Baltimore and the 100th ESA meeting

After returning back to Ottawa (from Colorado) on August 2nd, I spent most of my days preparing for my presentation at the Ecological Society of America (ESA) centennial meeting in Baltimore (August 9th to 14th).  My labmates and I departed for Baltimore on the morning of the 9th, drove more than eight hours, and arrived at Baltimore just before midnight; and my presentation took place in the following afternoon.

With ESA being the largest ecological society in the world, there was an incredible number of ecologists present, as well as numerous sessions taking place at the Baltimore Convention Center.  Overall, I thought my own presentation went well, and I enjoyed most of the presentations that I attended.  Unfortunately, I was unable to tour Baltimore as much as I would have liked.  Here are some of the photos I took when I was not busy inside the convention center speed-walking from one session to another.

The convention center lobby.  This place is completely packed in the morning, during lunchtime, and at the end of the day.  I snapped this photo when I took a break between sessions.

Field course in Algonquin - Part 3

Aside from working on their projects around the research station, the students had not really had any opportunities to explore other parts of Algonquin.  On Thursday morning (20th), a group of us woke up extra early (~ 6:15) to go birding at the Hardwood Lookout Trail.  Aside from myself, I don't think any of the students are really bird-waters, so even though we heard birds singing in the forest, we couldn't really identify them (neither could I because I am more of a bird-watcher than birder).

Anyways, we saw several flowering Indian cucumber-roots, as well as this Blackburnian Warbler (Setophaga fusca).

This was the best photo I could get, and you can sort of see the orange throat.

UBC Botanical Garden & Greenheart Canopy Walkway

The past few days has been quite rewarding - volunteering at two different sessions, listening to different researches, and not stressing over the presentations like most of the presenters.  I saw presentations discussing from lizard diversity in Chile to genetically identifying shark species all over the world to the threats to Japanese Giant Salamanders.  Today was the last day of the conference (to be followed by the huge bird conference - NAOC), and I was assigned to help out with the registration table.  A few days ago, I saw a special discount for going to the UBC Botanical Garden plus walking the Greenheart Canopy Walkway for only $11.  I bought the ticket right away and thought this afternoon would be a good time to use it.

A Barn Swallow nest right outside the gift store at the botanical garden.  The parent(s) were flying in and out feeding the young chicks.

Raccoon Family at Lost Lagoon

I accompanied my mother to downtown Vancouver today to pick up prizes that she had won from a local newspaper contest.  Afterwards, while it was still early, we decided to bus to Stanley Park and walked around the Lost Lagoon.  According to this post (the photos from that post have all been taken down by the server, sorry), the last time I was there was more than three years ago!?

Anyways, today was a nice day to be out - although there were too many people to our likings.

Several Mute Swans around the lagoon.

Presqu'ile Provincial Park - Part 1

As I mentioned on Friday, my supervisor asked me if I want to tag along with her class (and a few people from our lab) on Sunday to Presqu'ile Provincial Park to do some bird-watching. Of course I said yes!

I went a little bit overboard with photo taking today, so today will be split into two parts.

Walking to the bus stop to get picked up at 6:40am. Haven't woke up this early in a long time, but the morning sky is so pretty!

Butterflies other than Whites

Today's a good Sunday.

Nice weather.

More photos from Carden

Here are more photos that I wanted/needed to share:

Mama robin feeding her nestlings. At this moment, the nestlings had already fledged and the nest is now empty.


I think this is one of the fledglings. Who knows, there are many robin nests around our cabin and in the field site.