All My Blogs

Drosophila fruit fly enlarged 40x (top) and 250x (bottom). Ever since I was in grade 9 I loved microscopes.  I would spend countless hours at school before it began, after it ended, and at lunch peering through their depths at whatever I could scrape up.  Mostly it was aquatic critters I found in the biological science's aquarium that I maintained.  It provided me with an unending supply of protists, rotifers, annelids, and insects to examine.  That passion carried on through my adulthood as, over the years, I have collected a number of microscopes. My first microscope was found at an auction.  I didn't quite know what I was getting myself into but the thrill hit me and I got it for $100.  It came with a wooden case, had three objectives, and a single 5x ocular lens.  The quality was, I discovered, not great.  It did get me going though.  Later I saw one in a doctor's office.  A better version of the one I had, it had 4 objectives ...

Details of Queen from a Canadian Coin - Macro photography gets you close. There are many ways that you can capture a close up of any object.  Typically the methods vary in cost from pennies to thousands of dollars.  Many compact cameras come with a macro mode that allows you to get within centimeters of your subject.  Cell phone cameras, with the addition of a snap-on magnifier accessory can also provide a great deal of magnification.  Most people don't need much more magnification than this.  The challenge with these devices is that lighting and shooting distance are severely limited. Any macro shooting situation can be addressed by examining five parameters; magnification, illumination, depth of field, image quality, and shooting distance.  Low magnifications can be achieved with most cell phones and compact cameras without any accessories.  Inexpensive accessories allow more magnification.  If you happen to have a DSLR or CSC (compact sys...

The Bow valley from Mount Norquay. The Adirondack chair is the quintessential representation of relaxation in the midst of an amazing vista.  Found throughout cottage country and on many a patio in urban areas, they are a welcome paragon of rest for the weary traveler.  Developed in 1903 by Thomas Lee, its unique design is instantly recognizable.  It is also fairly easy to build; a modest collection of carpentry tools and skills plus a couple of hours of your time will allow you to render one it all its glory ( plans here ). Although I like the chair in the above photo, really it is the spectacle laid out before it which makes the shot.  The two though go hand in hand, as the view would be missing something if the chair was absent.  This has to do with using both foreground and background elements in a setting to produce a pleasing image.  A strong background with a weak foreground tends to undermine what would otherwise be a great shot.  The cha...

Humans - a dog's best friend. Pets of any kind, whether clad in fur, feathers, or scales, become family to us and we to them.  In my life, dogs have filled that void that craves bonding with an animal.  There was a scottie and a lab that I hardly remember, and then there was a multipoo named Lucky.  She was a rescued dog that my sister had found and instantly became part of our rather strange family.  A welcome addition, mind you, as her unique personality bonded with us in a way that matted fur and a scruffy appearance only could.  I have many fond memories of her, but one of my favourites is her hatred of baths.  She would snarl and growl in low tones if you mentioned it to her, the temptation was always there, but she would trot happily to the tub when my dad told her it was bath time.  She would jump in and wait patiently for him to come and give her a good cleaning. My children were young, just entering school when we discovered dachshunds, ...

Making a contact sheet for a website. Over the years I have taken a great many photographs.  Many of them are of the magnificent creatures we share the Earth with, but there are a lot of photos of landscapes and some interesting brick-a-brack that I happen to find appealing.  I keep my photos in various collections so that I can easily peruse them when looking for something.  I have almost 9,000 images I keep for teaching purposes, many of them I use when putting a blog together.  I have another 2,000 large images, mostly as TIFFs, that I can produce 16x20s of if the need should arise.  Then I have a collection of 8x10s. I have been working on my website ( www.ericspix.com ) lately in an attempt to update it and make it more flexible for viewing on the myriad of devices in use by the populace.  A friend of mine (thank you Lincoln) helped me with the coding so that now I can program in HTML myself without getting too lost.  I consider myself a nov...

