Museum of Nature - Reptiles and others

Museum of Nature's current special exhibition is "Reptiles", and I have been there twice already (three weeks ago and yesterday) because reptiles are a group of animals that I interact with the least and I am fascinated by them.

The first animal that you will see in the exhibit is a fierce-looking Alligator snapping turtle (Macroclemys temmincki).  It is sad to see this large animal in a very small display area and is submerged in water all the time. 

Alligator snapping turtle (Macroclemys temmincki)

Flora survey in Gatineau & macro photos of beetles

Yesterday I was at Gatineau Park helping out with the joint lab flora/fauna survey.  The survey is slowly coming to an end as the canopy closes over, the spring ephemerals start to set seed, and the pollinators complete their nesting stage.

In addition to some remaining trilliums, I found this delicate-looking White Baneberry a.k.a. Doll's eyes (Actaea pachypoda).

Going outside and waiting for Spring

With rising temperature and melting snowpack, it is difficult not to think about Spring.  Nowadays, I try to go outside whenever the weather is nice and I need a break from computer work so that I can discover that first hint of Spring (from a flower, insect, bird call, anything!).

Almost a week ago, it was still pretty cold when I was walking along the Rideau River.

Male Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos)

May update #2 - From Colorado

Since my last post, the weather has been a roller coaster ride.  It can be snowing in the morning, the snow melting and sky clearing up by mid-day, but then back to snowing in the afternoon.

Anyways, while it is snowing really hard outside right now, I have entered the data I collected yesterday, sorted my photos taken the past few days, and then decided to write this post.

May 9th

My labmate was examining cocoons and saw these spirally frass inside a cocoon.  Based on the orange colour, we suspect it is one of the composite-specialist bees - either Osmia montana or O. coloradensis.

Insects of Gunnison National Forest, Colorado

As I prepare for the upcoming field season and refresh my memory on the flowering plants of Colorado by reading my own blog post that I realized that I still haven't blogged about the birds and insects of Gunnison National Forest from last year.  Oops!  I guess this is what happens when school becomes an overwhelming part of your life.

Anyways, here are photos of insects observed from the 2014 field season.  They are not as well identified as the flowers and birds.  Sorry to the insect-lovers.  But feel free to leave a comment (or two) if you know some of the species and/or if I identified something incorrectly (very likely since I did most of the identification last summer and didn't check them since then).  Thanks in advance.

Male Osmia sp.

Daily life in Colorado - Part 6

My work here in Colorado is coming to an end as my plants are producing nutlets and ready to be collected.  Technically, we will leave this coming Saturday, but we may stay for an extra couple of days to tidy up all the loose ends.

Research

Each Mertensia flower has four ovules and thus can produce up to four nutlets per flower.

Daily life in Colorado - Part 4

Research

My field season is slowly winding down with the flowers setting seeds (a.k.a. nutlets).  However, the nutlets contain elaiosomes that are removed by ants (and the plants are also eaten by deers), thus I have to be extra diligent in nutlet-collecting before other creatures get to them first.

Ants also steal nectar from flowers.  Here is one removing the flower.

Update for the week

I bought a bike at a garage sale on Sunday, so on Monday (12th), I attempted to bike to school.  There isn't a straight-forward path from where I live to the university, but there is a path along the canal that gets me to school in about 45 minutes (by biking through some neighbourhoods and parks first), which is not bad, especially when the weather is nice.

Biking past Hog's Back Falls - man-made waterfalls.

Herping at Trent's Canal Nature Area

The weather this past few days has been quite amazing - warm and humid during the day and then periodic downpours (with thunders) in the late afternoon - the kind where you will be completely soaked if you happen to be outside during the downpours.

View from my office window.

The Herpetology class went out today to Trent's Canal Nature Area to survey the frogs based on their calls, and I volunteered myself to help out.  We went out  yesterday to check out the sites and heard mostly Grey Tree Frogs calling and one lone Spring Peeper.

Flower visitors to soapberry (Shepherdia canadensis) flowers in Ivvavik

The weather had been relatively bad the past few days (but nothing as bad as the one faced by people on the east coast), especially last night with heavy rain and strong winds.  It is currently just rainy and wet out at the moment.

Anyways, here are some more photos from Yukon.  This field season, I was more or less continuing to study the pollination of soapberry (Shepherdia canadensis) with a few tweaks here and there, and pollination of another (gyno)dioecious species - Silene acaulis (moss campion).  But here are some of my photos of insects visiting S. canadensis.

Unknown ant species (Formicidae) visiting female flowers.

May days so far

May days so far have been pretty hectic (as expected).  I need to finalize what I will be doing this summer with my supervisors, pack everything, and figure out where I am going to be living next September.

2012-05-04

I handed in my post-dated cheques to the housing unit today at school.  After that, I walked along the river towards my building.  And as expected, when I don't bring my DSLR, I ended up seeing some pretty cool wildlife.

For example, this Osprey about 20 metres away from me looking at the river.

Then I heard this knocking sound.  Looking around, it was a Pileated Woodpecker.  I have seen this species a couple of times, but no good photos to show for it.  This one is pretty decent when resized.

St. Louis Zoo and Insectarium

After the field project presentations and clean-up the field equipments in the lab, all the students decided to go to St. Louis Zoo (free, by the way) to pay Mr. Ed Spevak and the insectarium a visit.

Before heading back to the apartment to put my stuff away first, I came across this Common Buckeye (Junonia coenia) on the sidewalk in the drizzling rain.  I gently picked it up and put it on a tree where it has more shelter.  What a beauty!


We were at the zoo with only about 1.5 hours to spare before closing, so we only had time to visit the insectarium.

Rock-climbing on a rock-flipping day

Today I went rock-climbing for the first time in my life. It has always been something I wanted to try two years ago but never really had a chance, and whenever I stared up on a rock surface or a tall tree, I always have the urges to reach up and pull myself up. Well, I finally did it today at Trent's rock-climbing wall. I went through the orientation of how to tie the knots when climbing, as well as how to belay climbers. Now I just need to find a partner to go regularly to fulfill my desires of leaving the surface of the earth and move upwards.

Speaking of rocks, today is also rock-flipping day. I remembered it when I got back from the gym and so I decided to just flip rocks around where I live.

Trent University's Kerr House.

Crystal Clear Day

A crystal clear day today. Spring doesn't get any better than this, I don't think.

Biking along the South Dyke Trail

Blue sky & white clouds = favorite

The weather was very nice today, and my mother and I went out for a walk by the dyke.

Through the neighborhood. Love the blue sky and white clouds.

This cat was sunning when my mother saw it. It jumped down and walked away after we stared at it for too long.

Pretty Flowers and Grass Lizards in TBG

Today, while I was photographing these pretty flowers opening along the pathways in TBG, I spotted something squirming in the bushes.

It was a Formosan Grass Lizard! A very small one too, just a little over 10-cm.

But then I saw another lizard.

It was a larger one with green sides. It came to the smaller, browner one and stayed there for about 20 seconds before the other one crawled away.

Photographing the green Formosan Grass Lizard.

What an handsome animal!

I am not sure if I had mentioned this before or not (because I am having trouble searching it in my older posts), but many weeks ago, one of the Taiwan Barbet's resting cavity had been taken over by ants. Well, my friend today helped me identified it to be Crematogaster rogenhoferi fabricans, a common ant in homes. Pretty cool, I think.
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