July update - Some photos from Kebler Pass

In less than 24 hours, I will be flying out of Colorado and heading back to Ottawa.  Before that, I am currently packing up my lab equipment, some of my personal gear, and updating my blog.

Here are some of my photos from Kebler Pass.

Looking at the contact zone between Mertensia brevistyla and M. fusiformis.

June update - Research-related photos

Here are some photos related to my research.

Mertensia fusiformis

Fauna/flora surveying at Gatineau Park (2015) - Part 1

These past two days (Wednesday and Thursday) I was helping out with a fauna and flora surveying project at Gatineau Park (same as last year).  The weather was very pleasant and I felt great (but exhausted) from being outside most of the day.  It's a great way to prepare my body and mind for the upcoming field season.

I took this picture on Tuesday when I walked along the canal during my lunch break.  The ice has pretty disappeared by now.

Long weekend at Windy Pine

This past long weekend, I returned to Peterborough and went back to Windy Pine to visit friends and tried mothing once again (just like last year).

Since I returned back to Ontario last week, I found this summer to be cooler and smoggier than I remembered.

Dominion Arboretum, Ottawa

I traveled to the (Dominion) Arboretum this afternoon to see what the recent warm Spring weather has brought to us in terms of wild fauna and flora.  It was my first time traveling by O-Train and to the Arboretum, and I must say I am quite impressed by train, especially since it only took me about 25 minutes from where I live to the Arboretum.

Map of the Arboretum

Windy Pine BioBlitz - Day 1

This past weekend I was at Windy Pine documenting the fauna and flora of the area.  It was sort of like a bioblitz but with only three people.  Once we arrived, the first thing we set out to do was sampling the aquatic invertebrates.

Skullcap flowers at the lake shore.

Field course in Algonquin - Part 4

Friday (June 21st) was our last full day here in Algonquin.  The students presented their results in the evening, test on Saturday morning, and then we came back in Peterborough on Saturday evening.

In the morning, we asked the students (those that felt comfortable with their presentation) if they would like to go for a walk at the Beaver Pond Trail. 

Towards the middle section of the trail, we actually stumbled upon a beaver (Castor canadensis) on the trail gnawing on a low branch.  Just a few moments ago before seeing the beaver, the students were talking about a man-killing beaver (news here), and so the students were startled (to say the least) when they saw the actual animal.  Long story short, the beaver paid no attention to the shrieking students and left, while the only photo I could get was above.

Good start to June - flowers, insects, and birds.

Came to school today to do some work.  Along the way, I saw this single yellow iris among the grasses next to the Otonabee River.  Strange place for a garden plant to be.

Very pretty nonetheless.

White Underwing moth (Catocala relicta)

It was rainy and windy here in Peterborough yesterday.  While working in my office, I noticed a large moth outside my window.  I decided to retrieve it out of the rain and wind and bring it back into the office.  It was very pretty and fluffy, and so I brought it home with me to take a few photos of it.

Here are some photos that I took last night.  This morning, with the weather being sunny, I brought the moth back to campus and released it.

Photo taken with the Raynox 250 attached to the Olympus 40-150mm.  I made some mistakes in the previous posts saying it was the Raynox 150, sorry.

Caterpillar, Bee, and Rainbow Sunday

Today is International Rock Flipping Day (9/9).  I flipped some rocks behind my office building this afternoon, but it seemed too disturbed (basically a gravel mound from recent constructions) to have much biodiversity.  Too bad.  I did saw some ants and tiny tiny critters though, underneath the rocks, but that was about it.

Saw this pretty caterpillar on my way out of the building.

 

First day of grad school

After waiting for so long (four years or four days, depending when you started counting), I am finally back in school! Today's the first day for graduate students here at Trent. The day started with the orientation session with presenters from welcoming us to the school and CUPE people talking about our not over-working ourselves. After the BBQ lunch, there were four different workshops that helped us as new teaching assistants - what students expect from their TA's, effective marking, motivating a group of students, and dealing with difficult students. Each workshop had a different presenter (all from the faculty of arts) but I found all of them to be engaging and super interesting to listen to despite feeling exhausted. If all (or most) professors are like them here at Trent, then I believe this is an awesome place to be!

The orientation was held at the Peter Gzowski College which is also the First Peoples House of Learning, and there were many beautiful artworks on the walls.

And my favorite one was this one by a deceased local artist named Norman Knott. Tern, Heron, Loon, Bittern, and Geese.

