Monday, October 31, 2011

Scaring the ducks

Boo!
Beware the reedy island!

Duck pond, Centennial Park

Have a shivery Hallowe'en!

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Artist's model for hire

Will work for crumbs.

All credit cards accepted.

"I think this is my best side."

I'm working on another aquarium post. "When mussels go wrong."


Saturday, October 29, 2011

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Wings against blue sky

A cold wind blew away the clouds on Tuesday, leaving the sky clear and ice-blue. We layered sweaters and jackets and went to White Rock.

The gulls were all down on a far section of the beach, crammed together, waiting for something. Me and my bag of bread, maybe. As soon as I tossed a couple of small pieces onto a picnic table, one in the air wheeled and headed my way; the rest took off and followed him.

Too many gulls! I couldn't keep up with the rush. I kept breaking off smallish bits, so as to give everyone a fair share, throwing some on the table, some on the grass around and behind me. One gull, smaller than most, hovered over my head like a hummingbird, instead; I threw a piece in the air, and he snatched it before it fell. So I threw more, and all his siblings and cousins joined him up there.

None of the larger gulls tried this; they stood not-so-patiently on the table and grass, watching.

I gave up being fair; the lazy gulls could pick up the pieces the hoverers missed. The rest of the bag of bread went up, not down. At the end, the braver of the gulls were holding their place in line less than a foot in front of my head, so close that I kept automatically ducking and closing my eyes.

Laurie stood there, against the light, and took photos of the gulls in the air. I loved the shapes of their wings, black and white against the clear sky.



There are four pieces of bread in the air.


I've lightened this photo up, to show the ring on the bill, and the yellow eye.





As far as I can tell, these are ring-billed gulls; a medium-sized gull with a black ring around the bill, but no red spot with it, yellow feet and eyes, grey back, and black-tipped wings with two white spots near the end.

A Skywatch post.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Pumpkin lichen and old paint

I found these lichens on the railing of the 101-year-old Westham Island bridge.

Three different lichens here. Look closely for the little brown button just left and a bit below the centre.

There's a little pile of the brown buttons at the lower right.

Lichen, flaking paint, and well-aged wood.

We went to pick up some printed photos of reeds and dried pond scum today, the second trial for that batch. They turned out far too bright, the greens were too yellow, the browns weak. On my screen, they had looked right. I discussed this with the technician on duty, and he told me that my screen colours were calibrated wrong.

To my eyes, the screen looks right; the colours in that photo, on my monitor, were as we saw them in real life. But this is the third time that what I see here is not what we get in a print-out.

Can you help me? Look at the colours above; as I saw them on the bridge, and as they look on my screen, the main lichens are pumpkin-orange, with butternut squash flesh tones in the yellower places. The grey lichen in the first photo is grey, with just a hint of bluish. And the paint is aqua, about the same as one column to the right of 00FFC0 here.

The colours, as I see them, are fairly saturated; only the greys are faded out.

What do you see? How does the colour show up on your screen?

Monday, October 24, 2011

Hopalong

Laurie brought me a sprig of pine in a plastic sandwich bag. I wondered why; just a few inches of pine? I had to look very closely to find the spider on one of the needles. It was tiny, tiny, and almost transparent.

I've kept it for a couple of weeks in a jar with the pine and all the fruit flies I could collect. And he's grown; he's big enough to see even through the glass, a bit darker, and active; far too active. I haven't seen one like this, so I'll send some photos to BugGuide, but with any disturbance of his web, he panics and starts racing up one needle to the tip, back down, up the next, down ... BugGuide will get fuzzy photos; the best I can do.

But I did manage to capture his personality.

Hopping right along, so fast all his feet are in the air.

He's so tiny that his legs are mostly transparent.

Caught at the tip of a needle, as he turned to run down.

