All My Blogs

Chipping sparrow on a log.  Notice the dark eye stripe and rusty cap. "How do you know what bird it is?" I often get asked.  First off, I can't claim to know all the birds I see, but over time I have come to learn quite a few of them.  There are a number of things that are invaluable when identifying birds.  Below is a list of some of the most basic ones. 1.  Know the types of birds by sight.   This is hugely important because it allows you to go from a thousand possible species down to a manageable number.  Size, shape, colour, and behaviour all go a long way to helping with this.  Most people can identify basic bird types like hummingbirds, seagulls, and crows.  There are many more than this of course.  The website whatbird.com  is an excellent place to learn many aspects of birding.  Go to this page to see the different families of birds. 2.  Know basic bird external anatomy .  This may seem silly, but it is actually very important.  I am not talking about the

Eric at Joffrey Lake, BC. I can't help it; I enjoy wordplay.  Puns, silly rhymes, double meanings, and goofy expressions seem to form at the tip of my tongue constantly.  I like playing with words and their meanings.  My musings sometimes leads me towards places I know to avoid, so I have to be careful not to go there.  It is a matter of self-control.  It is easy to live a double-life, to be a hypocrite, to say one thing yet do another.  In all my actions I try to do what I know is right, but I want to have fun while doing it.  I think it is one of the things my friends appreciate about me; I can be silly and play with words and ideas without going over the line. That is the trick then in life as a whole.  Be the best you can be but colour within the lines.  I suppose the great irony here is what constitutes a line.  For me, they are defined somewhat rigidly by what I believe.  Others interpret them as wide, loosely established boundaries that seem to have no or few anchor po

Western tiger swallowtail obtaining salt. All living things need salt.  The minerals sodium, potassium, and chlorine are essential nutrients that allow our cells, organs, and organ systems to function properly.  Although these minerals are present in all foods to some extent, the concentration may be insufficient to meet the organism's needs.  In the case of butterflies, the adults feed only on nectar which does not have enough of these important elements.  They can supplement their diet by consuming salt wherever they may find it. This should not be considered unusual.  We supply farm animals with salt licks to augment what they get from their food.  Salt tablets are commonly taken by people who experience long periods of heat; our bodies sweat to cool us down but we give up salt in the process (also a bit of urea - that's a comforting thought when you get sweat in your eyes).  Dogs are very fond of salt and are much more likely to lick you if you happen to be sweaty (th

Yellow aphids being tended by an ant. I have always found aphids to be interesting.  That is until I found them attacking my trees and bushes at home.  I suppose it is somewhat akin to enjoying baseball up to the point that you kept your eye on the ball a little too well.  In their own right, aphids are somewhat magical creatures.  They reproduce both sexually and non-sexually.  A process known as parthenogenesis involves aphids making clones of themselves.  They grow rapidly and a single aphid can foster many generations; their numbers exploding exponentially with each successive brood.  In a matter of weeks a healthy plant can become infested, putting nearby vegetation at risk. There is another issue that comes to bear dealing with ants.  Ants and aphids have a remarkable mutualistic relationship.  As an aphid sucks plant juices it produces a tiny drop of sweet nectar called honeydew.  When an ant strokes the back of an aphid with its antennae the aphid releases this and the

Lupinus polyphyllus, the garden Lupin There are about 300 species of lupins globally.  The lupin belongs to the pea family.  Like other relatives, they have a mutualistic relationship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria that live in root nodules.  This allows them to live in nutrient-poor soils.  They have a large root system and propagates asexually by sending rhizomes under the ground.  Lupins are also perennials, meaning that they overwinter and return the following year.  These facts combined make them a favourable species for slope stabilization.   The garden lupin is grown for its attractive flowers; seeds can be purchased locally.  Although beautiful when in full bloom, these floral pinnacles have a downside.  Many species contain alkaloids and are toxic.  They easily out-compete other plants in poor soil because of their nitrogen-fixing properties and can take over, crowding out other desirable species.  Then there is the "butterfly effect," where the garden variety h

The caterpillar of a skipper butterfly. If you have ever looked at a dog and wondered what type it was, you know the general sense of uncertainty associated with identifying caterpillars.  It's the same with many things really.  It's a rock, but what type?  Some may even generalize to the extreme, going as far as to exclaim that some organism belongs to the amorphous category of being a "creepy-crawly".  It is similar to examining a wooden structure closely and declaring it to be furniture instead of an armoire of some particular class.  I guess a lot of it has to do with how interesting you find something. I personally can't tell the difference between an armoire and a cellarette, but I have gotten much better at identifying insects.  Caterpillars still allude me though, as they are all so similar in form and my books do not do them the justice they do adults.  There is a good resource for the Pacific-northwest for the US that I have recently discovered (cl

