All My Blogs

Wasps belong to the insect order Hymenoptera. Many people associate painful stings with this group. Wasps are not all bad insects. They don't all sting or bite, and many of them are tremendously beneficial. There are over 17,000 species of wasp worldwide; most of them do not produce mud or paper nests and do not have complicated social hierarchies. In fact, most wasp species are solitary, won't or can't sting, and are harmless. The trouble I have with them is in identification. Have a look at the insect shown in the above photo. It is a wasp, but what kind? In the US and Canada there are over 4,000 species. There are the social insects such as wasps and hornets. There are solitary wasps that feed on nectar and pollen as adults and parasitize insects as larvae. Then there are the horntails and sawflies that add to the challenge of identification. I first thought the wasp was a type of Odontocolon, but the ovipositor (the long, curved end projecting off...

My post yesterday was about photographing owls and it hit a nerve with some people. The text below is an excerpt from that blog. "People feed birds at local feeding stations, hummingbirds take sugar from feeders, and many a duck and pigeon have benefitted from the hand of man. Feeding owls falls into the same category ...." It seems that "feeding owls" for the purposes of obtaining photographs is called baiting. I read the comments made by a number of contributors and have changed my mind on the subject. Baiting is a bad practice with negative consequences for the birds. Research I have done on the process has turned up the following points. All vertebrate species in BC are protected as part of the wildlife ac t. Of those species, some are considered at risk or endangered. In BC, there are 5 raptors on that list which you can find at this website . Endangered organisms have another whole level of protection that involves fines and imprisonment. ...

I photographed this barred owl back in 2008 while visiting a wildlife rehabilitation sanctuary in Bend, Oregon. We were there early and fortunate enough to find the animals being fed. I captured this shot of the owl as it held the forthcoming meal. The rescue organization rehabilitates injured birds and animals and releases them when they are healed. Those organisms that are too severely injured to be returned to the wild are kept on for educational purposes. They treat the animals well. This is one of the best owl photographs I have ever taken. Some of my noteworthy shots have been captured in the wild, but the truth is that most of them come from owls in captivity. Some are from zoos and others are from falconers that keep a variety of predatory birds. Owls have always interested me and I find it fascinating when I see photos of them taken by others taken in nature. Some of the more amazing ones involve one of these majestic creatures carrying off some recently acquire...

One of the great things about the District of Maple Ridge is that there are many natural areas, most of them containing numerous walking paths and accessible bodies of water. This in itself creates tremendous allure for the community, but it goes beyond that. It turns out it is all good for your health. A Global News broadcast cited that doctors are beginning to prescribe getting outdoors as a way to improve health and reduce stress ( click here to see video). I can validate many of the assertations; my love for the outdoors happens to have a positive impact on my general sense of well-being. Getting outdoors for the sake of being outside is reason enough to be there, but there is more to it than that for me. I can think of a dozen ways that I benefit from seeking the great outdoors, but I will keep to the main four. Exercise - putting one foot in front of another and repeat ad infinitum will get your blood moving, keep your heart strong, and help prevent or ...

Nothing on Earth can survive the physical and chemical power of water. As a liquid, it dissolves solids, suspends minerals, and both weathers and erodes all rocks regardless of size or durability. As a solid, it forces cracks apart, plucks boulders from bedrock, and scours its way across the land as if it were a sanding block held by the hand of God. There are many examples of its destructive capabilities. The famous statue of David created by the genius Michaelangelo was created from a single block of marble. He created the sculpture by removing pieces of the rock and leaving behind what people would be in awe of. Water works in much the same way, although the genius behind it is physics and chemistry. Starting with a cliff face against a sea, rolling waves are dashed against its surface. With each strike, the water removes tiny particles of the substrate, some as solute and others as sand. When a pocket is formed trapped air is compressed as a wave strikes and the ...

