Tag Archive | Toronto

Weekend Expedition 72: Leslie Spit with Gil and Catherine

Fall is swiftly turning into winter here in southern Ontario, with cold nights and disappearing leaves…This weekend looked like the last in while to offer any kind of warmish temperatures, so Catherine, Gil Wizen and I headed to Tommy Thompson Park (Leslie Spit) o see if we could find some cool arthropods. The following is a condensed collection of pictures I managed to get.

On the way to pick up Gil at the train station, I snapped this shot. It actually has Catherine in the frame.

You can see that the goldenrod has largely gone to seed.

A surprisingly colorful Phidippus audax.

Just look at that abdomen!

There were quite a few syrphids about, some of them just had to bask on exposed perches in order to warm up enough to fly.

We saw about a jillion cucumber leaf beetles (Diabrotica undecimpunctata), mainly feeding on goldenrod

A “buffalo treehopper” (a membracid in the genus Ceresa) hides out on a willow stem. Gil took a bunch of shots of this with both wide lens and MPE-65, so look out for them!

This is an alydid bug (broad-headed bug), one of several we saw basking in the morning sun. This is likely Alydus eurinus, a common species in Ontario.

These beachside wolf spiders (Pardosa) are plainly ornamented, but just a lovely shade of bluish gray.

A really really big mite we found under some bark. This is likely a species of Trombidium.

The subjects of a high-mag MPE-65 shot have got to be really calm creatures. Check out how this pierid is dwarfed by Gil’s diffuser.

It was the most cooperative pierid ever.

This is my attempt at wide-angle macro of the same insect.

A squashed Pardosa wolf spider on the road, being fed on by Myrmica rubra.

Winter is definitely coming. This Culex pipiens has a “hypertrophied fat body” (she is fat) a condition that adapts her to living out the winter in a sheltered location.

Golden dung flies (Scathophaga stercoraria) having an end-of-summer romance.

A Myrmica rubra worker investigating a fungus-killed caterpillar. If she feeds on this carcass, and gets infected, her colony will likely kill her, then dispose of her body somewhere far away.

The alianthus webworm moth (Atteva aurea) is a beautiful species that is not found in BC…Though seems quite common here.

A gorgeous amaurobiid spider, recently disturbed from her cribellate silk retreat.

A running crab spider in the genus Thanatus. They look much the same wherever you find them.

OK, I saved one of my fave shots for last, this time it is an Agapostemon bee sitting in a flower. I just love the colour combinations and the textures.

Weekend Expedition 67: the mythical white squirrels of Trinity Bellwoods

Jan18

Catherine and I undertook a short expedition out to Trinity Bellwoods Park to see if we could spot the famous white squirrels which live in the area. These are not a different species, but rather a colour morph of the native Eastern Gray Squirrel Sciurus carolinensis. We did see a white squirrel on the coffee shop outside, along with some white squirrel bling on the inside. Unfortunately, I found the coffee was sour in that particularly obnoxious way that clueless hipsters are so fond of. “Yeah man, I liked coffee before it was good. You wouldn’t understand.”

(BTW, this type of crappy coffee is not limited to Toronto. We found more than our fair share in Vancouver as well. )

We did of course see some black squirrels, another morph that folks further south find quite interesting. These are actually quite common all over Toronto.

The park itself is a bit of an overrun mudpit in the winter, which the dogs seem to enjoy, but makes for treacherous walking.

The squirrels did squirrely things, such as hand face first down treetrunks, and sit in high branches making clucking sounds. These are scatter-hoarding rodents, caching food through the summer in order to survive the winter, but in urban areas make a good living on handouts and raiding gardens.

We saw several wasp nests, free of waspy occupants in the frigid air. Luckily there are lots of tree cavities around for the new queens to overwinter.

The more typically-coloured gray variant of the gray squirrel was in evidence as well, doing some major clucking from perches, as well as seeing of we had any nuts to fork over.

They are quite handsome animals, and one can’t help but marvel at their strength and speed as they navigate the trees. A squirrel must also have a tough heart to endure all the rapid climbs and descents.

The black morph probably gains some thermal advantages that offset the increased predation risk of having such an obvious coat colour.

The most exciting part of this trip was watching the squirrels chase each other, something that will probably happen more frequently in springtime. It did however, lead to my best shot of the day:

Voilà! The flying squirrel! A bit out of focus on the head, but still pretty good for a speeding squirrel!

A Birthday Outing in High Park

Nov18

So yesterday was my birthday, I am a little older and a little wiser, I think. Because the weather was fine, and I had not been out to take pictures recently, I decided to treat myself to a day of photography in High Park. The weather here in Toronto is getting much colder now, so it was a good thing that I got some awesome presents from Catherine to keep me warm.

A thick, warm hat, a thinner lighter hat, a wonderful sweater and a cool mug!

It was even personalized for me!

This mug is based on a design I made for a t-shirt a few years ago. It derived from a photo, and I manipulated it in Photoshop to look like a woodcut. If you want one yourself, click here. All proceeds to the Caracara Research Foundation (actually most proceeds is profit for Zazzle). If we can sell 40,000 of these, we are in business!