A solitary tree adorning a tiny island on Dutch Lake in Clearwater, BC. The title of this blog, inspired by Simon and Garfunkle's iconic song, reflects the internal state I sometimes feel.  The sense that I am alone manifests itself occasionally as I reflect on the condition of the world around me and things I have experienced.  The song itself speaks of someone who has been hurt deeply and has chosen to isolate themself from others emotionally so as to not feel that pain and anguish.  This is where my own experience and the song's expressive language part as it leads to bitterness; something which I try not to be burdened by. Let me assure my readers that I have experienced debilitating pain in my life.  Significant childhood trauma, betrayal by loved friends, the loss of family and friend by suicide, and when I was much younger the rejection of my proposal to wed by someone I saw building a life with.  I have had plenty of reason to be bitter and, for a time, was expres

Australian Fairy Wren in pursuit of a mate. Wildlife photography is all about capturing the moment.  Photographing a bird perching on a branch, clearly sleeping, pales in comparison to freezing the moment it snags a fleeing meal.  The annoying part of it too is that, whatever the subject, they just don't go out of their way to pose nicely.  They care not about light, shadow, the juxtaposition of nearby objects, or the position they are in relative to the camera.  Unfortunately for the photographer, this means taking all these things into consideration.  On top of that, there is the constant battle with equipment and associated settings. One of the most fundamental aspects is choosing the right shutter speed.  Low shutter speeds often rewards the shooter with unusable, blurry images.  Vibration mitigation technology helps reduce blur from camera movement but does nothing for the blur caused by subject motion.  Even tiny hints of blur can render an otherwise superb opportunity

Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver - a lock graveyard. Ever wonder where things go when they die?  Cars, we know, are hauled off in shame to the wreckers where their last service to their once benevolent masters is to be melted down as scrap.  Some of them have viable parts removed before this desecration occurs though, giving a reprieve to others.  Other objects find burial in landfills, or worse, at sea, where their remains decimate once beautiful oceans.  Locks, however, meet a different end; it seems the key to their fate is the love their owners have in them. While visiting Lonsdale Quay I discovered a sacred lock mausoleum of sorts.  It is not the only one, of course, as many of them exist throughout the world.  In Paris, there is a famous bridge called the Pont des Arts which is a lock tomb.  It seems to be a very popular place for locks to meet their end as so many have been attached that a section of the bridge broke under the strain.  The risk at Lonsdale is relatively lo

The Greater yellowlegs on the bank of the Pitt River. A niche is a term used in ecology that describes an organism's function; essentially it is the "job" of the species.  Feeding habits, preditors that consume it, where it lives, and its impact on the environment are all aspects of it.  Shorebirds have a very interesting niche in that they tend to feed in or near shallow water, often within a very narrow range of the shoreline.  The water body can be salty or fresh, moving or still, natural or manmade.  To them, it is where the buffet is located. Shorebirds that spend time in water often have similar body shapes.  Many of them have noticeably long legs and a long beak.  The theme does not end there though, as long necks and feet together with their other unique body parts all enable them to extract food.  The peculiar part is that often the meal they are persuing is not on the water, in the water, or even on the bottom of the water.  It usually lies beneath the bot

Left:   one photograph shot at f/29.  The focus point was 1/3 of the way down the orange lily plant to take advantage of depth of field before and after the focus point.  Right:   Seven shots were taken of the same flowers, all at f.6.3, and the point of focus changes throughout from only the top being in focus through to only the bottom being in focus. I have a nice collection of lilies which I have grown over the years.  I started out with the traditional orange ones then later on added some pink ones and last year I put in a number of yellow ones.  They are in full bloom at the moment and they inspired me to try something I have been wanting to do.  As you can tell from the text in the photos and the information posted beneath them, I shot one using a small aperture trying to get as much depth of field as possible and shot another set with seven images, each one with a slight variation on point of focus.  In order to achieve a specific focus point,  I set the camera's lens

Northern flicker (above) and Tree swallow (below). I don't always get the shot I want every time I press the shutter.  Sometimes I just have the camera set up incorrectly.  Given the fact that there are so many available functions and situations are usually in constant flux, it is likely to use the right setup at the wrong place and time.  For example, when shooting in full sun using a manual exposure mode and then shooting in deep shadow without making changes will likely result in a severely underexposed image (top left).  In the reverse situation, shooting previously in a shaded area then switching to a sunny location without changing the settings will result in an overexposed photo (bottom left).  Both images are undesirable, but is it still possible to save the image? Shooting in RAW mode gives much more latitude, literally, because the RAW image will capture a greater width of tonal values than what a JPEG will.  As a result, it is often possible to be off by a couple o

