Archive | July 2013

Cheapskate Tuesday 24: On white, in situ

A few weeks ago, I delved into what a white card could do paired with two flashes. I found it was a bit tricky to use it to add fill except in a few situations, but the way that it could be used to blow out a background was intriguing, so I wondered if it was practical to use for “Meet Your Neighbours” style lighting in the field. The difference between MYN style and mine is that the MYN people are really good…But enough of that, the other difference is that the MYN style often involves larger setups and “field studio” type conditions, using tripods and lightstands and the lot. With bounced flash from a white card, I can blow out the background, so what is to stop me from just holding it behind the subject and using the Monster Macro Rig to light both the subject and the background? I gave it a try, and here are my results and some thoughts.

For relatively slow moving insects on stable backgrounds, this is a great technique. The only issues are to get an angle that allows a blown background, and to balance the light hitting the subject and the flash. I was working at f13, with 1/8 power on a YN560 for the subject, and 1/8 to 1/4 with a YN460 (a smaller light) for the background. ISO around 160-250.

For subjects on more mobile backgrounds, it is better to have no wind! The more flighty subjects may tolerate a close approach with the macro rig, but putting the card behind is a whole other level of disturbance to manage! I found that flies and bees and such were tough to approach.

This Grass Veneer was flighty and was also on some ridiculously mobile grass, so this is the only shot I got. Luckily it was mostly in focus. Again, working in calm conditions would be best.

Getting the subject isolated in natural (unselected) vegetation is difficult, especially when they are timid. This shot could be better isolated.

A tiny subject on a larger leaf is a tough one to compose. Wherever you cut the leaf, it will look odd. It may have been better with this lace bug to cut it in the corner…That being said, this technique can make for some nice textural contrasts with a subject such as this.

Small fine features coming out into the white background can be easily swamped, so it is important to keep fine features parallel to the plane of the rest of the subject…This would be great, but the way the antennae fade is not so nice.

The nicest thing about this approach is that the subject is actually in the position and situation it was found in, so the setting is appropriate and not contrived. A field studio approach may not achieve this.

So that’s it for this week’s Cheapskate Tuesday! I think that it is something I will continue to work on, as it seems to have promise. Keep watching this blog for more results using this technique, preferably of lovelier subjects on calmer days!

Weekend Expedition 26: Biking out to Iona

Jul15

Trying my hand at bike-borne photography, this is my shot of a jet coming in to YVR. Note the Guaranteed Terrorist Proof® Fence!

This weekend Expedition, my dad and I paid a visit to Iona Beach, a place that has been very productive in the past. We took our bikes out there, the better to enjoy the scorching sun and cloudless skies…

Like many hot and dry days, this trip was not as productive as it might have been, with many critters deep in shelter, and those that remain active remaining VERY active. Nonetheless, we did turn up a few cool animals, and I hope you enjoy the pics!

The unhappy remains of a green lacewing?

This little garter snake was under a log near the beach.

A Philanthus gibbosus beewolf, so called because they feed their young bees.

A Damsel Bug (Nabidae) haunts the under-log world.

There were few jumpers evident this time, which was a bit of a disappointment, but I did find this one female Habronattus.

A Hobo Spider (Tegenaria agrestis) is actually a pretty elegant looking thing!

There were many nymphal grasshoppers around, or as I like to call them, spider food!

A female Wolf Spider with a nest and an egg sac!

Check out the markings on this Hobo!

The dreaded Dysdera crocata, or Woodlouse Hinter.

A tentful of caterpillars on alder.

I wish I knew my grasshopper well enough to even say what genus this is in…

The buttonflowers can be productive for Hymenoptera.

Bembix Sand Wasp. Check out its crazy labrum!

All in all, the Expedition was not terribly fruitful. In the future I need to get out closer to dawn so as to take advantage of the less-active insects and better light…I made up for it Sunday with a bit of grant-writing at home and some prep for Cheapskate Tuesday.

Barn Owling with Sofi

Jul11

Sofi and an adult male Barn Owl from several years ago.

Last night, my dad and I went out with my friend Sofi Hindmarch to do some work with Barn Owls (Tyto alba) out in Ladner. I have known Sofi since she was in her masters program, and have been helping her catch and track owls for some years now.

The first task for the evening was to band some chicks in nest boxes Sofi has been monitoring. We checked four nest boxes and saw several owls at the sites, but only one of them had any young inside. This old box in a barn had three chicks.