It always amazes me that such small birds not only overwinter here in Southwestern BC but raise a family in the cold. It wasn't that long ago that snow was on the ground; some mornings still show evidence of frost. How is it possible that these tiny creatures can not only endure the cold, but thrive in it? Anna's hummers have two speeds. There is the full-throttle speed and the barely-breathing speed. When functioning at full-throttle, the bird's internal temperature sits at a toasty 105°F (that's 6° above our own core temperature). When flying its heart is beating over 1000 times a minute to supply nutrients and oxygen to those flight muscles. They burn about 8 Calories (8000 calories) a day to survive. To put that in perspective, if a human was to eat the same proportion of food in a day needed to sustain a hummingbird, about 300 hamburgers would have to be consumed. When resting it may go into its barely-breathing mode. It enters a state of torp...

The biggest insect that I have ever found in nature was a female polyphemus moth. Males are smaller than females; a large female can have a wingspan of up to six inches. Polyphemus moths belong to the silk moth family. The largest moth in North America is the cecropia moth, a close relative of the polyphemus moth, and has a wingspan of up to seven inches. The silkworm moth Bombyx is grown commercially in China and used for the production of silk fabric. Even though male polyphemus moths are smaller than females by a large margin they make up for it in the size of their antennae. All insects use their antennae for gathering chemical information about the world around them. Moths do the same thing, but the males of some species take this to an entirely new level. They use their large and impressive array of chemical-receptors to find females. Female polyphemus moths, like many of their kind, secrete a chemical agent called a pheromone. They are active at night and wi...

I had the opportunity to explore Swan Lake Wildlife Preserve last summer. We stayed near Princeton and I had the opportunity to visit it three or four times. It was a remarkable experience. The trials were not very long but there was plenty of natural elements to enjoy. I particularly liked seeing the large variety of birds and saw four species I had never laid eyes on before. These included a Bullock's Oriole, a Pygmy Nuthatch, a Lewis Woodpecker, and a Mountain Bluebird. I am usually thrilled at even seeing one new species, little lone four, and my time there was indeed memorable. I also found deer, quite a few interesting insects, and one or two species of bird I wasn't too sure of. Flycatchers tend to be hard to distinguish from each other. I photographed one (bottom right bird) that I have yet to identify. Should I be in the area again I will be sure to visit this place. I can hardly wait to see what new wonders are in store for me. Of all the birds ...

In North America, the kestrel is the smallest of all falcons. Basically the size of a mourning dove, it is commonly found perching on roadside powerlines. They are present in much of the continental United States year-round. They are continual residents of British Columbia's extreme southwest. I saw three of them near Pitt Polder (Maple Ridge) yesterday; the photo above was one of them. During the summer they can be found in Canada's mid-latitudes. Kestrels are excellent at hovering. They may search for food from a lofty perch but will also hover over an area of interest giving it a thorough once-over. When spotted, they will dive onto their quarry with abandon. They can take smaller birds in flight and will also take large insects such as dragonflies on the wing. They often take creatures off the ground which include rodents, reptiles, large insects, frogs, and even earthworms. They seem to prefer open areas and do not mind the presence of human activity...

I always look forward to the return of the swallows. I mostly see tree swallows around where I live, but occasionally one of these colourful guys will show up. I find all swallows fascinating; they are very graceful on wing and can turn on a pinhead, a dime not doing their aerobatics justice. Tree swallows have nested in some of my bird boxes. Violet-green swallows are fond of water and usually nest in cavities around lakes, streams, or ponds. They tend to fly higher than other swallows; this reduces competition with their feathered kin. They will fly low to the water's surface, much as tree and barn swallows do, when aquatic insects are breeding and hatching. If you go to the Audubon website ( click here ) and scroll down you will find a map showing the swallow's range in summer and winter. It also shows how climate change will likely affect its range. Global warming will have a significant impact on this bird species, as I am sure it will many others. ...

Sawflies belong to the Hymenoptera, the same group that ants, bees, and wasps belong to. They are very unusual though in that their larvae look more like caterpillars than the larvae of other insects from the same order. In fact, many people mistakenly identify the larvae as being caterpillars of butterflies and moths, the Lepidoptera. The easiest way to tell a sawfly larva from a caterpillar is to look at the number of prolegs at the back end. Caterpillars usually have five pairs of these false legs while sawfly larvae have six to eight pairs. The adults are completely different from most Lepidoptera because they do indeed appear to be wasp-like. The difference here is that sawflies do not possess a stinger of any kind. Most insect larvae that eat leaves are fairly particular on the genera or even species of plant they consume. Dogwood sawflies will eat the leaves of any species of dogwood, the variety does not seem to matter. They represent a pest to nurseries and ...