A female stonefly sitting on my finger. One of the things I like to do is look under rocks and logs.  This applies not only to a woodland walk, it also applies to approachable bodies of water.  These include saltwater bodies and freshwater lakes and streams.  I am always curious about what I will find.  Many times the only treasures to be discovered are woodlice on land and mayflies in water.  As I search, patterns start to emerge.  Terrestrial salamanders can be found under wet rotting logs. Reptiles like snakes and lizards enjoy dry places that can be warmed by the sun; cardboard or plywood often is a good bet if it is in a sunny area and early in the morning.  If I want to find stonefly nymphs, I have to go to a moderately fast-moving stream that is relatively pollution-free. I was at a park beside a very fast flowing North Thompson River a couple of days ago.  Going down to the river was out of the question because it was in flood mode and quite dangerous.  However, the banks

A rainbow over Dutch Lake near Clearwater, BC. If you have ever watched the movie Madagascar , you would be familiar with the song, "I like to move it, move it."  In case you haven't, or want to refresh your memory, click here .  Although very repetitive and slightly annoying, I actually find myself getting energized by it.  In a way, it reminds me of the way I have to "move it, move it" sometimes when out shooting.  During those times I also find myself being energized, although under the circumstances it is usually out of desperation. There are lots of examples of these occurrences, but they all have two things in common.  There is something seriously at stake and there is not much time to achieve what needs to be done.  For me, this usually involves photographing something both important and ephemeral.  You have one minute to get it right, and there are no do-overs.  An example would be shooting a wedding and saying, "I'm sorry, but I missed th

Dowdy Leather-winged Beetle - A red and black soldier beetle. The English soldiers, at the time of the US movement of independence, were known as "red coats."  They wore a mostly red jacket trimmed with black edging.  The soldiers donning the uniform were trained to be aggressive and fatal in their attack.  They must have looked at the dowdy leather-winged beetle and emulate its colouring and nature of attack. Soldier beetles belong to the order Coleoptera and family Cantharidae of the Class Insecta.  Ok, that seems like Greek to you (Latin, actually), but the point is that soldier beetles are a distinct group of insects.  They are known to be avid consumers of insect pests; some also taking pollen and nectar.  Their antennae have 11 segments (count them for yourself) and are generally brightly coloured.  Larvae spend time on the ground, often hiding in leaf litter, waiting for prey to wander into their trap.  They also will search out food; the grubs can be very predac

A pair of male common mergansers on Dutch Lake. Common mergansers breed in the northern parts of Canada and on or near the coastline all the way up to the Alaska Panhandle.  Mergansers are monogamous for the year, although they don't necessarily have the same mate in successive years.  So, why would there be a pair of males swimming and flying together on a lake south of their breeding range? The answer is simple and is a way of looking into our own behaviours.  These boys have not bonded with a female yet and are on the way to do so.  However, as they progress towards that ultimate goal they enjoy the company of each other.  It makes me think of young men who huddle together before marriage or serious courting.  Both groups benefit from the social interaction, experience reduced stress by being in a group, and then there is a collective looking out for each other mindset.  It turns out that many higher organisms have an innate tendency to be in a group.  The benefits are c

The familiar form of a click beetle. There is an astonishing variety of beetles in the world.  At over 300,000 species they represent the most numerous and diverse group of organisms anywhere on the planet.  Click beetles represent one of many groups within the Coleoptera (the insect order beetles belong to).  There are approximately 1000 species of click beetles in North America alone; a quarter of those can be found in the Pacific Northwest (Merrill A. Peterson's book Pacific Northwest Insects ).  I have personally found them on all my travels throughout BC, Washington, Oregon, and Alberta. Click beetles have an apt name.  If you flip one over on its back and wait a moment a surprising thing happens.  It flexes its body between the thorax and abdomen and then with an audible "click" they suddenly flip up into the air and right themselves.  This maneuver reminiscent of a Cirque do Solet act is soon repeated if the initial attempt is not successful.  They are mostl

