Archive | August 2013

Exile in Port Moody

Well, after last week’s successful field trip to Island View Beach, Catherine and I returned to find our apartment full of water and smelling like a mouldy swamp. It turns out that the genius who lives upstairs had a toilet overflow (for an unknown number of hours) and the water leaked down (it does that) into our place. This bright star living above us thinks nothing of it, mops out her bathroom, and calls it a day. Or three. Meanwhile, the damage is done. Many gallons of water have flooded our carpets, eaten away the ceiling, infiltrated the walls, and rotted for three days. The upstairs tenant calls no one, and we return to a minor disaster.

Smartypants upstairs claims she didn’t know about the flooding. Where did the footprints come from? A mystery!

After the landlord, insurance adjusters and emergency contractors storm in, we realize that to get this fixed will take 4-6 weeks minimum, and that we cannot be there while this happens. Because we have no renter’s insurance, no one will cover the monetary cost of our enforced exile (the landlord has been great though, refunding our rent and offering for us to stay with him). So we are moving. Back to the smaller place I had, near Commercial Drive in Vancouver. It is probably a good thing; it will save us money and get us access to a 140 lb Rottweiler. In the meantime, we are staying with Catherine’s Aunt in Port Moody, east of the school. It is really not so bad here, it has a great view and borders a really wild ravine. I have been taking some pics (of course) to try to keep sane. I hope you enjoy!

The view from here.

Tom the dog showing off the view.

Moth in the nighttime!

Mites on a millipede?

Uloborid spiders (Hyptiotes gertschi) mating. Thanks to Robb Bennett and Chris Buddle for the ID!

A Male Drumming Katydid.

Male Araneus diadematus.

Isopod with friends.

Isopod with frenemy?

Tom and Kong!

Cheapskate Tuesday 26: the power of french fries

Aug27

Next time you are on a ferry passage, I recommend you investigate the use of french fries for gull photography. That is all.

gull

bite

Weekend Expedition 31: Sleeping Hymenoptera!

Aug26

What is the perfect arthropod photographic subject? Cute jumping spiders, powerful robberflies, shiny tiger beetles? I would argue that all these are great, but they are not very easy to do full photographic justice to. No, what you need is something that stays still for long periods of time, at a handy angle for posing against the light, and is pretty to boot! Sleeping bees and wasps fit this bill perfectly! Many solitary bees and wasps perch with their mandibles locked into a plant substrate. making for some fine shooting opportunities. I was lucky enough to come upon two sleeping aggregations with Coelioxys bees and Ammophila wasps at Island View Beach on Friday morning. Because they were so still, I was able to try many kinds of shots with them, I hope you will enjoy seeing them as much as I loved taking them!

The colours of the dawn sky show from the east , while a diffused flash and a fill card light the subject. This is Coelioxys rufitarsus, one of the parasitic Megachilids. These beauties lay their eggs in other Megachilid nests, and their larvae consume their host’s provisions.

This Ammophila was shot using my standard lighting using the Monster Macro Rig.

I love the elegant pointed abdomens of these awesome bees!

This shot of the two sleeping insects was shot from the tripod with all natural light, 1/8 sec, f13.

Tripod shot of the aggregation, silhouetting them against the dawn sky.

This shot shows the Coelioxys waking up.

When I have the time and a great subject, I like to compose some “cover shots”.

Of course I also shot them on white!

This is the second aggregation, a bit further up the beach.

Spider Fieldwork at Island View Beach, Part 1: the Spiders!

Aug25

So this week I have been hanging out at the beach! The reason is that I am helping Catherine and her collaborator Devin out with her field study of sexual communication of western black widow spiders (Latrodectus hesperus), which are super abundant at this locality. Island View has some really nice dune habitat with abundant woody debris. It is perfect for black widows, but there are lots of really great species to be found here. I took what time I could to go out and take some photos. This was Catherine’s very first field study for her degree, as she is mostly in the lab working with captive spiders.

Loading up the truck! For some reason, I never got good head-on shots of Devin, as he was always working!

The trip over is the always-scenic route through the Gulf Islands. Needless to say, in fair weather I hit the deck with my camera!

The portion of Island View Beach we were working on is on the lands of the Tsawout First Nation, and the condition of the shoreline and grasslands is great, with areas set aside for restoration of native vegetation. There is lots of woody debris, which makes for good habitat for small animals.

