. This is where two things come into play.  Experience and knowledge.  Experience can only ...
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Western Painted Turtles: Watching a legacy die.

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Western pond turtle sunning itself on a log at the Mission Creek Park Ponds in Kelowna It was estimated that, at one point, 40% of all the birds across North America were passenger pigeons.  There were upwards of five billion of them.  That is five thousand-million birds.  When they migrated, a cloud of them could darken the sky for several days.  Then, in the mid 1800's, they were hunted, by the millions.  They became extinct in 1914.  It took only 60 years to do.  You can read about their decline here . Why bring up a story about passenger pigeons when I am writing about turtles?  Because in the early 1800's, no one would have thought that passenger pigeons would be gone in just over 100 years.  Yet, here we are, with so many other species, doing the exact same thing.  Removing habitat.  Building roads.  Pollution.  Allowing invasive species to compete.  And doing it all with money or popularity in mind.  And t...
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Mining bees - there are many species that coexist

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I photographed both species of mining bee on the same plant at the same time of day. Spring is my favourite time of year.  Not only because of the returning birds and the start of the nesting season, but also because it is a great time to find insects.  Winters in Canada are generally devoid of insect life, and the warmer temperatures and blooming flowers bring with them a great increase in arthropod activity. As we were exploring the upper section of Mission Creek Park in Kelowna, I found a sunny spot with a current bush loaded with a variety of insects.  Most of them were either the black one (left) or the tawny one (right), both members of the genus Andrena .  I wrote a blog recently on the tawny mining bee, which you can see here .  The fact that there were so many and that they were active mid-April is not surprising given their nature. I photographed both with my D500 Nikon camera and 500 mm PF telephoto lens.  I also used a 1.4x teleconverter, t...
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Stink bugs - The good, the bad, and they're all ugly.

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Predatory stink bug (left) vs herbivorous stink bug (right) "Ewww!  It's a stink bug." You may have heard that, or even uttered it.  But not all stink bugs are bad.  Besides omitting a foul odour, they have a reputation for being pests.  This is especially true for the brown marmorated stink bug (see my blog on it here ), an invasive species that can lay waste to vegetation.  Some, like the rough stink bug shown above on the left, are predators of other insects, usually the harmful ones. Another thing you can do to verify your suspicions is to examine the beak of the stink bug and compare it to its antennae.  Now, I wouldn't blame you if such a task gives you the willies and was to be avoided at all costs, but someone with a keen sense of adventure or the ability to hold a bug could do it.  The beak of an herbivorous stink bug is as narrow or narrower than its antennae, while predatory stink bugs have a beak at least twice as thick as their antennae....
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Milbert's tortiseshell - a nettle-eating caterpillar

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I photographed this Milbert's tortiseshell near the H2O center in Kelowna. At first, I thought it was a painted lady.  However, the colouring was not right, although similar.  This is the first Milbert's tortiseshell butterfly I have seen.  I did not get a very good photo of it;  It landed only for a moment and was gone again before I could get into a better position.  If you look closely, you can see that the image has been doctored.  I have the original image below; I erased the right wing and replaced it with a copy of the left one. You can see how my original image was edited to create the top image. The host plant for the caterpillars is stinging nettles.  I have always been impressed by the pain that one of these plants can impose on one who passes by a little too closely.  The pain is caused by formic acid, the same nasty chemical found in some stinging/biting ants.  The milbert's tortiseshell larvae have several defences against the t...
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Dilworth Mountain Park, Kelowna - The arrowleaf balsamroot flowers are blooming!

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The yellow arrowleaf balsamroot flowers will peak next week.  Now is the time to see them. I have written on the arrowleaf balsamroot plant before ( click here ).  Also known as Okanagan sunflowers, these plants have just started to bloom.  One of the best views of them that I have found so far is from atop Dilworth Mountain at the park just above the local golf course.  They dot the plateau but are especially picturesque at the far end, away from the parking lot. I am going back again next week.  The bulk of them should be on full display.  I shot the pictures with my Z7ii Nikon camera, but I will bring a tripod with me.  I used hyperfocal focusing to get everything in focus, which worked most of the time.  Some of my images are a little soft for near-distance objects though, so I will also have to use manual focusing. The neat thing about manual focusing with a mirrorless camera is that you get a blue shimmering halo around everything that is in...
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