Helmcken Falls in June 2020 HDR stands for high dynamic range.  Range refers to the distance between blacks and whites - how many stops between extreme points.  Still confused?  Here is a little more information then.  A stop in photography refers to a doubling or halving of light.  Let's say there is even light hitting a person wearing blue jeans and a white shirt.  The pants are darker than the shirt in this situation because the pants reflect less light and the shirt reflects more.  If we were to measure the difference we may find that the shirt reflects 8 times more light than the pants.  This is a value of 3 stops (2^3 read as 2 to the power of 3, or a value of 8).  Anything that reflects light can be photographed because photography is about capturing reflected light from things in the world.  The problem comes when the difference between dark and bright objects exceeds the media's ability to record all the values.  Ever take a photograph when the sun is in the pi

Star Lake Resort, about 10 km west of Clearwater, BC. You would think that in the Time of the GPS that it would be easy to find your way from Point A to Point B.  Afterall, it only requires putting the name of the destination into your G uaranteed P recision  S ite finder and push a button to receive directions.  What's even better is that you can use all this technology in a variety of forms.  There is the cell phone, a proprietary GPS device such as Garmin, and built-in units that are part of your auto's dashboard. There is what you should be able to do and then there is what you can actually do.  One of my first disappointments was trying to find a Golden Corral  down in the US a number of years ago.  We were in Galveston looking for an eatery and thought it would be good to go there.  After entering the name of the establishment into the device we were told the nearest one was several hundred miles away from us.  Disappointed, we looked up only to see one across the s

The rose weevil - a curious insect. Chances are you have walked past them and never noticed them.  Even though they are a deep burgundy red and really stick out on the familiar wild rose so prevalent in Western Canada, you have to be looking for them to find them.  The rose weevil is ubiquitous throughout North America although it may be broken down into several subspecies over that range.  Rose weevils are aptly named; they feed exclusively on roses and have been known to achieve pest status with rose loving gardeners.  They happily will eat flower, pollen, buds, and rosehips, causing considerable damage when they are in great numbers. Weevils are a type of beetle.  They are somewhat unique in that they have a long snout with a mouth at the end and antennae attached somewhere in the middle of it.  Rose weevils belong to another subgroup of weevils called leaf rolling weevils.  Many of the species in this group will lay eggs in a rolled-up leaf where the young can grow with some

Surf scooter on Dutch Lake. I saw a dark coloured bird on the lake's surface two days ago and wondered exactly what it was I was looking at.  I can generally place a bird within reason and usually have some idea of what I am looking at.  This totally stumped me; I have never seen anything like it. Today I was out on my kayak and there it was again, this time in a bed of lily pads resting.  I had my long lens (150-600 Tamron) handy and got a few good shots of it.  Very unusual bill and an odd white spot on the back of its head.  Then there were the white eyes with the dark center that really stood out.  I had photographed something unusual to be sure. When I got back to the RV and referenced my bird books (I bring 4 or 5 of them with me when I travel), I discovered I had seen a Surf Scooter.  OK, that's a new one to me.  I had another look at the texts and they breed far north of here, not too far from the Yukon and NWT borders.  Surf Scooters, according to National Geograph

A stunning rainbow appeared at Dutch Lake yesterday. The funny thing about rainbows is that it has to be raining for them to appear.  That, of course, is not strictly true.  If you have ever seen a rainbow in waterfall mist, when you are misting your garden, or even in the rare but wonderful sundog that occurs in conjunction with ice crystals in the upper atmosphere, then you know what I mean.  The commonality between all of these events is the presence of water in particulate form spread over a large area with the sun shining on it. I find this to be an amazing metaphor for life.  Consider first the way that rain is often linked with sadness, depression, or melancholy.  As a Vancouverite (Lower-Mainlandite doesn't sound so great) I am accustomed to continuous unmerciful downpours.  There are many that are stricken with SAD (seasonal affective disorder), which is basically a condition where the only relief is a trip to the Caribbean where the sun isn't intimidated by cont

A male western tanager found at North Thompson River Provincial Park. The expression, "It's for the birds," is meant to imply a certain level of disdain for some thought or idea.  Yet in my mind, it speaks of care for the environment and respect for nature.  We have lost billions of birds over the last few decades from the many obstacles facing them on a daily basis.  As a result, many of their numbers are in rapid decline. A good example of this is the western tanager.  It is a remarkably colourful example of avian splendor, especially in the Pacific Northwest where I spend most of my time.  I saw one once down in Leavenworth, Washington.  I marveled at its magnificence even though it was very far from me and my camera did a poor job of rendering its image.  Then it was gone, leaving only a desire to get a better look at one and hopefully get a few photos in the process. That was more than 15 years ago.  I have not seen one since.  I had heard there were some nes