Spending more time outside now

Yesterday I was outside at a natural area (i.e., Gatineau Park) for the first time in a couple of months helping my labmate counting flowers.  Most of the park are snow-free, but everything seems to be emerging later than in Ottawa.  We didn't count many flowers but we did see some interesting wildlife.

The first was this Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) walking away from us nonchalantly.

Road trip to Colorado

After three long days of driving, I am finally back in Colorado!  My labmate and I left Canada on Monday (May 30th), which may be a miscalculation because it was Memorial Day in US and we sat and waited in the car for almost two hours to cross the border.  Because of the delay, we spent the first night in Ann Arbor, Michigan (instead of the usual first night destination: Kalamazoo).

We saw two White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) outside our hotel the following morning.

June update - Mammals

Some of the mammals that I saw in June.

Mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus)

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 5

Random photos taken from last week.

On the way to work one day, I saw the soft morning sun shining through the lupines.

Daily life in Colorado - Part 3

Research

One of my study species - Mertensia brevistyla.

Daily life in Colorado - Part 2

Images since the last post.

Scenery

Mount Crested Butte

Daily life in Colorado - Part 1

I am certain I will have many posts like this which are just random assortment of photos that I take on a daily basis.

Research

Collecting Mertensia fusiformis flowers.

Egret and deer at Sawmill Creek

I went for a bike ride around Sawmill Creek Constructed Wetland this afternoon.  While scanning the edge of the wetland for birds, I first saw an egret!

This is the first time I seen a Great Egret (Ardea alba) in Canada, even though I had seen it before in Taiwan and New Orleans.  According to members in the Ottawa Field-Naturalists' Club Facebook page, egrets can be seen along the Ottawa River and sometimes a bit inland (such as here) as well.

Deer on the way from school

It has been another fine and strangely warm weekend. After finishing up the movie I watched last night and getting groceries in the morning, I biked to school again to do some more work.

It seems that the warm temperature has been signaling the insects from emergence, however, I have yet to see any flower buds opening yet on any of the trees. I wonder if this is going to cause some problems with insects needing plant nectar and pollen for survival. On the way to school, I stopped at one of the feeders to see if there are any birds. Instead, I photographed these insects and spider.

Some Hemiptera.


One of the wolf spiders always hopping in the leaf litter and substrate.


Unknown fly lost part of its fore leg already.

Even without the grackles, chickadees, or blackbirds, you can always count on the robins to show up and give you some interesting photographs.

Robin with a worm.


Looking at me.

After finishing up work around 6pm and biking back home, I noticed there were something through the sumacs on the side of the trail. Then I realized it was a White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus)! It was merely about 10 meters away from me, and it didn't react at all when it saw me photographing it.

Eating away.




Beautiful animal.

It wasn't until two other bikers and a couple with a small dog that deer decided it had enough of us and pounced away with its white tail in the alarming position. Then I saw it joined up with another deer not too far away from the bike trail, but I decided to leave them be and be on my way.

Not something you see everyday on the way to school, I'd say.

366 days ago (2011-03-17)...

Northern Saw-whet Owl banding

Last night I did something very exciting - helping out with the Saw-whet Owl-Banding!

The project focuses on Northern Saw-whet Owl (Aegolius acadicus), the smallest owl in eastern North America, and bands them every October during their winter migration down south. We set up mist nets at Trent's James McLean Oliver Ecological Centre and used playbacks to attract these curious birds. We check the nets every 30 minutes and start from sunset until midnight.

Yesterday we caught four owls in total and below are some photos from last night.

This girl was fine (most of the owls we caught were females), but she certainly didn't act like it.

Quick post from Edmonton

Hello from Edmonton. I arrived at Edmonton about a hour ago and now waiting for another graduate student from Trent to arrive. We are planning to go to Elk Island National Park and then we will travel to Inuvik, NWT tomorrow morning.

Now, here are the photos from yesterday where I went to do a Grassland Bird Survey (GBS) with my supervisor's husband in the morning (woke up around 5:20am), then came back to their home and got ready to go to their cottage. Overall, it was a fulfilling but tiring day, considering I woke up early than usual and kayaked and canoed (not activities I do everyday).

In the morning.

Day Trip to Taichung

Today I went to Taichung with a couple of good friends to visit an art exhibit by one of the friend's elementary school friend. The art gallery was a real gem hidden in the crowded rural street market, and the exhibit was wonderful with fantastic large paintings of simple outside scenes.

No photographing inside the gallery, so I only took a photo of the outside poster.

Afterwards we went to National Museum of Natural Science in Taichung City, and coincidentally we arrived on the last day of the Darwin 200 exhibit. Being biologists, the three of us were very excited to be fortunate enough to catch this exhibit.


The museum is well-known for its permanent exhibit of "Age of Dinosaurs", which I visited everytime I was there when I was young.

The newer part of the museum is the indoor Botanical Garden. Sadly, we only had enough time to see the Darwin display in the main building before closing time. So we took photos of the garden from the outside only.

I can only imagine how fantastic the inside must be!

HUGE butterfly!

Closing time...

Another wonderful day today with close friends and happy memories.

365 days ago (2008-10-11) ...
.