He called himself Smanit . It was a term he had heard the human creatures use in his presence. Ever since the glaciers receded from the area and his face was exposed anew to the sun and elements, he had noticed them. Standing erect on two legs, these animals were different. They weren't there before the ice, but they showed up soon after it had disappeared. How he enjoyed watching them fish in the nearby streams; the children played across from him and he marveled at their antics. He began to look forward to their presence. Days became years which, in turn, became centuries. Activity was all about Smanit . Deer would nibble at the grass beneath him. Flowers would grow above his eyes - how he loved the colour that they brought to his face. Trees would tickle him as their branches stroked the surface of the rock when the wind blew. And there were always the two-legged creatures to watch. One day Smanit noticed that man, as he learned to call them, began to clim...

I enjoy producing composite images. To clarify, a composite is an image where two or more shots are combined together to appear as one, natural picture. The great problems with composites are compatibility between components, relative scale, angle, and position of components, and an effective blending together of those components. I usually do composites with only two images. This often involves a background and a foreground. Green-screening is an example of this and is commonly done in cinematic productions. You can see an interesting composite I did by clicking here . The composite I produced today was a little more natural. I had photos of the parent and chick separately, but not together. I decided it would make a more interesting composition to combine the two. The process took about an hour. These are the steps I took: Take the Raw image of the parent (Image 1 above) and open it in Photoshop Raw. Manipulate image using the various Photoshop controls...

Time. The great leveler. Mountains bow down to it. Continents are transformed. Boys become young men, then fathers, and then grandfathers. Not only does the land change with time, but so does our understanding of our place in the universe. The scale is vastly different, as continental change takes place over eons while perceptual change during the course of a single lifetime. The effect on both is undeniable; rough edges become smooth and we see the world as a vastly different place. I find the photos above fascinating. Me, at 34 years of age, holding my young son. Both of us smiling because we are together, best buddies enjoying the moment. A year ago I could not have seen myself in this position or having the feelings I had for this small one. My vision of the world had undergone a radical change now that I had a child to care for. My son, now 27, is holding his month-old daughter in a familiar pose. My boy became a father and I became a grandfather at precisely t...

Why did the chicken cross the road? Because his wife made him. A silly answer to a silly question, but there is a point to this. As much as I like kayaking, I am very much concerned with being out in open water without a nearby shore close at hand. It is rare that I get out into deep water, and, on this occasion, I was on a motorboat with a friend who was at the helm. I could focus on taking photographs (literally) and not be too concerned with Davy Jones' Locker flowing underneath me. I find being in a motorized vessel much more reassuring when the water is deep and the shores distant. OK, so I am a bit of a chicken when it comes to deep water. I can, and have, kayaked out on open water where the nearest shore was at least a kilometer away. Not my bravest moment, mind you. I am sure anyone nearby would have heard me clucking. I suppose the odd feather may have even been visible. I have also been scuba diving, love to snorkel, and can swim down to the bottom of a ...

A simile, comparing two things using the words "like" or "as", is a tool of description. It allows the one uttering or scribing it the ability to impart a mental image to another. It is, in essence, a more poetic way of providing detail. The wordsmith could just stick with the facts; the container ship was so many feet long, but there is something about playing with words to communicate a thought that lends something to the craft of writing. I found an interesting website that provides great examples of the use of similies. One of the examples was from Margret Atwood. She writes, “Time has not stood still. It has washed over me, washed me away, as if I’m nothing more than a woman of sand, left by a careless child too near the water.” What colourful and descriptive language! It paints a thought with our own experiences that helps to enhance and elaborate details in a way nothing else could. For more of these great examples, click here . The photo ...