Western black widow! This adult female has a nice red hourglass marking and we saw her out on her web in the daytime. The habitat is loaded with these, with almost every log sheltering several females.

The capture webs often extend out into the grasses and herbs, and the log forms a secure retreat for the spiders.

Juvenile females are sometimes boldly marked with bright white, as seen here. The colouration is actually quite variable.

Males look a lot like juvenile females, but are most often yellow or light brown in colour.

Black widows have a fearsome reputation, due to their potent venom, but in reality are pretty harmless to people as they rarely bite. Their prey, however, do get bit, and succumb quickly to the effects of the venom. Black widows are often able to subdue much larger prey with a combination of silk throwing and venom injection.

Even big strong and hard insects, such as this Golden Buprestid are subject to widow predation.

This is the season when mating occurs, and we even saw some courtship in the daytime!

Other spiders are also to be found, but are not as abundant as the black widows. Here is a Woodlouse Hunter, Dysdera crocata.

Many of the logs shelter both black widows and two species of invasive Tegenaria, They have different web morphology, but are probably direct competitors with the widows.

A small female Habronattus americanus. I did not get any great shots of the colourful males this time, but these beauties abound on the mossy areas off the beach.

Larger jumpers, such as this Phidippus johnsoni, are also around the beach.

We worked day and night, but did not get much opportunity to hang out at the beach. No matter! The fieldwork was fun, and a good workout as well.

The quiet nights doing fieldwork in good weather were really almost too good to be true. The moonrises were excellent (although I was hauling gear with no camera for the best) and we saw a really big Great Horned Owl on the way in.

At the end of it all, Catherine was really happy with the data we collected, which were excellent and conclusive even after a single 24 hours of work! This is the smile of a happy field biologist! I will tell the whole story of the fascinating experiment in an upcoming post.

Pics from the field soon!

Aug23

I found this Ammophila (Sphecidae) sleeping near the beach at dawn.

Catherine, her collaborator Devin and I have been out doing fieldwork with western black widows at Island View Beach near Victoria. The data coming in has been awesome, and I think I have got some awesome images as well! This short field outing has been one of the most productive and rewarding trips I have been on, and it is low-cost and really pretty here as well. When I get some time I will prepare some material for the blog.

No Cheapskate Tuesday Post today

Aug20

I am still not back on my regular blogging schedule, as things have been quite busy. Catherine and I are preparing for some fieldwork at Island View Beach (which should be interesting!). Sorry about the lack of a Cheapskate Tuesday post, but I did take some pictures in the community garden last night.

Weekend Expedition 30: A day off in Stanley Park

Aug19

A picture of me, with a sizable prey item, trying to hold it together!

It has been a busy couple weeks here in Vancouver, preparing manuscript revisions for an upcoming paper and writing grant proposals for upcoming fieldwork. They way it is looking now, I may soon be travelling to Honduras in the fall for a 3 week expedition to survey for Red-throated Caracaras and Scarlet Macaws in a remote region of Olancho. This trip will also be to familiarize myself with the terrain, meet the local conservationists and researchers, and get rolling on some permitting issues pertaining to future fieldwork. This is an exciting development for species and habitat conservation, as well as for my harebrained scheme to continue research on my favourite loud birds!

Anyway, with all the excitement, it has been tough to find time to go out to shoot, but that is exactly what I did yesterday, hanging out in Stanley Park, and seeing what the late summer had to offer.

At first, I thought this fly was a member of the Orthorrhapha, the group including horseflies, but Morgan Jackson of Biodiversity in Focus correctly ID’ed it as a Tachinid! Don’t believe me? Check out the closeup of the antennae! The species is Euthera setifacies, one of only two species of Euthera in North America.

That’s a Cyclorhaphan, man! Those antennae are aristate!

The Himalayan Blackberry is still being visited by pollinators, but the vast majority of the fruit is ripe.

The ripe blackberry is under heavy attack by Drosophila suzukii, an invasive species of vinegar fly from Japan. This is male shows why the species goes by the common name “Spotted-winged Drosophila”.

This male Common Aerial Yellowjacket (Dolichovespula arenaria) is also a harbinger of fall. Their colony cycle is almost finished, reproductives are being produced, and within a month or so their nests will decline.

When the Bald-faced Hornets (Dolichovespula maculata) start nectaring, it is also an indication their colonies are in decline. Because much of the sugar for the adults is produced by the larvae (trophallaxis!), when larval numbers are low, adults must find other sources of fuel.

