I am currently doing a little freelance entomology at Vancouver International Airport, for their wildlife control division. I work with three talented students from BCIT, Audrey Law, Miranda Threlfall and Brendon Tijman. These guys are great, and have managed to learn insect ID despite not having a reference collection to work with. As part of getting familiar with the whole operation, our wonderful supervisor David Bradbeer took us out for a tour of airside operations, so we could  see wildlife control in action.

So the basic idea revolves around birds. These big birds carry a bunch of humans around. The human lives on the big birds are worth a lot, and the birds themselves are not cheap either.

Smaller birds, such as these starlings, can really mess up the operations of the big birds, and make everyone have a really bad day. So Wildlife Control is there to make sure the airport is a safe place for the big birds to do their thing.

Some of the larger raptors, like hawks, can really dampen the mood during takeoff and landing, so some of these are trapped and relocated using things like this Swedish Goshawk Trap. If this baby is triggered by a trapped bird, wildlife control gets a text, saying “come take this hawk out!”.

David shows the students how the trap works.

Some of the resident hawks, long used to airfield conditions, are not much of a problem, and are tolerated. They are marked and keep their territories relatively free of less-experienced, more dangerous naiive birds.

Others, such as this Rough-legged Hawk, are migrants, with little notion of airfield etiquette, and can pose a bigger hazard. Unfortunately, they are also difficult to trap!

One of the ways to keep birds moving off the airfield is with pyrotechnics, such as this little starter pistol. It fires a banger or flare, and can encourage some species to leave the area.

If pyrotechnics don’t work, another way to move birds out of danger is to exploit their fear of predators. Here Emily Flemming from Pacific Northwest Raptors  prepares a young Peregrine tiercel for flight.

These peregrines can clear out dunlin faster than pyrotechnics.

They are awesome in flight, but hard to focus on!

A Harris’ Hawk, is a bit slower and more of a generalist. They can scare anything duck size and below.

Miranda checks out the Harris’ Hawk.

Audrey gets a close encounter.

It is a full time job keeping birds and planes from unfortunate collisions, but with YVR Wildlife Services on the job, the airport operations are much easier to manage.

These beautiful mushrooms were sitting out with a view of Vancouver on the western slope of Burnaby mountain. A friend of mine got a much better picture of them with an iPhone Sony PowerShot last week, but since I was passing, I decided to have a go with what I had.

This species, Amanita muscaria is iconic in appearance and is known as both a hallucinogen and a fly toxin (hence the name). I hope you enjoy these shots!

Alex Wild photobombs an assassin shot!

No, it is not as exotic or insect-laden as Belize, but when you have a great instructor and some packages of insects, you can learn a lot about photographing the smaller creatures if Alex Wild is your instructor!

This workshop Mike and I attended yesterday was put on in association with the Entomological Society of Canada Annual Meeting in Guelph Ontario. The workshop was designed to cover the basics of insect macrophotography, and as such a lot of the material was not new to me, but watching a professional instructor was! I was surprised how casual he seemed delivering the basics, with a friendly and casual manner that made everything go down smooth among the mixed skill-level audience.

I even learned a thing or two, with the light-box technique producing amazingly easy and pleasing results with nothing more than three pieces of foamboard and some bounced flashes. To think of all the time I spend littering Adam Blake‘s desk with improvised paper diffusers, when I could have had just a ready made macro box stowed in my desk ready for when I get the urge to shoot a bug!

Unfortunately, it rained pretty hard all afternoon, so we could not go out to the field to practice, but we had some good fun continuing on with our studio techniques. Alex’s approach to teaching is very lighthearted, and it seems he wants to emphasize the fundamentals without pushing a narrow definition of the form.  His tips are simple, yet will yield powerful images if they are followed.

You can see some of the shots I took below, If you are ever in the market for a fun and informative photography workshop, Alex’s course is really a great choice. Thanks go out to Morgan Jackson and Crystal Ernst for all their hard work helping facilitate the course, and of course to Dr. Wild, for helping us start the conference on a high note.

Mike shoots in the foamcore macro setup.

White backdrop on the assassin.

Dropping it off to black.

The grasshopper salutes my improving skill!

A tree cricket!

The froghopper got that orange glow from a piece of paper underneath the branch.

Grasshopper with bluejeans-clad butt as backdrop.

variations.

A brown lacewing looking elegant against black.

A pretty Goldenrod Leaf Beetle.

This widow was perched on a twig with two Lastolites hitting from either end, and the backdrop is a maple outside the window.

Dr. Evil, the Katydid.

Mike contemplates Dr. Evil.

Tonight, Catherine and I are packing, because tomorrow we fly east to attend the Entomological Society of Canada/Entomological Society of Ontario Joint Annual Meeting in Guelph Ontario!

Highlights of this conference will be:

1) A macrophotography workshop with Alex Wild! The forecast for Saturday looks wet and cool, but I have high hopes we will find a few insects outdoors. If not, there will be some studio subjects available. I am sure I will learn a lot, especially about how Alex teaches a course. I am thinking of doing a “photograph your study” workshop at SFU soon, and this will definitely hep!

2) Grant-writing, teaching, plant recognition and job-search workshops throughout the conference. These are all important skills, and a great reason to attend this conference. Catherine and I attended a professional development workshop sponsored by CANPOLIN at SFU this summer, and it was great material! Thanks go out to Dr. Elizabeth Elle for opening it up to other students!

3) A Graduate Student Showcase, which I am honoured to have been invited to! This will give me  20 whole minutes to spread the word about the coolest wasp-eating birds on the planet! The lineup looks great, with talks on Lycaenids, Salticids, Coleophorids and Noctuids!

This should be a great meeting!