Piper Spit is the main, official entrance to Burnaby Lake Park. It is also a great waterfowl haven, with nest boxes for wood ducks and reed beds. I will go there tomorrow morning with Mike and Catherine to try my luck at shooting excessively cute Canada Goslings! I will of course have the full (heavy) kit with me so any cool insects or spiders are also fair game…
On Sunday I will go with Adam Blake to attempt to redeem last week’s debacle, and actually make it to Maplewood Park.
This Weekend Expedition, we set out to go to North Vancouver’s Maplewood Park. Just a short bus ride across the bridge, right? Well, if is if you manage to catch the bus! Catherine and I arrived at the bus stop just as our bus was pulling out…And it was Sunday, so the next one was in 25 minutes. No problem! Lets just walk to the next bus stop and wait there.
This bus stop was awesome, we had knitting to do and Tobey Maguire (Spiderman!) to keep us company. Except the next bus didn’t stop for us! Apparently, our special bus only stops at the first stop (not that they are labelled or anything. Thanks TransLink!). Rather than wait another 25 minutes, we decided to change plans and head to Hastings Park, a few blocks away. Have a look below to see what we found!
The crows are nesting!
this looks a lot like Brumoides histrio, a type of Ladybird beetle (Coccinellidae). UPDATE: this is actually Brumus quadripustulatus. Thanks V. Belov!
We call them harvestpersons. This one appears to be a harvestchild.
first Odonates!
To me this looks like an Anthomyiid. Anyone else have an idea?
I think this syrphid turned out pretty nicely.
The first Damselflies of the season!
I liked how the drop on this lupine magnified the details.
A Sawfly
This Ichneumonid was hunting on the Lupines
taken with the Monster Macro Rig…Even though the leaf was moving, the whole exposure is with flash, so no problem.
I wasn’t the only photographer there. Check out this guy with a large format camera!
Chironomid midges!
This Red-winged Blackbird was doing an awesome job defending his territory.
This was my favourite photo of the trip…This heron was unconcerned with me after I had squatted observing for a while. I was apple to approach really close.
Syrphid
Short version: I didn’t win!
Slightly longer version: Don’t bring insects to a bird contest!
Longest version: Check out all the great entries here, as well as the winning entries here.
I think I did a good job, representing the ONLY two insects out of 259 images (and there was only two other invertebrates: a slug and a crab).
All in all, it was a fun exercise, and a good way to get people out with their cameras. By the way, the nature category had by far the most entries, so it is heartening to see what people find truly inspiring at Stanley Park.
On this Weekend Expedition, Catherine and I found out what just a tiny bit of Pacific Spirit Park has to offer. It is really large, and we did not cover very much ground!
Since this was a joint effort, we decided to concentrate on forest invertebrates, which worked well during our last field season in French Guiana. Catherine is really good at spotting things!
The first of her great finds was this lovely Dance Fly (Empididae). They look a bit like Robberflies, and in fact are somewhat related (both are Orthorrhapha). The Empidids are a really diverse group, so if anyone has ID suggestions, I would love to hear them!
The second major find is what looks like a gravid Wolf Spider. This big girl was sheltering in a rotted log, and impressed us with its lovely large abdomen.
And check out these Net-winged Beetles (Dictyoptera simplicipes). There were a whole bunch in a seeming mating aggregation on a rotting log in one dark little section of the forest. So colourful!
Those have to be one of the most impressively bright insects of early spring that we have!
The second bright spot in these dark woods was this gorgeous male Amaurobiid, sheltering in a knot hole in a snake fence. You can see his modest hacklemesh web and his dark retreat. These spiders are fascinating and beautiful, and I would like to learn more about them…
A fern frond for colour and contrast in a small patch of sun.
The author in situ. Photo by Catherine!
As we left the park, this Equisetum emerging from the moist soil near Camosun Bog was a beautiful sign of spring.