So there is still a little bit of colour in the trees, but they are looking mighty stark. A deciduous forest in winter is a place with very little shade and you can see into it quite fa. As for arthropods, I did not see many!

I found four of these bald-faced hornet nests. I do not have the same rate of discovery in the summer, when there are actually hornets around!

This is what the Eastern Gray Squirrel looks like when alive in its native habitat. There are an absolute ton of them in High Park, about evenly mixed between black and gray morphs. These rodents feed on seeds, primarily acorns, as well as handouts from people. I saw another one eating a tortilla. With this abundance of squirrels, there are also squirrel predators, such as Red-tailed Hawks and a few owls. I saw a hawk, but no owl, but I did find this:

A raptor pellet comprised mainly of squirrel fur. I looked around in the few conifers nearby for hiding raptors, but did not see any. The way a still bird can hide against the bark though, makes me think one may have been there anyway.

One advantage of winter is how low the sun stays all day. Even near noon you can find this slanting angle of light that is much more flattering to subjects than full sun in summer.

The squirrels were the most abundant wildlife I saw, even outnumbering people on this cold Tuesday. I think Toronto could use a good crow population though, as I kind of miss them!

At the southeastern end of the park, I came upon a small flock of chickadees and a couple cardinals. This is a female that appeared to be accompanying a male. I wonder if their pair bonds persist through the winter….

The male remains pretty splendid, even in winter, and these birds are not very shy. They are certainly more brightly coloured than the cardinals I saw in French Guiana!

So that about sums up my birthday walk in the park. It was not the most productive trip, and as winter sets in I would hope to have better photography days once in a while. One of the difficulties of Toronto compared to Vancouver is that Toronto is a place that animals migrate FROM rather than TO, as it is pretty much smack in the middle of a very cold continental region. There will be no winter hummingbirds, or loons or even many ducks. Just the hardy chickadees, nuthatches, jays and others that make this cold place their home year-round.

A fall ramble: High Park and Humber Bay

Nov2

Because Ontario is harsh, and the invertebrates are quickly going to ground, I decided to do two days of outings this weekend! In addition to our trip to Leslie Spit on Saturday, I went out alone to High Park on Sunday to see what I could find.

The herbaceous vegetation was mostly dead, with very few insects out and about.

I found these Leptoglossus occidentalis (western conifer seed bug) behind some boards, getting ready to overwinter. These were not present in Toronto when I was a kid.

Behind the same boards I also found a Agelenopsis on an egg sac. I replaced her carefully after this shot.

This very orange Araneus diadematus was also on an egg sac. She also posed, and then I put her back on her sac. It is doubtful the adults ever survive the winter here.

This Phidippus audax was much more orange than others we have found so far.

Not sure why it was missing a palp, but it will probably regrow, as this one was still small.

At Humber Bay, I found some hungry wasp queens. Luckily I had a vial of honey on hand. This one ate so much she could barely fly afterward, but it should fatten her up for the winter.

Yum!

I was delighted to find this brown snake, AKA Dekay’s snake (Storeria dekayi) moving along a fence.

I encountered these small snakes often when I was a kid. The juveniles of this species are quite beautiful,and the adults have their own subdued charm.

These snakes are natricines, related to garter snakes. They occur in Eastern N. America all the way down to Guatemala.

This shot shows the faint iridescence of the scales

All in all, I was glad I went out! This kind of break from the downtown chaos will hopefully keep me sane!

An Arachtober Spider Outing

Oct26

My smartphone sucks, probably as much as my smartphone photography technique!

On a bright sunny Sunday afternoon, Catherine and I made our suburban shopping rounds to keep ourselves fed (downtown Toronto is bloody expensive!), and then headed out to Humber Bay to find some spiders!

All over the beach we found these awesome gray wolves…Perhaps a Pardosa? Probably. There are a bunch of dark Pardosa in these parts.

Getting them to pause for a photo was tough, as they were warm and in the mood to run.

This Hogna-like wolf spider was much more accomodating! Super pretty as well.

These spiders are difficult for non-experts to ID…I sent the pictures to an awesome wolf spider identifier I know, but I am not sure if she will respond.

A juvenile Phidippus audax, with surprisingly orange spectacles!

We found a few of these araneids, which we figure to be Zygiella atrica, and introduced one from Europe

Here is the male of Zygiella atrica, which we found adjacent to a female’s web.

The characteristic orb web of Zygiella. Note the missing sector at the top left.

A Philodromid looks awesome on a fall leaf.

Catherine found a few Larinioides hiding out in leaves.

Near a lighted building, we found our expected plethora of tetragnathids and Larinioides in almost communal webs. We also found a bunch of tiny dictynids, which I did not get any shots of.

Some of the Larinioides were quite light in colour. We need to collect a few sometime, as there are a couple species here in Toronto.

We even found a big old Castianeira, who seemed to be doing quite well living under the lights!