A couple of days ago I wrote a blog that accused starlings of being "flying rats." I have to tell you, that created quite a stir. Some thought the post was hilarious, others were perplexed at the moniker, and some were somewhat offended that I should name-call such a beautiful and common bird. So, I felt I needed to do the topic a little more service and research it a bit more. Here's what I found. On March 6, 1890, a fan of Shakespeare released 60 starlings in New York. Starlings were not native to North America and their arrival marked the beginning of an amazing expansion. Today over 200 million starlings cover our continent. They all came from those same 60 birds released over 130 years ago. Starlings have a head that allows them to get food where most other birds would fail. They can force their bill into the ground, open it up to grasp prey, and while down there use their binocular vision to hunt around. This is especially helpfu...

Essentially a glorified robin, the varied thrush lives along the western reaches of North America. Its call is somewhat haunting ( click here ) as it spends its time foraging on the ground for meals. They are far more elusive than their more familiar cousins and prefer thickets and dense areas of vegetation where they are harder to see. They are very distinctive from the American robin; the bright orange breast with a black bib (male only) and orange "eyebrows" clearly indicates its presence. It is very difficult to tell the sexes apart in robins. Not so for the varied thrush. The female is much duller in colour and does not have the striking bib present in the male. Robins are comfortable in the open and happily hop across manicured lawns in search of earthworms or any other tasty invertebrate they may find. Like the robin, these thrushes eat all types of invertebrates as well as berries and fruit. Seeds may be taken occasionally. Unlike their gregarious cous...

North America's largest woodpecker, the piliated woodpecker excels at demolishing dead trees in search for insects. One of its favourite is the carpenter ant; these large insects excavate holes in rotting trees to provide shelter for the colony. They aren't the only inhabitants of deadwood though. Many types of beetle, a variety of spiders, millipedes, and other creatures rely on these snags and fallen logs as a source of food and lodging. It is amazing how much force a woodpecker can apply when hammering on a trunk in search of food. To really appreciate it, we can use g-force as a unit of measure. First, to understand what g-force is, you have to understand that the Earth applies 1 g-force unit upon us in the form of gravity. When you accelerate fast in a car, you get pushed backward against your seat; an aggressive acceleration may provide a g-force of 0.5. The space shuttle, during the launch phase, may hit a value of 3 g's. An F-16 jet fighter may hit ...

If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning, I'd hammer in the evening, All over this land. (To see the song done by Peter, Paul, and Mary, click here ). Clearly, this flicker has something to say. It could have picked something a little harder than Styrofoam though if it wanted to really create a din. Flickers "hammer" on various surfaces for four main reasons. Attracting a mate, declaring a territory, excavating a nest hole, and finding food. Most of us have experienced the early morning sound of a flicker pounding away on a piece of tin they found on some suburban roof. They may not be making any progress in terms of putting a hole through the metal, but the racket they make will let others know that this is their land. The surface is somewhat unimportant, as long as it can produce a lot of noise. City transformers, satellite dishes, and even metal sheds all resound their intent. It is also a call to any potential mates in the area. ...

If you have seriously done photography for a while you would know the term "white balance". You may even know that white balance can be measured using the Kelvin temperature scale. Digital cameras have the ability to adjust the image to compensate for the environmental white balance being photographed. This represents a tremendously useful function as an off-colour scene will appear unusual. A common place where this is noticed is with people's skin tones. They may come out blue or green or yellow, anything but what a proper flesh tone should look like. The Kelvin scale is related to the Celcius scale. A change of 1° is exactly the same in both Celcius and Kelvin. The difference is their starting points; 0 on the Celsius scale is the temperature that water freezes at. For Kelvin, 0 is at absolute zero, the coldest temperature possible. Water freezes at 273°K. So, what does temperature have to do with the colour of light? Things that are very hot glow...

The iconic lighthouse. A metaphor that speaks of desperate times and warnings. Before modern navigational aids, ultra-accurate maps, and a flotilla of warning buoys, the lighthouse was the sole means by which sea-captains could navigate the dangerous shoals and reefs besieging their craft. Rocks, reefs, and wrecks could tear open a ship's hull. A wise seafarer would heed the warnings given by the beacon of light. Lighthouses also marked important positions. When far out at sea, all coastlines look pretty much the same. It is hard to tell an island from the mouth of a river or the entrance to a port; missing your point of entry could spell disaster. The lighthouse provided a means to distinguish one from the other and to provide a clear and recognizable landmark with which to navigate. This was especially true at night when the land and sea seemed to be swallowed up by perpetual blackness. The lighthouse direction and position. In the event of disaster, the light...