He's got two dark stripes down his back, divided by a broad yellowish, oak-leaf shape, stripes on the legs, a yellow belly and eight eyes. I'm glad I got a head shot; the placement and number of eyes helps to identify a spider. (Some have eight, some six.)

In the morning, I'll send these and a couple more to BugGuide.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Is he, or isn't he?

I give up! Are these green-winged teals, or hybrids?

Male. He seems to have misplaced his white shoulder stripe.

The couple. She is showing just a tip of the green speculum.

They're the right size; quite a bit smaller than the mallards. And in the right place; they winter here. But where's the stripe?

Reifel Island, last week.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Obelia and the Very Messy Limpet

When we go to the beach, I pick up a bag of veggies for the animals in my aquarium. The crabs love green sea lettuce; I often see them grab a floating leaf, tear it into chunks and gobble it down. They're fond of a side salad of red Turkish towel, too. The big brown anemone seems to do better when there is a bit of rotting kelp nearby. Hermit crabs like the red stuff; thin red algae and Turkish towel. Some hang out on the sea lettuce, picking at the surface.

Snails and limpets feed on fresh eelgrass, but the hermits like it best a bit aged, covered with weedy growths. They browse knee-deep in the "pasture", whether eating the weeds or searching for bits of detritus, I don't know.

Eelgrass blade, with fuzz and a couple of limpets.

The last batch of fuzzy eelgrass brought along a small limpet, as fuzzy as the grass itself.

Limpet, bubbles, and a city on a hill.

The limpet is about 1/2 cm. lengthwise, less than 1/4 inch. I looked at it through a magnifying glass, to see if the tiny spiral worms were alive, and found a thriving community, more diverse than I had expected. I've been trying to get photos ever since, difficult since I needed it to stay underwater so that the waving, feeding critters would be out. There was so much activity that, even in still water, the eelgrass blade floated to and fro.

Side view.

In the peak of the limpet shell, a new eelgrass plant is growing. Under its shade, there's a circular patch of bryozoans. The red blob above this, and red lines in other spots, are feeding tubeworms. At the rim, two tiny (less than a millimetre long) mussels are hanging on.

Empty worm cases (Spirorbis) on the top of the shell.

The feeding tentacles of many tubeworms, in the crevices between stalks and spiral worm shells, are only visible under a microscope; among them tiny crawling and swimming things wander about.

A mussel on the eelgrass. Maybe a millimetre long. And on its tip (look closely) there's another shell, possibly a limpet.

It would be much easier to examine this limpet shell without all the weeds cluttering up the view. Or so I thought, until I came to my senses and paid attention to them, too.

One branch, covered with buds.

More than buds.

The "weeds" are animals: hydroids, one of the Obelia* species. They are cnidarians, related to the jellyfish; the adults form stalked colonies, but the young start out as medusas, miniature jellies. The "buds" are polyps, some feeding, some reproductive. In the photo above, just above the centre, you can see one open polyp, feeding. The tentacles are tipped with stinging capsules that explode when a prey animal touches them, incapacitating it so that the tentacles can bring it down to the mouth.

When a polyp is disturbed, it shuts down quickly. Most of the ones I saw were closed. I guess I was scaring them.

A closed polyp, with the tentacles pulled inside a thin case.

Life cycle of an Obelia. Image from Kent Simmons, U of Winnipeg.

The reproductive polyp has no tentacles. Inside it, baby medusas form and are set free as they mature.

Empty reproductive polyp.

I saw one tiny stalk with the open tentacles at the top, hiding at the base of the eelgrass blade, either a new branch on the old colony or a young polyp, recently settled. It was too small, too transparent for my camera.

*Obelia. Sounds like a woman's name. Would you name a kid Obelia?

Friday, October 21, 2011

I.O.U.

I'm still working on that limpet. The more I look at it, the more goodies I find. The burden of life one small critter can carry is astounding.