My friend, Charles, doing what he does best. Think about the people you like to hang out with.  Are they serious sorts that have a deep philosophy in life or are they somewhat lite-hearted and even occasionally ostentatious?  Chances are that they are somewhat on the silly side and you feel good when around them.  That association is not a random occurrence; it turns out that silliness is an important part of friendship. People who know me well will tell you that I like to be silly.  I love puns and finding obscure interactions that pique interest.  Irony has its place too, although I find that the distance between irony and skepticism is short if not kept under leash.  I enjoy well-meant banter, with a bit of a cutting edge, but have to keep a reign on my tongue so as not to inflict injury.  You will not find me behaving this among people I don't know well or when in a professional situation.  First of all, it is prudent, and secondly, I am...

Gorda Baths on Tortuga With Covid-19 running rampant in so many places and us "staying the blazes home" in response to social distancing directives, the need to break free seems to be growing exponentially.  I lament the loss of freedom and the ability to exercise my wanderlust, as do any of you who are reading this.  My plans for May are in utter ruins; a trip to Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon carefully planned with excitement now but a thought.  Wouldn't it be nice if the Covid pandemic never happened? My own musings betray my selfish desires; the disheartened state I find myself in is just a tiny bit of inconvenience compared to the sufferings experienced by so many others.  The news reports daily human casualties and global financial woes which are enough to break the spirit of anyone.  Loss of life, family, job, hope, and freedom has buried the hearts of so many.  Surely there must be something positive to dwell on.  Wouldn't it be nice...

Masked shrew photographed from the front (top) and side (bottom). The study of plants has never interested me a great deal, but I love growing things.  Every year I work in my garden.  I love to get my fingers in black earth to eliminate intruding plants, welcome new ones, and tend old favourites.  One of the great joys has been in the discovery of tiny entities, usually alive, as I discussed in one of my previous blogs (see the blog on the golden tortoise beetle ).  Yesterday, in my domestic wanderings, I came across a deceased shrew that was in relatively good shape. Intrigued, I immediately stopped what I was doing and began my investigation.  Shrews belong to a group of mammals called insectivores.  This particular one was a masked shrew, sometimes called the common shrew; its range covers a good portion of Canada.  From snout to tail tip it was four inches long, which helped in its identification as my field guide gave me that fact in so man...

Male (back) and female (front) wood ducks at Pitt Polder. I don't get to see wood ducks very often, although they are present through much of the USA and the southern reaches of Canada.  Whatbird states that there are about 3.5 million individuals in existence today.  I have seen the species a dozen times in the last twenty years, and never got a good photograph of one, little lone a pair, until yesterday. Wood ducks are cavity nesters.  They build a nest in the hole of a tree or a large enough birdhouse built especially for tree nesting ducks.  The young are brooded there and, soon after hatching, leave the nest.  Wood duck nests have been found over a mile away from water.  A chick may fall from a height of 50 feet and not hurt itself.  The parents escort them off to wetlands through peeping, where they will spend their fledging days until maturity. I think wood ducks are one of my favourite birds.  The obvious reason for this penchant ...

Golden Tortoise Beetle - Charidotella With the very nice weather I have found myself gardening this last week.  Planting annuals is risky at this time of year, so I have been also building protective coverings for the sensitive plants.  While being busily preoccupied with said structure, a tiny gleam of gold crawling up my fence came to my attention.  The photos above do nothing to convey the exact meaning of the word "gold", as I was certain that a ladybug had been dipped in a gold broth and came out with the exact same sheen. Although I am goal orientated, I quickly allowed my easily distracted side to take control of the situation.  I knew I had found a treasure, figuratively at least, and my passion for photographing the diminutive came online as it were.  Capturing the beast I carried it back to my studio where its image would be rendered onto one of my camera's sensors.  I set my equipment up for shooting macro, a system I have found to be excep...

Hiking the Diez Vistas trail near Vancouver, BC. I took this photo six years ago.  My daughter and her friend had decided they wanted to hike the Diez Vistas (10 views) trail which starts about halfway around the Bunzen Lake trail.  Although I knew it had climbing involved, I was totally unprepared for the amount of it.  As we gained elevation there was the opportunity to see bits of the unfolding landscape.  Each new opening produced more and more spectacular views. I was quite spent by the time we got to the top.  Mind you, the extreme exertion invested paid off when arriving at the final viewpoint.  I got some nice photos of Burrard Inlet and Indian Arm, but best of all I got a nice photo of my daughter and her friend and had engrained an eventful hike into all of our memories.  Although the purpose of many of my excursions is to take photographs, I can also say that it is the process of making memories which is most important.  Families ...