I have had a "bird garden" up ever since we moved into our house way back in 2002. The above photos were taken within a short period in 2009, almost 12 years ago now. I have nest boxes, feeders, finely crushed gravel, and water for the birds. I try to keep the food and water filled all winter. I have had tree swallows and chickadees nest in the boxes. I have also had other guests, less welcome than my avian friends, in the form of black squirrels and rats. Bears, raccoons, and skunks frequent the area but I have never had a feeder raided by one. I find the birds are especially fond of black sunflower seeds. These seem to satiate all but the pickiest eaters. Sometimes I put out niger seed; it is preferred by some of the finches. In wintertime I don't use niger seed; instead, I will put out suet. The fat content helps to provide much-needed energy for the birds. I have never, as far as I know, gotten woodpeckers to come. There are quite a few flickers in ...

What motivates birders to photograph the symbols of their affection? After all, to find an image of any bird in particular, all one has to do is consult the myriad of references both online and in books. I have at least 10 different field guides and reference texts on the subject, and I can think of a dozen websites I commonly visit to find whatever bird I am interested in. So, why do I bother to take my own photos? There are three reasons that have caused me to find and photograph these magnificent creatures. The first deals with my passion for photography. I have held a camera in my hands ever since I can remember, although I didn't seriously begin the hobby until I was 18 years old (that was 42 years ago by the way). With every click of the shutter, the compulsion to photograph my surroundings grew until it almost became obsessive. There is just something about capturing a moment in time that excites me. The second reason involves my passion for wildlife...

After four days of rain, it was good to get out of the house. I headed to one of my favourite birding and hiking sites. Pitt Polder Ecological Reserve is an 88 ha (1 hectare = 2.49 acres) wildlife refuge which hosts a plethora of bird species. I usually stay east of the main road into the area, but today I decided to head west adjacent to a cranberry farm. Today I walked west along Koerner Road, a distance of about 4 km return. I saw a number of song sparrows, juncos, towhees, and even a male and female flicker. It wasn't until I got back to the car that something extraordinary happened. I saw a fellow with a camera and long lens shooting at something high up in a tree. A large bird, a raptor, was near the top. I engaged in photographing the subject as well, and we mosied all over the place, ending up across the main road where the light and position were amiable. It was a gyrfalcon (dark phase), and the bird didn't seem to mind our interest in it. Then it star...

Butterflies are relatively easy to find. Active during the day, their colourful wings flutter the insect through the air from flower to flower. Moths tend to be a little more challenging as they are more active at night and don't always feed as adults. Caterpillars, the larvae of lepidopterans, are usually even harder to find. They tend to be specific in their eating habits, relying on certain plant species or genera to feed. As a result, if you are looking for a specific caterpillar, you have to search for particular plants. Why would anyone hunt for a particular caterpillar? It seems to be a ludicrous expenditure of time. Yet, the reward can be an opportunity to be totally astonished. First off, many caterpillars are beautiful in their own way and some are particularly large. Watching them grow, seeing them shed their skin, and their amazing transformation from larva to pupa to adult is spectacular. If you are fortunate enough to see one emerge from its pupal st...

I have bird watched for many years but admittedly am still perplexed in identifying species and sexes within a species. One of the reasons I enjoy photographing birds is to learn about their many differences. One that I commonly come across is the Norther Flicker; although I only ever call them Flickers. Is there even such a thing as a "Southern Flicker"? I don't think so - I looked it up on this website and got no hits. I have only recently become confident in determining the male from the female; the black mustache used to confuse me in photos until I discovered the birds sporting it were yellow-shafted males. So, if the flicker has no mustache at all, it is a female. If the mustache is red, it is a red-shafted flicker. If the mustache is black, it is a yellow-shafted flicker. How, then, do you tell if the female is a yellow or red-shafted one? By looking at the underwing colour and undertail colour. You can guess which colour each one will be. Th...