Yesterday, I got a reminder that spiders, wasps and bees are not the only cool stuff to see at Iona Beach! Here is a beautiful Great Horned owl, waiting out the heat of the day under the cottonwoods. The long lens also brings in other creatures:
Archive | July 2014
Hymenoptera through the day
Here are a series of images I shot during the course of a summer day in Vancouver. All are hymenopterans, which, in addition to being tasty, are of course the best insects out there.
Weekend Expedition 54: Burns Bog and Centennial Beach
This past weekend, The Spider Crew (Sam Evans, Catherine Scott, Samantha Vibert and Gwylim Blackburn) and I set out to find an elusive and rare gnaphosid in the vast wetness of Burns Bog. Gnaphosa snohomish is supposed to be the only peatland specialist gnaphosid in Canada, and was a great reason to go out to the bog.
A wider view of Ammophila
One of the tasks I have set for myself this season is to start experimenting with wider closeups, a style best demonstrated by great photographers such as Piotr Naskrecki, Clay Bolt and Paul Harcourt. Shooting close and wide has the advantage of showing the subject in the context of its surroundings, and can be surprisingly effective. In fact, a vast proportion of wildlife photography contest winners are shot on wide lenses, as seeing animals in these perspectives can really make for some stunning compositions.
I have been in my 100 mm comfort zone for too long, and I feel the need to get a bit more creative with my composition. In addition, I feel like the context is missing from many of my macro shots, and going wide will help me to centre my subjects in their habitat.
While I can get wide and close with a couple compacts I have, the only SLR lens my kit capable of wide shots is the EFS 18-55 “kit lens”. It is not a bad lens at all, stabilized and light, it is easy to pack around. Last night I made good on my resolution and tried it out on some sleeping Ammophila at McDonald Beach in Richmond.
Weekend Expedition 53: celebrating being done!
This weekend, to celebrate being done with my PhD defence, I made sure to get out on both Saturday and Sunday morning. I went somewhere close by, as it has been very hot and clear here in Vancouver and the shooting gets pretty bad pretty quickly. Thus,I went to Iona and McDonald Beaches in Richmond.
Defending my PhD thesis
Thursday morning last week was a pretty special day; it was the day I defended my PhD thesis. For those of you who don’t know, a thesis defence is a formal examination, wherein the candidate (me) gives a public seminar on their thesis, and then is questioned by an examining committee, generally composed of their supervisory committee, plus an internal and external examiner, and all headed by a chairperson selected by the department.
My examining committee was headed by Dr. Margo Moore, who did a great job keeping the event rolling and the atmosphere relaxed. Dr. David Lank was my internal examiner, a great guy I have always gone to with questions on bird research (we do not have a lot of institutional experience to draw on in a chemical ecology lab). My external examiner was Dr. Keith Bildstein, a researcher at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, with decades of experience in raptor research and in particular experience studying Striated Caracaras in the Falkland Islands and Patagonia. My advisory committee consisted of Dr. Sean O’Donnell, who was absent for the defence, but there in spirit (he is doing fieldwork in Costa Rica), Dr. Ron Ydenberg, an expert in bird foraging behaviour, and of course my supervisor Dr. Gerhard Gries.
I gave my 40 minute presentation, outlining my research on Red-throated Caracaras, focusing on several aspects of their biology:
After the defence, we had lunch with teh committee, and then went to Trout Lake for a bit of a celebration. Here are some shots from the defence and the after-party. I know I have missed some important faces (Gerhard and Regine and Keith Bildstein!), but I hope you will forgive me, as I was just feeling relief!
Back to the beach!
Catherine and I had to make a quick run back to Iona Beach last night to retrieve a fallen Raynox DCR-250 and to search out some Micropezid flies for Morgan Jackson. It was a quick trip, but we succeeded on both counts! Of course, I also took the opportunity to do some shooting as well. Here is what we got.
Catchup on images from the past week.
OK, I am in full lockdown/practice mode for my upcoming PhD defence, so here is a collection of images without much commentary, taken at Iona Beach over the past couple weeks.
Life and death at Burnaby Lake
Yesterday, on the way home from the University, I decided to spend a bit of time at Burnaby Lake. A light warm rain was falling, and the lakeside was a quiet place to wander around and contemplate the life all around. The evening had a somber feel, and the photographic subject matter at hand echoed this.
Laphria are back!
I came up to SFU today to give a practice run-through of my PhD defense seminar (it is next week!). The talk went OK, given that I had not practiced it, but afterward, at lunch, I went out to see what I could see in the forest behind the lab. What I saw was this beautiful bee-like robber fly (Laphria spp.) munching down on a bumblebee! I hope you enjoy the pictures!