Great blue heron at ease near people in Maple Ridge. Although I am fond of my amenities of comfort and like being able to access the benefits of city dwelling, I am a naturalist at heart.  The dichotomy of city versus country has long been a point of contention for those of my genre, where having the best of both worlds seems an unlikely prospect.  I am pleased to say that the place where I call home is a pleasant balance of both where one is not sacrificed for the other. In man's great grab for land and resources it seems that nature has paid a heavy price.  Although a town like Vancouver has its wild places, they have covered up some 56 streams and converted miles of shoreline into places of business or recreation.  I understand the reasoning for such intrusions into the ecosystem, for much of its development took place when we as a species did not have the insight into the value of nature and the eco-cost for the motivation behind such decisions. Maple Rid...

Purple martins - male bottom right, female bottom center. Think Covid-19 and toilet paper.  Where do you get any when it is all gone?  It's like that with purple martins, only the bottom line (excuse the pun) is much more serious.  Without a nesting site the birds can not breed.  The female will not likely mate with the male, and even if that did take place, there would be no place to lay eggs, rear chicks, or return to safety. Like any consumable resource, there is a limited supply of acceptable nesting sites.  Purple martins are particularly fussy over what works.  First of all they are cavity nesters; they brood in a hole in a tree.  The hole has to be large and deep enough but also not too much of either.  It is best if the tree is over water; fresh is preferred but they will nest over saltwater (estuary) marshes too.  I have seen them take a nesting site near the water on occasion.  If we go back to the toilet paper a...

Kayaking on Vermillion Lake in Banff National Park, Alberta. I went out this morning for "a paddle" on a nearby waterway on one of my kayaks.  I am fortunate in that there are a dozen lakes, rivers, creeks, and other bodies of water within twenty minutes of where I live.  A little further gets me to saltwater.  While paddling along I met two other similar-minded people, one in a canoe and the other on a paddleboard. That was it, just the three of us, on the water, traveling along the fluid highway without a care in the world.  Getting out on the water, regardless of method, is an excellent way to relax and enjoy the surroundings.  It is also a great chance to see nature.  I was not disappointed as this morning I saw two bald eagles, several pairs of common mergansers, herons, swallows, and one beaver that came surprisingly close to my boat.  I talked with my fellow oarsmen in passing and we discussed boats of choice.  Since each of us was ...

A sweet place to visit and reflect. Reflections have a way of making you take a better look at yourself.  The surface, what others see, is the sugary coating we put on to fit into the community; into the society we tend to immerse ourselves in.  When we have a closer look at what stares back at us in the mirror we begin to see what lies beneath that superficial shroud.  Sometimes it is not too pretty. The metaphoric image above symbolizes this idea perfectly.  Initially, the reflection is a little darker than what we would like to see.  Go beyond that though, to what actually lies underneath, and the murky depths rise up.  The history of who we are, the legacy of past events which pollute our very souls and causes us to cringe, becomes crystal clear. Who we are can be best portrayed by examining the choices we make in times of upheaval.  When the waves of trouble strike, how do we react?  Are we steadfast or do we bob about searching madly...

Mining bee on dandelion.  Left is the original image; the right is cropped. While shooting images for my painted rock blog I did the other day, I came across a small bee on a dandelion.  I had my 105 mm macro lens on my camera and photographed it then went on my way thinking nothing more of it until I got home.  It was then that I looked at my shots.  I discovered I had photographed a mining bee. Mining bees are docile; they build a solitary nest in the ground simply by excavating a hole.  They collect pollen on their excursions and build small pollen balls upon which they lay an egg.  She will usually have a single nesting site and lay many eggs.  Although they carry a stinger, mining bees will not attack you.  They are helpful because of their pollination behaviours and their ground aeration skills.  If you see one, let it bee. There is something about this photo that warrants discussion.  The left image is the one I captured i...