Photos tomorrow, I promise.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

There's always tomorrow

I've spent hours over the last three days, taking photos of a limpet. One limpet only. But a pretty special limpet it is; more like a small city. Trouble is, I haven't got a single good photo yet, and my head is aching.

I'll try again tomorrow; I'm determined to show you this critter!

For now, have a slightly insane crab.

She has decided to sleep jammed between the big pump and filter and the wall, well off the bottom. She's even tipped the filter over! She wedges herself in tightly, then does push-ups.

A more "normal" crab pose, begging for food. That's my happy anemone behind her, feeding.

And I'm going to bed. I'll invent a new technique for limpets tomorrow, when my head is clear.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

I've got tickets!

I've been offered 10 tickets to a special event by Parks Canada; you may be interested in going.

Oasis ad.

Here's their write-up, from Facebook:
Oasis HD & Cineplex Theaters proudly present…
Two never before seen episodes of "A Park for All Seasons".
NOVEMBER 13th at 4:00PM ET / 1:00PM PT

"A Park for all Seasons" goes behind the scenes of Canada’s most spectacular National Parks. Learn the history, explore the diversity and soak in the beauty of some of the planet’s most compelling natural playgrounds.
...
The exclusive event will be hosted by Canadian musician and conservationist Sarah Harmer with experts including the series director PJ Naworynski. 
Experience the challenges of preserving Canada’s most beautiful and wild landscapes, and find out more from the extraordinary people on the ground.
...
Sarah Harmer's Bio: http://www.sarahharmer.com/site/bio/
List of participating theatres: http://bit.ly/theatrelist
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The two episodes that will be screened are: 
Pukaskwa: 
Workers at Pukaskwa National Park search for evidence of a relic herd of caribou, track an archaic sturgeon population, and scout cliffs for endangered Peregrine Falcons. Ontario’s only wilderness park is the front line for recovering the ancient-wild. 
Tuktut: 
High above the Arctic Circle, Tuktut Nogait is the hidden-gem of Canada’s Park system. With no facilities on the ground, scientists struggle to study scarce populations of Caribou and archaeology sites containing artifacts of an ancient culture. 
For more information about the series visit:
www.oasishd.ca/parks

Tuktut Nogait, meaning "Young Caribou", is just about directly north of the BC/Alberta border, in the Northwest Territories, about 1400 km west as the raven flies from Arctic Bay, where Clare (The House and other Arctic Musings) blogs.

Pukaskwa National Park is on the north shore of Lake Superior, near Thunder Bay. Both these places are incredibly beautiful.

I've never heard Sarah Harmer, and I haven't watched this program before, but it definitely looks interesting. It will be presented in theatres across Canada; there are three within a short drive from us. Unfortunately, we won't be able to make it that day.

That means I'll have all 10 tickets to share as soon as Canada Post sees fit to deliver them. If you would like to see this presentation, e-mail me (wanderinweeta at gmail dot com) with your snail mail address, and I'll send you a couple right away.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Monday, October 17, 2011

Amorous mallards, as promised

... or ducky pr*n.

The mallards are pairing up. We shouldn't have been surprised, but we were; we assumed that they would wait until the spring, but when I looked it up, I found that mates are chosen in the fall, and courtship continues all winter.

We watched several couples engaging in the mating rituals this Friday on Reifel Island. It starts with the male preening and making odd sounds, grunting and whistling to attract her attention. Then he faces her, beak to beak, and starts to bob his head straight up and down. After a bit, she joins in, and they sit there in the water, looking like one of those string-operated antique toys. (I had to laugh, but they were oblivious, fortunately.)

When they tire of this game, the male starts pecking the female gently on the top of her head or the back of her neck ...



... until she lies flat in the water. Then he mounts her, holding on by the feathers on her head. Maybe he's being helpful, keeping her head above water; maybe he's just preventing her escape.


When it's all over, the male swims away, and his mate takes a bath.

