All My Blogs

I was out picking up some landscape blocks today and saw this interesting insect sitting on the outside wall of the home I was at.  It flew on my shirt after I got close to it and I used my cell phone camera (macro setting) to photograph it.  The images turned out modestly well, good enough for me to do a blog on the creature anyway. Locally it is called the Okanagan mayfly, but it has a wide range and is more commonly called the giant burrowing mayfly.  It can be found throughout North America and reaches its greatest population density around the Great Lakes. Eggs are very small, one female lays an average of 4000 of them.  The egg overwinters and hatches in the spring to produce a larva, called a naiad.  The tiny larvae burrow in soft substrate and produce an open-ended tunnel where they live out their lives.  The gills move back and forth creating a flow of water that brings both oxygen and organic material into the tube.  The naiad feeds on organic material throughout its developm

A fireman dousing a hotspot. The adage, "No news is good news," implies that loved ones are doing okay.  The basis for this is that people don't readily communicate with others unless there is a problem.  It leaves us to believe that all is well with the world and those we care about.  The truth though is that we just don't know.  People become complacent in their ignorance.  Relationships erode over time and distance when contact is ignored.  In an age where it has never been easier to communicate, there is little reason to abstain from talking to one another. Information is important for awareness and decision-making.  We receive that information from a variety of sources, but many of us rely on relatively few of them.  Facebook, for example, is a social media that is popular and allows us to communicate with many people at once instead of one individual at a time.  News, in all of its forms, can be shared with those on our collective feeds.  Personal news, world ne

Debby, Allan, Ellen, Charles, Sheila, Eric  Missing;  Hal. At the ripe 'ol age of 19, I was a broken shell.  Withdrawn, shy, and lacking confidence, there was little I felt that I could offer the world.  I had the things I loved, which included my relationship with the college's biology department and my love of photography.  Outside of that, I had no friends or areas of interest. I came from a dysfunctional family; my mom was a17 year alcoholic who had made 6 suicide attempts and wasn't finished yet.  It would be Christmas eve a year later that her last attempt would be made.  I needed to get out, so I applied for a student loan and moved into residence on campus in September.  I wanted to learn more about photography and so I joined the college newspaper, the Bricklayer , as a photographer.  Little did I know that it would change my life. I met people there that I still know and love today.  They accepted me for who I was and enjoyed spending time with me.  I learned phot

Dell (left), me, and Charles (right) at the cabin, circa 1982. If you have ever camped with Dell, you know about chili.  It was often the first meal once camp was set up.  In order to cook it, the pot had to be retrieved.  Yes, the venerable chili pot.  The pot itself was undoubtedly a relic from some military campaign - there were enough dents in it to suggest that it had served as both helmet and bucket for more than a few decades.  It had been brought out to camp many years before I first encountered it.  It lived inside "the pit", as it was called, where it would be retrieved immediately upon arrival.  The newest member of any expedition would be called upon to go into the earth's void and excise whatever valuables were needed.  Chief among those items was the chili pot. Chili was often the first meal for many reasons.  First of all, it was a grand source of energy for our bodies which had just been through an ordeal making it to the cabin.  It is somewhat ironic that

Birds I photographed at Lac Bellevue, Alberta, in 2016. I visited my daughter, Leanne, when she was a camp counsellor at Alberta's Lac Bellevue, seven years ago in 2016.  While there I plied the waters with my kayak and photographed many of the wetland birds I saw.  The diversity was astonishing; in fact, two different species I have not photographed before or since. If you ask a child about the types of wild birds they know, the chances are they will tell you about robins, crows, and house sparrows.  They may also have a general idea about ducks and gulls.  Outside of that, it is unlikely they could identify a hawk from a falcon, a sandpiper from a plover, or even a wren from a finch.  I think it could be said that many adults would have the same problem. This is the heart of the matter.  Adults don't know, and so neither do children.  Most teachers are not familiar with local fauna and the curriculum generally does not require them to be.  Parents were never taught such thing