My favourite rock on the Rainbow Bridge trail. What makes us like something?  Why, for instance, is one person's colour of choice red while another's is purple?  Of the dozens of rocks I found on the trail I frequent, what was it about this one that appealed to me?  As with most things in life, I find there are many factors which precede a choice or an opinion.  First off, I happen to like red.  While green is the colour I associate with life in general (plants), red is the colour I associate with animals (blood - the elixir of life).  I also like red because it is the colour of control and command - as a classroom teacher I often wore red because it embodies that notion.  Besides, I just so happen to think I look good in red. The message carefully inscribed on the rock's surface is an obvious factor; love is what makes the world go 'round.  I have heard many stories of late of separated families and loved ones finding a way to convey thei...

A Chinese Tourist I met while hiking Red Rock Canyon near Las Vegas. Believe it or not, I am shy.  Or, at least I was.  As a young person I made my way through life by hiding in the shadows.  The combination of being small, odd, and socially awkward painted a bulls eye on my back so large that I am sure the Apollo 11 astronauts commented on it on their way back home after the moon landing.  I can just imagine it; "Houston, there appears to be a large red and white circular area somewhere in southern Ontario, over."  My shyness was a two edged sword, as so many things tend to be.  It was a good news/bad news thing.  The good news was that it allowed me to find my passion for animals and the wilds; the bad news was I was nominated for hermit of the year award.  It was like that all the way through the school system until my second year of college.  There I met some amazing people who saw value in me as a person and the target became invis...

Rotorua, New Zealand - The Rose Garden I shot this two years ago while we were in New Zealand.  It was an amazing adventure and one I would love to repeat.  Photography, for me, is a licence to explore the world.  It gives me cause and motivation to leave my safe place; to extend myself beyond my comfort zone.  Not only do I get to look at the world with a new "lens" (forgive the pun), I get a few nice shots to boot. I also enjoy the technical aspects of photography.  I guess others would call me a science geek as I have a passion for anything science related.  This extends to wildlife particularly, as some of you may have noticed, and includes anything that walks, crawls, slithers, or swims.  The wonder of it all is what really captivates me.  Finding new and amazing places and creatures, using the camera to capture the beauty in what I see, and learning more about what I just photographed. This is especially true for the life I find....

Black capped chickadee finds a perfect nesting site. One of my favourite birds is the black capped chickadee.  They are hardy little birds which are year round residents.  In the spring they will readily take to nesting boxes; I have had them in my bird houses on and off for thirty years.  I was hiking this morning along a river and saw a pair parting about a localized area.  I watched them for five minutes and discovered the reason for their fondness for the area; they were constructing a nest. In the winter they will take bird seed and suit from feeders, or will happily glean any vegetation for all sorts of protein - mostly in the form of insect eggs and pupae.  In the spring they start to find emerged insects but will still carry on with winter feeding trends.  I often provide black sunflower seeds and love how they hammer away at the seed while it is securely held by their perched feet. It is the spring where my passion for them is bolstered as ...

Purple fringing on a hooded merganser female Purple fringing is a term you may have heard of, but one that few actually understand.  It is a form of distortion which occurs in lenses and it reduces image quality significantly, especially in when in severe amounts.  It is caused by the spectral breakup of light passing through the glass elements of a lens.  Light, which is composed of different wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation, is bent when passing through any medium change at an angle (not 90°), in this case from air to glass or visa versa. The problem is that each wavelength of light bends at different rates, which is the effect you see when white light goes through a prism.  In a camera lens the same effect is in place, which causes purple fringing as the purple (violet actually) light just starts to show its edges in the image.  You can just see the effect in image 2 above which is a little softer than would be liked.  As the area gets more...

Coyote in Maple Ridge, BC. Although I really enjoy photographing birds, all wildlife interests me.  The opportunity to photograph mammals tends to be quite rare; when given the chance I will jump at it.  Most of our wild furry friends are quite aloof.  They are aware of our clumsy ploddings and withdraw to a secretive hideaway to avoid discovery.  Once in a rare while one may be seen. Evidence of coyotes is present on many of my wanderings.  Usually in the form of scat, the clues offer some insight into their rather broad diet.  It is rare to come across them in the middle of the day.  I was out enjoying a local trail when the above one was startled by my presence.  I must have been somewhat familiar with humans though as it sauntered off with little more than a pugnacious glare.  It was the raised hackles which lent me warning. I quickly photographed it and managed to get three or four shots off before it disappeared.  Always ho...

