All My Blogs

Fruit tree leaf rollers    Top: pupa  Bottom: caterpillar  Right: enlarged head I noticed my fruit trees had numerous clusters of leaves that were stuck together.  I opened one up and discovered a small green caterpillar inside, maybe an inch long.  When picking up the designer of the protective housing, it wriggled spastically in the palm of my hand.  The inhabitant of another leaf cluster fell as I pried the home apart; it dropped from a single thread halfway to the ground and dangled there, probably hoping to return to its abode.  You can see an example of the caterpillar and leafy home below. Top: leaves wrapped encasing a caterpillar.  Bottom left: the inhabitant I had discovered a species of fruit tree leaf rollers; the caterpillars would use their silk to make a protective enclosure that they could live in when not foraging.  It also serves as a great place to pupate.  The caterpillars do a fair amount of damage to the tree, ...

Charm found while camping; I used my macro gear to photograph it on our green picnic table. Most of the stuff I find belongs to kids, although sometimes something else turns up.   It's amazing how many plastic animals I have found.  They are usually small, often no more than a few inches in length.  And an amazing number of them are dinosaurs.  I guess the intrigue regarding these extinct giants hasn't diminished much since I was a kid. Then there is the jewellery.  I took the above photo of a charm I found while camping a few weeks ago.  I have never found anything valuable, and I generally turn in what I find to the camp's lost and found.  Still, though, the things that people lose would astound you. I have never used a metal detector, but I have found lots of things made out of metal.  Small things, mostly coins, fasteners, and washers.  The coins go into my pocket, and the useful bits end up in my assorted pieces collection.  Yo...

Yellow-headed blackbirds are much larger then their red-winged counterparts. Every spring, I notice that it's the red-winged blackbirds that show up first to stake out a territory for breeding.  If they have chosen a nesting area that has some reeds and shallow water, it is unlikely that they will be evicted.  However, when the larger yellow-headed blackbirds show up, all bets are off if they have chosen a large reed bed in deep water (up to 3 or 4 feet). Red-winged blackbirds are not super choosy about where they nest, as long as there are some reeds and standing water present.  More successful males will want a better territory, one that one or more females will approve of.  And they will defend it, against other males of the same species. Yellow-headed blackbirds are more picky, insisting on large reed beds in deep water.  They also usually arrive later than the red-wings do, but that is not a problem for them.  That's because they are bigger, both in si...

Paul and Bert (inset) - Paul (left) - on our paddling adventure down the Harrison River today. I have never regretted buying canoes or kayaks, although kayaking is my preferred means of water transport these days.   I don't get out as often as I used to, but this year seems to have started out differently.  We have done some camping and gone kayaking four times now, and today finished a 17 km paddle after about 4 hours going down river.  An early start was warranted as the winds pick up in the late morning, and we experienced some modest winds with significant splashing by the time 11:00 rolled around. We will do more kayaking this summer near Merritt, Clearwater, Lake Wabamum, and Leduc.  I have already gotten some nice photos ( click here ) this year and am hoping to get a lot more.  The Harrison River is nice because of the surrounding mountains, but we did not see much in the way of wildlife.  Perhaps the next few places will offer more. I have gou...

Likely a satyr angelwing.  Probably not an Eastern angelwing given location (Vernon). I have never photographed this genus ( Polygonia ) before, although I think I saw one once while camping out near Nordegg, Alberta.  These brushfooted butterflies appear to have only four legs, as the front pair is highly reduced and vestigial.  Another clear indicator that this is a comma butterfly is the white "comma" shaped mark present on the lower section of the second wing - you can see it in the image above. I photographed this with my iPhone 15 Pro - it was there only a short while, and I did not have any other photographic equipment with me.  Even so, the iPhone's macro ability is fairly good as long as I don't need to blow the image up too much.  I got very close to the insect; it did not seem to mind my slow and cautious approach.   I never got a chance to photograph the upper sides of the Lepidopteran, as it rested in the typical butterfly way with its win...

Yellow-bellied marmot at Kamalaka Lake Provincial Park near Vernon, BC. Climbing to a better viewpoint is not uncommon in the animal kingdom, but it was funny to see a yellow-bellied marmot doing it.  It makes me think of meercats climbing on top of nearby people to get a better vantage point.  While meercats tend to live on savannahs where there are few elevation changes, even from rocky outcrops or the occasional tree, our local marmot populations have plenty of structures to climb.  The difference is that I have never seen one, even in photos, actually doing it. Imagine my surprise when I saw this fellow, about 200 feet away from me in a clearing, taking it upon himself to climb a bench.  As I researched the notion of marmots looking for higher "perches", I discovered that these rather large rodents do, on occasion, climb trees.   Oh, they like to sun themselves on rocks to be sure.  I have seen plenty of that, but the rocks are always barely taller...