But wait! There’s more! On our way out to a bus stop, we were immediately impressed by a large gathering of bees in Chaldecott Park. These were Andrenids (update: they may have been Colletes) busy mating, digging nests and provisioning them. There were hundreds if not thousands in this small 20 m sq. patch of grass. I did not get a good chance to shoot them really well, because a big rainstorm was coming, but I think I will head back out there this afternoon with Mike to examine some of the bees for parasites. This patch might also be a good spot to put in a temporary fence to keep folks from damaging the nest site. With all the concern for native pollinators, it seems like a good place to try to protect.
Colours boosted to emphasize bees.
The same as above, with yellow and green pushed to white and desaturated. Look at all those bees!
at the burrow
excavation
One of the largest wooded areas in Greater Vancouver is the former UBC Endowment lands, now known as Pacific Spirit Park. Of all the large parks in the region, I have spent the least amount of time in this one. I do not live close by, and it takes a while to get there, but I thought it might be fun to check out. Highlights of some of my past trips included Ceruchus striatus (see below), one of our few stag beetles… Stand by for a full report Sunday or Monday!
Pretty bad photo, but a pretty badass beetle!
A fresh-looking syrphid cleans in preparation for flight.
Hello! Well, the Weekend Expedition has come and gone, and I did go out to take some shots for the Stanley Park Ecology Society‘s photo contest. It was not my best day out shooting, and all I can really say about that is that some days I am “on” and some days I am not. Yesterday I was definitely not “on”.
Going out and looking for a prize winning shot is hard! Nonetheless, I went out and did what I could do.
Below is a gallery of the candidate shots. Have a look and see what you think! Below the gallery is the selection of five images that I submitted to the contest, with extra commentary on why I chose them.
The final five:
Syrphid: I chose this because the isolation of the detailed subject makes for a powerful image. The colours are nice as well!
Mallard Fight! I chose to submit this because it conveys the aggression and action of these common ducks.
Dung Fly: Again, an isolated subject and a colourful frame.
This Song Sparrow knows where it’s at. Chosen because it is nicely detailed and has a “spring feel”
Tailless Reflection: I chose this because I like the distorted reflection. I am not too keen on the light water below, but it is OK nonetheless.
Sometimes the easiest way to shoot a macro subject is indoors, under carefully controlled conditions. Because the forecast this weekend called for rain, and I had a lot of writing to get done, I spent the weekend at school without any real outdoor adventure. I took a few hours to shoot some captive arthropods and a salmonberry flower from outside the school. I took some time to illustrate the effect of different background lighting on some of the subjects. Besides the photos you see below, the other results of the Weekend Expedition were mixed: my paper needs major surgery*, and the sac spider you see above escaped during a photo shoot. Good for the spider, not so good for me! Anyway, enjoy, and let me know what you think!
*the good news is Catherine is helping with the “paper surgery”…I think I was just stuck and in need of an outside perspective.
Our gorgeous spring weather has turned back to rainy Vancouver miserableness, so instead of an expedition outdoors, I will do some studio shooting indoors at school (as a short break while writing the last paper of my thesis on caracara predation behaviour). The target of the weekend’s shooting will be captive and indoor spiders such as this male and female western Black Widow (Latrodectus hesperus).
Calling Red-winged Blackbird…These odd fellows are related to the Oropendolas.
This weekend, I returned to Stanley Park to check out some of the early spring action. The herons are beginning nest construction and courtship in the large heronry near English Bay, and there are more and more birds bursting into song and aggression at the slightest provocation. Check out the video of the bill snapping/nest building heron, and then browse around the gallery below to see the highlights of this Weekend Expedition.
Gallery:
Cannot resist these cranes! This one was calling.
The Weekend Expedition to Reifel Bird Sanctuary with Wild Research was a fun outing, made better by the good company and great weather. Highlights of the trip were a Great Horned Owl, Saw Whet Owl and American Bittern. Only the Bittern was a cooperative model. I tried a few low angle shots on feeding ducks, but did not have much time to work out the kinks. I think I will try to do more of this in the future, as it is an interesting and humorous perspective.
Below is a selection of the photos…Check out that lovely Bittern!