Male Hooded Merganser - breeding plumage When people think of ducks, the amiable mallard often comes to mind.  Common in puddles and often seen with its tail feathers bobbing on the surface as it grazes the benthos beneath, it is the quintessential representative of the Anatidae.  The hooded merganser does not subscribe to that stereotype.  Hooded mergansers are fish eating ducks.  Their bills do not conform to the flattened style displayed by their green headed male cousins.  Instead, the bill is thin with a sharp, curled hook at the end.  The bill itself is serrated with the chiseled edges pointing backwards to facilitate a good grip on its prey.  They will dive in search of aquatic insects, crustaceans such as crayfish, and small fish. Another feature which distinguishes them from most other ducks is their nesting requirements.  They nest in tree cavities, but will readily use a large bird house with a substantial opening.  Their n...

Spring crocuses photographed with different ISOs and apertures. Who doesn't love spring?  The allure of new life coupled with a more friendly sun brings hope to those suffering the doldrums of winter.  With a zip in my step which had been absent for the last several months I remembered my camera and began once again capturing the world around me.  The crocuses in my front yard became the focus of my attention.  I had lots of pictures of this purple harbinger of spring, and getting a few more was not likely to improve my collection.  No, it was time to play with the camera's settings.  So, with my new-old toy I began the process of playing and exploring. ISO is greatly misunderstood.  Although it is a miraculous tool on the one hand it penalizes the user by reducing the quality of the image, especially when taken to the extreme.  I find there is usually a happy medium between shutter speed and ISO settings where the time interval is fast en...

Thetis Lake from the North side. We had the good fortune to travel to "The Island" (the term us mainlanders use for Vancouver Island) a week or so before things with Covid-19 started to get out of hand.  We enjoyed terrific visits with people we don't see very often and had good weather on top of that.  On the way to our province's capital we stopped at a number of parks.  The photo above was done at Thetis Park; a gem located about 10 km from Victoria just off Highway 1. I used a technique called HDR, which stands for High Dynamic Range.  Some cameras have a built in HDR feature, but it has never really been a big draw for me.  I would much rather do it on my own.  The reason is simple enough.  I have never found a camera which does it well. Dynamic range is the distance, measured in stops, between black and white on an exposure.  To be clear, it is the tonal range between the amount of light needed to produce a totally black exposure and...

White crowned sparrow sitting on blackberry branch. As a wildlife photographer I love long lenses.  The word "long" here describes a lens which is telephoto in nature, but even that doesn't do it justice.  Just as wide angle lenses have more extreme values and are called "ultra-wides", telephotos also have their ample cousins.  Dubbed "super-telephoto" lenses, these allow the wildlife enthusiast to render the small and distant into something substantial. What is considered a super-telephoto?  This would depend on who you talk to, but I consider something in the 400 mm range a good beginning.  The problem with giving any one mm value is that it means different things on different cameras.  I have an 80 - 400 mm lens, a favourite, that I use on an APS-C sensor camera.  However, that is not its effective focal length, as cameras with this size sensor have a crop factor of 1.5, or in Canon's case, 1.6. Think of a projected image on a screen.  ...

Red tailed hawk captured using 3-d focus tracking It's the height of the Covid-19 blues and the only way to mollify the hard edges social distancing has been building is to get out of the house and do some photography.  Fortunately, it is something which can be done that complies with the six-foot rule.  And so, most days, I pack a camera and go off to some potential shooting bonanza and hope for the best. With spring well on its way the variety of bird species to be seen is growing daily.  Two days ago I spotted my first white-crowned sparrows of the season.  Last week it was a bevy of swans, around 85 or so, taking in the sun down at Pitt Polder.  Although I am very fond of chickadees, towhees, and juncos, the truth is I am glad there are now some other birds about to train my lens on. A red-tailed hawk soared overhead while I was enjoying walking along the Alouette dikes near Harris Road in Pitt Meadows.  I had my camera and a long lens with me a...