These couples are more or less monogamous (he's not quite as faithful as she is), and will stay together all winter until she lays her eggs in the spring. Then he will abandon her to hide away and go through his spring molt. She will not molt until her duckings are ready to move out on their own.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Reifel's got talent

On Reifel Island, the ducks know the schedule; weekends, they clog the pathways, waylay visitors to beg for handouts, keep up a constant din on the lagoons. A never-stopping "Quack, quack, quack, quack," echoes from every side as we walk. Weekdays, they know most visitors carry cameras, not bags of seed: boring. Sleepy time.

Friday afternoon, the birds were quiet, gathering their strength for Saturday's assault on seed-bearers. Mallards were nodding under the shadows of the banks. A great blue heron meditated by a field of yellow blooms. Here and there, a coot floated, dozing in the sunshine.


I stopped to offer this one a handful of seed, which was gratefully accepted. At the far end of the lagoon, a few mallards and coots were sleeping under a crabapple tree. One of the coots woke up and saw that he was being left out; he started to swim in our direction, then decided the matter was urgent, rose to his feet and ran across the water to collect his share of the goodies. It was quite a distance; he never lifted off to fly, and didn't settle down into the water until he arrived almost at my feet.

I've read about coots running on the water, and have seen videos. I never had seen it myself. It's true; they actually do run on the water surface, splashing a bit, as we would run on a solid track after a rain. Amazing!

(I found a slow-motion video on YouTube, here.)

It helps that they have such big, floppy feet.

Coot diving for seed, powered by huge paddle feet.

The amorous mallards will wait until tomorrow. I have an early morning in a few hours; we're going antiquing again.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Watchbird

This is the first Peregrine Falcon I have seen in the wild, as far as I know. He was sitting in a dead tree above the path this afternoon, at Reifel Island. A passing photographer pointed out his usual tree to me; I'll be looking for him there in future trips.

A disapproving stare; I was making too much happy noise.

Keeping his eye on us, over his shoulder.

Between the two of us, we took over 400 photos. And another couple of hundred the afternoon before at White Rock. We were taking advantage of two sunny days in a row, a welcome change.

But it's going to take me several days to sort them out; I'll post big-footed coots and amorous mallards tomorrow.



Thursday, October 13, 2011

In a handful of moss

We've not been able to get out of urban environments for a while; all our outings have been to family gatherings or running errands. And since the weather changed, most of our bugs and other critters have disappeared, except for the one carpet beetle larva and a crop of fruit flies.

I was hungering for something green, something wet, something alive and slithery. So, at the end of another day hopping from store to store, I went out in the rain and gathered a few tufts of moss; tiny will do; let my camera do the walking.

Green and wet.

The moss was beautiful, glowing translucently under my light, the spiky leaves green at the top, a rich brown beneath. Underneath, where the moss still held remnants of soil, a couple of miniature slugs were sleeping. Disturbed, they woke and stretched, heading for new cover. At their full length, neither was more than a half inch long.

When I pulled the largest clump of moss apart, I exposed a cozy nest.

Slug eggs, almost as big as the slug diameters.

A closer view, trying to distinguish features of the developing slugs inside. No luck.

Closer view.

Apart from the slugs, their eggs, and one tiny earthworm (so tiny he crawled into my eyedropper), the only other visible animals were black springtails, from pinhead size on down to mere visibility, racing and hopping around. I found one stopped for a breather.

Springtail, Collembola.

Under a good lens, I found more animals: a little black snail, barely a pinprick to the naked eye once I knew where to look for it; another earthworm, identifiable as such only under the microscope, and a few slow-moving, beautiful, shiny, deep red mites. I took photos, but they show only red-black spots with a hint of legs along the edge.

This different mite was about twice their size:

Unidentified mite. 

It has eight legs, but holds the first two high in front, like antennae. And it looks like it's carrying at least one, maybe two smaller mites on its back. Babies? Or parasites? Maybe they'll know at BugGuide. I'll ask.


Powered By Blogger