Grant's Woods and George Langman Sanctuary

It's been a while since I last posted a post. Between today (my off-day) and the last time I posted, I had two more off-days when I went to Orillia and checked out the city and the surrounding natural areas - Grant's Woods and George Langman Sanctuary, both of which I would definitely recommend for people to visit and enjoy nature.

Grant's Woods

Finally...

Finally, a bit more outdoorsy tasks today than the past three days. One task was checking up on the status of a nest site where eggs should be hatching soon. This nest started with four eggs, then three, then two yesterday, and when we checked this morning, one nestling had hatched and was wearing a half-egg-shell as a diaper. So cute. In the afternoon, there was still one egg and one nestling, and based on our past experiences, eggs laid on different days should still hatch on the same day so it is quite possible that the remaining egg is empty.

While using the endoscope on the nest cavity, I found a yellow female Trabala vishnou guttata. I believe it was laying eggs on the shrubs, and close by there was a pupal cocoon too!

Another task was photographing a small Red-bellied Tree Squirrel resting in a tree cavity. It was a pretty interesting sighting since it was the first time us seeing a squirrel in a cavity. Furthermore, since the hole entrance was about the same size as a Muller's Barbet's nest entrance, this shows the possibility that squirrels are capable of entering a barbet's nest and wreck havoc!

The third task was that one of the morning exercisers found a very young barbet nestling (still a week away from fledging) on the ground. Why did it leave nest so early, we do not know. We brought it back to the office and took care of it. Soon, it was time for us to head to the garden to look for its parents and potential siblings. After a long search, we finally found another young barbet just learning how to fly. After observing it, we saw the parents coming back and feeding it (with cicadas, berries, etc).

After watching the interactions, we brought the rescued barbet back to the garden and allow the parents to find and feed their missing offspring. As dusk arrived, we decided that it is simply impossible to the young birds to survive their (first?) night outside and decided to bring them back to the lab for an overnight stay before releasing them tomorrow morning.

After working indoors for several days, I forgot how exciting but also tiring field working is. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed everything.

PS - I shall be going on a river trekking trip this weekend (leaving Friday night) in Hualien, so stay tuned next week for some exciting stories and photos. Here's to wishing everyone a nice weekend (in advance). Cheers!
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Stag Beetle & Little Egret in TBG

Another tiring day today. I spent most of the day in the botanical garden observing barbets and trying to catch them. Fortunately, at the end of the day, our modified (several times) mist net trap finally worked and caught an adult!

Other than watching barbets, I still found time to find and photograph these cool creatures!

Dorcus titanus sika is a beetle of the family Lucanidae. This is one of the most common stag beetles in Taiwan, and the males are about 24 to 72-mm in length, while the females are 24 to 42-mm in length. This individual is quite small and is about 25-mm long only.

The observation station today was the same as yesterday. So I checked to see if the mushroom is still there or not. Surprisingly, it had changed! [I am still working on identifying it.]

Near where we were trying to catch the parent barbets, a Little Egret was trying to catch fishes.

Walking along the wooden columns and catching fish

Quite an elegant and graceful looking bird, no?

This is today's status on the caterpillar and the parasites.
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Hiking up the Tianmu "Ancient" Trail

I don't like having such a long holiday because the natural places in Taipei City that I know of and can go to are quite limited. Nevertheless, I discovered another excellent place to visit just near where I live. It's a 2.8-km trail to the mountains in northern Taipei. At the end of the trail, there are other places to visit and trails to continue. Due to time limitation, I only hiked up the short trail, and with me being a shutter bug, a relatively short hike turned out to be more than five hours journey.

The entrance to the Tian-Mu Trail, and the tropical views along the trail. Plus, you can almost see the entire urban Taipei right below you.

One of the fascinating creatures that I encountered was this stick insect! So beautiful and well-camouflaged.

Thanks to some help, its scientific name is Phraortes illepidus.

There are plenty of crevices between the rocks and boulders that they provided excellent hiding places for this Indian Forest Skink.

Such a neat find of this Sphenomorphus indicus.

An unidentified insect that I am still working on. The only thing I know is that it belongs in the Family Pentatomidae. [Edit: I think this is a Dalader formosanus.]

Hiking up the stairs with humans was this puny Blister Beetle (Epicauta hirticornis). I picked it up with a leaf and put it where it won't get stepped on.