Sofi carefully removes the chicks from the box.

This owl thinks this is the worst thing ever.

This little guy was pretty calm, but the older chick was snapping and hissing.

My dad watches the proceedings.

After we checked all the boxes, we headed out to try to catch an adult owl. Sofi is continuing her studies on the potential for rodenticide poisoning of Barn Owls in areas where toxic baits are used. Because birds are susceptible to these poisons, and because the threatened owls are such voracious rodent predators, they may be at risk of poisoning. To assess the potential for this type of poisoning, Sofi needs to tag owls with radio tags and do many hours of telemetry to determine where the owls are foraging. In order to do this, we need to catch the owls and fit them with the radio transmitters.

The traps we use are called Bal-chatri traps, and are basically just a wire cage covered in monofilament nooses. Each of the traps has 1 or 2 mice inside, and they are secured by an elastic cord (to lessen shock) to a weight.

At our first site, near Tsawwassen, a Great Horned owl arrived within seconds of our setup, which forced us to pack up and move to another location. These large owls are able to kill the smaller Barn Owl, so it is not advisable to have them near the trapping operation.

Our second site was free of larger species, and after 20 minutes our so a Barn Owl came in to investigate. The owl perched on the ladder secured to the truck for a while, and made several passes over one of the traps. The owl finally pounced on one trap, and from experience, we knew to let it hang out a while. Often they are not caught, but just feel around for a few moments to try to get mouse. If you rush out too early, the owl will get away.

Sure enough, the owl was not caught, and went over and perched on a sign to think things over. After a short time, it was flying again, and dropped decisively on the trap. We waited again, and the owl flew up and then turned immediately and was back on the trap. Sofi did not think it was caught, but the way it pivoted during its little hop told me it had been snagged, so I rushed out to grab it. It was caught, and the owl turned just as I was on it and tried to swipe my face with its talons. After I had it in hand, it calmed right down, and more so when we hooded it with a cotton bag.

This was an large older female owl, and had the molt to show it.

After measuring and weighing the bird, we put the transmitter on and examined it for fit.

Here is the transmitter in place on the back.

Sofi shows the specialized serrations on the second talon, which is thought to be an adaptation to remove ectoparasites.

Wow! My very own owl shot! Photo by Sofi Hindmarch.

A gorgeous bird.

The most important part of the evening is shown below, the successful release of the owl, unharmed. I may not be much of a all night partier, but if it is an owl party, count me in!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Duck Update

Jul11

duckdate

I just got an update on the unfortunate duck we found Tuesday: The duck has been captured, and is being treated at Wildlife Rescue for wing droop. The wing was not broken, but was strained, and it should be releasable within a few days.

Still no word back from the Parks Board regarding the fishing issue, but I will keep vigilant for further problems arising from this activity.

A bad idea threatens wildlife in our local park

Jul10

This poor young Mallard has a hook embedded in the wing, and likely a broken wing from trying to free itself.

Yesterday, I took my dad down to see Hastings Park, one of the very few natural areas in my neighbourhood. After making our way along the shore, we came to the north side of the pond, where we stopped for a while to watch a heron preening. After a time, we noticed a group of young Mallards sitting on the shore. One of them had its left wing drooping, as if it was injured. We thought at first that the raccoon we had seen earlier had attacked it, but closer inspection revealed that the poor duck had a fishing hook stuck into its wing. Evidently, the bird had become snagged on the hook and broken its wing trying to free itself.

How could this come to be? Why was there a discarded fishing hook hanging from one of the branches?

Well, the story behind this actually is more than a bit creepy. Stan Taylor, another nature enthusiast was there when we met this unfortunate duck and gave us the background. A couple months ago, the administrators of the park (which is a private company!) and the Freshwater Fisheries Society of BC decided it would be fun for the public to be able to fish in the pond, and so they plowed a route down to the water (in bird nesting season) and installed a dock for people to fish from. They also released 900 sterilized rainbow trout for people to catch. The rules were supposed to be that the fishing was only to occur at that specific dock, but people began fishing all around the pond in the height of nesting season, trampling down vegetation and leaving waste all around the park.

Here is a hook hanging in Hastings Park on June 11, ready for a frugivorous bird to grab it.

This is a really ill-thought out idea, that goes in direct opposition to the planning that has been done by the Hastings Park Conservancy and the recommendations of the Friends of Hastings Park. Instead of a quiet urban refuge for wildlife, the powers that be want to make this quiet park into a far different place, where people learn how to kill aquatic animals for sport. I am not against fishing per se, but this tiny little pond is not the kind of place for it. Here in East Vancouver, we have so little in the way of habitat for wildlife, that every little bit should be carefully managed.