A Sierra Dome Spider, Neriene litigiosa (Linyphiidae) has a snack at the top of her dome web. As fall approaches, these become extremely apparent in almost every salal bush.

Our largest native slug, the Spotted Banana Slug eats some skunk cabbage.

The termites are flying, and their long wings and slow flight make for easy snares for web-building spiders. I like how the green of the fern is reflected in the translucent wings.

A Pacific Forktail (Ischnura cervula) hangs out by the water.

A Black Dancer (Mystacides sepulchralis) a type of Caddisfly, rests near Lost Lagoon.

Some kind of Nematus sawfly.

A raccoon checks out the situation before crossing the water.

I love how they hold their tails out!

Those without tails make do.

A very late brood Mallard Duckling from water level.

I was excited to see this male Pine White nectaring.

The omnipresent Woodland Skipper (Ochlodes sylvanoides).

Skippers can be pretty cute!

A lucky Goldenrod Crab Spider (Misumena vatia) takes advantage of the skipper abundance.

An introduced Drumming Katydid female (Meconema thalassinum) hangs out on a fern. Check out Piotr Naskrecki’s awesome blog post showing katydids ovipositing!

A colourful background makes this bumblebee pop!

Baby Raccoon Break 2!

Aug16

After last night’s depressing post, I got a bit of a lift from some raccoons that we found on the way to the lab. I reckon this is the same family I shot a few weeks ago. This time they apparently came into the lab, and when Catherine and I came upon them, they were scavenging in a dumpster outside the Chemistry Building. Anyway, enjoy the baby raccoon break!

Surprise lab inspection! Photo by Mike Hrabar.

Ruminations on the rain

Aug15

It’s raining in Vancouver. I know, big surprise, right? Well, we have had a crazy unusual summer, with all of July hot and sunny. Life cycles of plants and animals accelerated, and the time has just flown by. The grasses in unwatered areas are dead or dormant, grasshoppers and craneflies are nowhere to be found, and I am sure the vole population has taken a hit.

But now it is raining.

Tonight, I had been sitting in front of a big ol’ spreadsheet, pondering an analysis that has not yet come to pass on a paper that I thought was finished (no worries though, Catherine and her mad R-skillz will help out).

Damn, the variables were half-renamed, and I didn’t wanna do it any more.

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Before the light totally failed, I headed out to the community garden to take some pictures, raging out at a driver who almost ran me down in the crosswalk outside my house. Damn fools think it’s a freeway or something. I was angry and seething inside while I got to the park.

Time for some macro therapy.

The insects were dealing with the rain with various levels of success.

Some of the honeybees were totally soaked through and depressing, others seemed to soldier on.

I examined a bumblebee working a sunflower for a while; she did not seem to mind the rain, perhaps because of the generous overhang of the plant.

Then I looked down at the leaves of the plant and the yellowing and crispy husks reminded of the sad fact that the summer is slipping away.

In fact, we all know it, summer is short, even on the west coast of Canada. the Turkey Vultures are flying south, the Rufous Hummingbirds are gone, the vine maples up at school are starting to turn strange colours, and the termites are beginning to fly. My thesis is almost done, I need to defend in the fall, I have no job lined up, and a very tenuous plan for the future.

On the plus side, I have a really cool paper which I hope will be published soon (wait for it! It is my biggie!), Catherine and I will do spider fieldwork next week, and I have plans to visit the caracaras in Honduras in the fall. Things are looking up, if I put it in that context. I still have a lot of work to do, but I am getting better at what I do, and I think the publication of my next paper will be well-received (because it is cool!).

In the meantime, the passing of the summer is just another turn of the season, and I actually love the fall. I should remember to try to get out more and enjoy it all while I can.

Weekend Expedition 29: life isn’t all slo’ mo’

Aug12

Well, we have been working hard for 9 days with the Photron SA-5, and this weekend was mostly busy as well. I managed to get some time out to take some photos amongst all the high speed madness. Most of these shots were taken during 6 minute downloading breaks with the camera, and I also snuck in a quick trip to the local community garden.

Culiseta incidens, probing my finger.

tanking up!

Graphocephala fenahi, the rhododendron leafhopper.

A beautiful syrphid bumblebee mimic, Eristalis flavipes.

A flower longhorn in the community garden.

A western yellowjacket delves under bark for prey.

OK, you have made it to the end of the photos. Did I ever mention that I am part American? The following 2 videos were shot at a whopping 10,000 frames per second.