Maya Ruins, Tulum, Mexico. Covid affected us all.  My travel plans were completely destroyed at its onset and any thought of leaving the house was pretty much obliterated for three years.  Although I have missed travelling, I haven't missed the crowds.  It's the one thing I can do without. I have been watching the news; there have been shots of the outrageous temperatures present on European soil.  More specifically, Greece has been in the frying pay, so to speak, and yet it has not stopped the myriad of tourists that are stoically waiting in line to see ancient sites like the Acropolis.  There are a lot of other places in the world to go and see that don't involve long lineups and outrageous temperatures.   I enjoy travel as it brings with it the opportunity to do something special with friends and family and allows me to photograph entirely new worlds.  As much as it would be nice to see ancient Greece, the inhospitable climate and ridiculous queues are hurdles I do not w

Woodland skipper taking nectar. I always enjoy seeing butterflies; their fluttering habits guiding them toward colourful flowers bearing a sugary reward.  Often they are seen individually, the odd one here and there.  Not so with skippers.  If I find one I can be sure there are many more around. Imagine my thrill at coming across a small flowered area being accosted by dozens of bright orange Lepidoptera.  Most of them were woodland skippers, although there was a beautiful fritillary butterfly coursing through their midst (I got a few photos of it, but none of them turned out well.  The best is below) Frittillary butterfly I photographed while shooting skippers. I estimated that there were at least 50 skippers flitting about the area.  Not only that, but as I walked along the path in the clear-cut I was visiting, there were plenty more. The caterpillars feed on a variety of grasses.  This ubiquitous food source allows them to be very common insects.  You find these butterflies and larv

Comparing white butterflies - I believe the underlying image is a Margined White. I must admit to thinking that every white butterfly I see flitting around is a Cabbage butterfly, also called the Cabbage White (upper left inset).  However, yesterday I encountered a white butterfly without the tell-tale black spots on the wings.  Could it be a mutation? As it turns out, no.  There are a number of all-white butterflies.  Many of them, such as the West Virginia White (lower right inset), are natives of eastern North America and do not come close to British Columbia.  The Margined White butterfly (lower left inset) does.  The lacking wing spots and the presence of a gray edging on the forewing leads me to believe that I photographed a Margined White.  However, other photos of the Margined White butterfly have shown them with a lot of gray edging about the wing veins (click here to see), so I am not completely sure of the identification. Compounding the issue is that there seems to be a sea

I photographed this beetle today while walking in a clearcut area populated by many wildflowers.  The insect clumsily flew past me and landed on a yellow flower; I immediately was on it with my macro lens and camera setup.  I usually use lens-mounted flash units to facilitate lighting.  In this case, there were none, and I had only the sun's illumination to go by.  It seemed to be enough. I have spent considerable time trying to identify this species of beetle.  Its body shape, size, and appendages all conform to the black blister beetle.  The one thing that really throws me off though is the presence of hair, and quite a lot of it.  The images I examined through book and the web did not show this to be such a hairy insect. Regardless of my uncertain identification, I have to say that it was very interesting reading up on blister beetles.  The larvae help to control grasshopper populations by consuming their eggs.  The adults emerge from pupation mid-summer and feed on plant matter

North America hosts about 73 different species of dagger moths.  British Columbia has at least 9 species.  I am pretty sure the one I photographed above is the Afflicted Dagger Moth.  It was hiding under a sheet of loose bark I gently pulled up on that was part of a dead, upright tree.  The moths are nocturnal and normally wouldn't be visible during the day.  You can find them sometimes at night around lights. The caterpillar is orange in colour and boasts an enlarged head.  They feed on oak trees but are not considered pests.  You can see one by clicking here and looking at the second and third images available.  Another dagger moth, also present in BC, is the American Dagger Moth.  It is unusual in that it has venomous hairs that can actually impart a painful sting.   I am always amazed by the sheer diversity of moths.  Every year I get a dozen photos of interesting moths and each year I rarely get the same species.  They vary widely in size, distribution, and habits.  My favouri

Water striders belong to the Hemiptera, or true bugs.  They are one of the few organisms that take advantage of water's surface tension.  They literally "skate" on the surface of the water without themselves actually getting wet.  The rear four legs are used to achieve this while the front two catch prey and hold it for eating. Water has very strong cohesive forces, but no more so than at the water's surface when it comes into contact with air.  The hydrogen bonds are especially hard to break here as the atmosphere offers no substitute.  The water strider's back four feet are covered with hydrophobic hairs that repel water.  This allows the insect the ability to stand on the water's surface without breaking its cohesion. The above water strider is a juvenile; it's wings have not fully developed yet (they will eventually cover the abdomen after the final moult.   Each instar (period between moults) lasts about 7-10 days.  When they become adults they can fl