130 species of bird have been sighted in Hastings Park, and there is an active eagle nest in a large cottonwood.

Anyway, I have sent the pictures and a letter to the Parks Board and put up the video on YouTube. This unfortunate bird is probably only one of many that have been or will be adversely affected by this change in the way the park is used. Hopefully this will help change some minds about having an unaccountable private entity control one of our public parks.

Hastings Park is one of my favourite nearby places to go to see wildlife, and it would be a shame if injuries like this become the norm for the birds nesting and migrating through the park.

For more information about the controversy, see the following links:

Article in Vancouver Courier

Opinion Article from Vancouver Courier

Metro Article

Cheapskate Tuesday 23: Rat Safari!

Jul9

More Rats!_5959739615_l

They say that if you want to take better pictures, you need to stand in front of more interesting stuff. This certainly has some truth to it, and is one of the reasons why investment in a photo expedition can be so much more useful than allocating tons of money on new cameras and lenses. But a trip to an exotic far-flung locale does not really fit in with the Cheapskate Tuesday philosophy, so how about a photo safari closer to home?

Shooting Norway Rats (Rattus norvegicus) provides an opportunity to shoot an interesting, seldom-photographed subject in the heart of a city. Because they are nocturnal, they pose some unique challenges, namely lighting them properly! For these shots, I used 2 radio-controlled manual speedlights,which were set up to light a small area baited with common dog food. One could also use TTL triggers, such as the new YongNuo 622‘s and set the metering to spot to meter the subject, but I did not have these available. Instead, after guesstimating lighting ratios, I just played with the ISO and f-stop to get decent exposures.

Starting shortly after nightfall on a summer night in July, I chose an area with lots of foot traffic adjacent to a rail line. This ensured that the rats were used to human proximity and conditioned to search for littered food. An alleyway near some dumpsters would also work well. I shot these using a 70-300 zoom, and of course the faster the lens, the easier focusing will be, but choosing an area with some artificial light helps.

Because rats are neophobic (afraid of new things in their environment), I was worried that the speedlights would scare them off, but these rats that are habituated to a rapidly-changing litter landscape did not pay too much heed to some more crap lying around.

Depending on the season (I recommend early summer), the majority of rats you will encounter will be young, as rats are short-lived highly fecund creatures, meaning that the cohort of young individuals will greatly exceed the number of large, reproductively mature animals. These younger rats often have bright eyes and nice fur, which makes them rather cute.

Urban litter is often in the frames, adding some context to the shots.

Many of the rats I encountered had scars such as missing eyes, which indicates crowding in shelter areas and conspecific aggression.

The elegant form of the rat at a gallop is one of the most astounding sights in the natural world.

Rats at Commercial Drive_5956413839_l Rats at Commercial Drive_5956981674_l

There is much more I would like to do with rats, such as triggering a camera with a wide angle remotely, and providing more natural foods, like pizza. Just imagine, a rat in front of a graffiti covered wall, dragging a massive slice of pizza! This is my art, this is my dream.

Anyway, I urge anyone to go try a rat safari, and wonder at the most urban of urban wildlife.

Weekend Expedition 25: a few from Stanley Park

Jul8

Some Eudioctria Robber Flies getting it on!

Photography seems to run in my family, with my Dad shooting lots of people and landscapes, and my brother doing lots of aviation and travel shooting.

My Dad was visiting this weekend from Romania, and so I thought I would take him out to find some cool stuff in Stanley Park. Now is a great time for fledgling birds, and all the summer specialties such as robber flies are abundant.

A mother Wood Duck watches her brood.

Wood Duckling!

Fledgling Great Blue Heron, trying to fish.

Young Canada Goose, looking serious.

Crows were foraging in the intertidal of English Bay.

A fledgling crow learns how to get mollusks on the beach.

My dad takes a break while I shoot crows.

Soldier Beetle tosses antennae provocatively.

A monster!

Lacewing larvae are pretty fascinating.

The Eudioctria were a bit randy today.

And hungry! Here is one with a barklouse as prey.

Strategic wing placement?

This Anthidium manicatum was fixated on these flowers. For an introduced species, these are pretty nice looking insects.

Who likes robber flies?