A japalura catching a nice fat meal of some sort of a larvae. Yum.

One of the animals that I hoped to encounter but didn't was the Formosan Macaque. Maybe next time.

Some of the prettiest sights along the trail were these beautiful Lepidopterans.

Clear Sailer (Neptis nata lutatia)

Neope muirheadi nagasawae

Nyctemera adversata

One of the side trails off the main trail leads to this 4-m tall waterfall named Chui-Fong Waterfall. Not too impressive but it makes a beautiful photographic moment, especially being surrounded by a serene tropical forest.

In the evening, a couple of friends (from the Botanical Garden) and I went out for dinner together. Afterwards, we headed to Danshui to enjoy the busy night market and the views across the river.

And before you know it, another day has passed.. Time sure goes fast when you are having fun.
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Moths on the ceiling

Lately, there are these tiny white moths flying around the house.

I took these pictures late evening while brushing my teeth. At first, I saw one live one landing on the mirror. Then it flew onto the bathroom ceiling.

I then got the tripod and stool to raise the camera high enough to take some pictures. Afterwards, I got curious as to why weren't they flying away from the camera. I poked at one, and it fell down. Apparently, the ones not moving on the ceiling were all dried up and dead. Geez, it took me almost twenty minutes of straining my neck and arms trying to take good pictures (top three photos), and then to find out that I could had brought them down and then took the pictures (bottom three photos). Smart me.

Not sure what species it is, although I am not sure if the photo quality is good enough to ask for identification. Guess I will leave it at that for now, and do more researching if the infestation gets more serious inside the house (hope not).
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Richmond's Nature Scene

I was planning to go to UBC today. But with the heavy workload this past week, I kind of slept in and didn't woke up until around 10am. So I decided to check out the local nature scenes here in Richmond instead.

I encountered these two moths when I walked out of the apartment door. Beautiful creatures when you looked at them up close. I had asked for help at bugguide.

The first spot that I checked out was Minoru Park which homes many waterfowls this fall, such as these Canadian Geese, Mallards, and Wigeons.

One sad scene at the park was seeing this deceased duck lying on the surface of the water, a casualty of the not yet arrived harsh seasons ahead. Not sure what the cause of death is but I sure hope it is not due to some diseases and that the city people come remove it soon (so that it won't contaminate the water). R.I.P.

I saw about five rabbits in the park today, which was more than last time that I was here. I don't have a good feeling about this whole situation. Sure they are cute, but I don't think overpopulation of another species (besides humans here in Richmond) will be welcomed.

To take my mind off these depressing issues that I saw in the park, I decided to pay attention to the beautiful and cheerful colours in the park.

Then I saw this pretty ladybug, but it was hiding in the shade so I nudged it to get it to move to a brighter spot. I accidentally flipped too hard and it flipped over so I quickly returned it to the more comfortable position.

Afterwards, I walked from Minoru Park to the community park in Garden City to check out the Hooded Mergansers that Hugh of Rock Paper Lizard observed - which I don't think I have ever seen one before.

Before I get to the Hooded Mergansers, I did saw some interesting things there, such as: these horny flies; playful wren (?); a lady bug underneath the leaf litter that I almost stepped on; and these tired-looking Canada Geese.
There were also many fungi here in the community park. I never noticed them before, but Richmond does have many fungi in the fall.

There were also these mysterious cream puff look-alike fungi?

Now, I finally got to the Hooded Mergansers (Lophodytes cucullatus)! These birds are fish-eaters and nest in tree cavities just like the Wood Ducks. The male can be identified by its black and white crest while the female has a grayish brown and shorter crest. They dive underwater to find food, and they can do so because they can change the optical refractive properties to enhance their underwater vision, as well as having a third eyelid (called nictating membrane) to act as a pair of goggles for eye protection.

I saw two males and one female in the main body of the "lake" and they were so far away (with my camera) that I decided to walked around the park one last time before heading home. But then I observed two females in an isolated and smaller "pond" at the outer edge of the park (and right across from residential areas too). Being in a smaller space, I ran back and forth as they dive away from me so that I can take some up-close pictures - which didn't turn as good as I hoped. I noticed the crest falling whenever they came right out of the water but then the crest raised right back up, it must be cool to have waterproofed "hair". My mom says they look like Marge of The Simpsons, but I don't really see the similarity, perhaps when Marge is dressed up for Halloween.

And then it was time to go home.
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