Jul4

Coming in to the lab this morning, I found this beautiful male Laphria robber fly sitting on a window. He was still cool from the night, so he made a very cooperative photographic subject.

These large handsome flies are strikingly marked and are Batesian mimics of bumblebees. Robber flies do not rob banks, they rob life. For a great example of this, see Alex Wild’s wonderful photo of one with a honeybee.

This robber robbed me of about 30 minutes of photography time, but I think it is well worth it!

If you are interested in how to get these blue sky backgrounds, see this excellent post at Beetles in the Bush.

Weekend Expedition 24: Long Weekend in Victoria

Jul2

This halictid peering out of a burrow was probably the coolest shot I managed.

This Canada Day Long Weekend, Catherine and I took the ferry to Victoria to visit my mom and chill out in the record-setting heat. This was great for the party people, not so great for our skin and the photographic opportunities. Strangely enough, very hot and dry weather is not very good for nature photography, as the light becomes very harsh very quickly, and those few insects that have not retreated to shelter from the elements are zipping around like maniacs with their metabolisms in high gear.

I did get some decent shots however, it was just a lot more painful than it might ordinarily have been.

The first day, Catherine and I kayaked out to Discovery Island, just off Oak Bay, where a wolf has been living (!) since this winter.

Although the voyage over was scenic and the water calm, I did not trust my ability to hold the camera free of the salt spray to shoot the seals and seabirds we saw. When we arrived, the overheated little island yielded little photographic material. It was also ridiculously hot.

We did not end up seeing the wolf, but we did find some of its droppings, which were still fragrant and moist.

One lowly Chestnut-backed Chickadee was the best I could come up with.

Later that evening, walking on Dallas Road, we did some gull and dog shooting.

a monster!

This little guy was having a ball.

The heat created some interesting haze effects on the water.

Maggie, my mom’s dog is more sedate, but still a great model.

The cliffs at Dallas Road (in Beacon Hill Park) are a great place to find solitary bees, including Anthophorids, Megachilids and Halictids. These sandy cliffs are great for burrowing species.

A beautiful little Halictid.

Megachilid

It was so rich with Hymenoptera, but so hard to shoot them in the sun, I came out Tuesday at dawn to try to catch them when they were less active…

Unfortunately for me, the only insects that were slowed by the dawn temperature drop were a couple crabronids. All the Anthophora shot out of their burrows pre-heated and ready to work!

I did manage one shot of Anthophora bomboides peeking out of its burrow.

Frustrated in the morning, I went out late Tuesday afternoon for some shooting at Uplands Park.

Some kind of flower-feeding scarab.

A juvenile katydid!

Small robber fly with aphid prey.

Cheapskate Tuesday 22: how to photograph a spider’s privates

Jul2

IMG_1364-2

Spider identification is difficult at a glance, and even from photographs. Many of the key features for identifying spiders (and other arthropods) to species lie in their genitalia. In spiders, these are rather inconveniently placed underneath the body, so if one is to have a chance at getting an ID from photos, one must be able to photograph the underside in some detail.

Enter the Spi-Pot. This device is simply a tube attached over a clear viewing window, with a padded plunger used to immobilize the spider with the ventral side gently pressed to the viewing window.

I made such a device simply by taping a pill bottle (with the bottom cut off) onto a microscope slide, and used a cotton ball rolled in a tube of paper as a plunger. This was sufficient to get a decent view of the spider’s epigynum, and with careful placement of a diffused light I was able to get some pictures. I have submitted these the bugguide.net, and have already received an ID from Kyron Basu, who identified this as a spider in the family Amaurobiidae, genus Callobius. I am hoping that with the epigynum shots I have made, the ID of this spider can be nailed to species. Buggide is awesome.

Using a microscope slide allows the Spi-Pot to hang from a glass, exposing the ventral side of the spider.

OK, the seam holding the tube to the glass could be a bit better…

The money shot (I hope).

By the way, if you are awaiting the posting of the Weekend Expedition, I have one in the works, and am probably out photographing it as you read this. The actual shooting I got in this weekend was marginal due to the hot dry weather, and I was unable to get out at a decent hour for photography. I am remedying this with a Tuesday morning expedition to the cliffs at the base of Dallas Road in Victoria, where I hope to surprise some insects before they get super active. Wish me luck!

IMG_1358-2

References

Zschokke, S., & Herberstein, M. E. (2005). Laboratory methods for maintaining and studying web-building spiders. Journal of Arachnology, 33(2), 205-213.