Woodpecker in FWG & La Machine in Ottawa!

Yesterday morning my girlfriend and I attended a birding workshop at Fletcher Wildlife Garden hosted by the Ottawa Field-Naturalists' Club.  The highlight of the workshop happened after the workshop ended and we saw a female Pileated Woodpecker (Hylatomus pileatus) pecking on a tree.

Pileated Woodpecker (Hylatomus pileatus)

New year birding

Compare to yesterday, today's weather is perfect for doing outdoor activities.  I trekked around the Arboretum and Fletcher Wildlife Garden (FWG) recording my first birds of 2017.

By the way, I started a Facebook page called PSYL Photography that will feature some of my photographs.  If you visit Facebook more often than my blog, then perhaps that is a good place to subscribe to.  Thanks.

Now, onto today's sightings.  There were many common birds around the Fletcher Wildlife Garden feeders, such as the chickadees, juncos, and more.

I saw some White-breasted Nuthatches (Sitta carolinensis) wedging seeds into tree barks.

Fauna/flora surveying at Gatineau Park (2016)

It is that time of the year again where I help out with the survey of spring ephemerals and emerging bees at Gatineau Park.  To read more about it, check out my previous posts from 2014 and 2015 (parts 1, 2, and 3).

It is always nice to be back out in nature (especially after a long winter), to step on foliage and into muddy puddles, and search for anything moving, making sounds, or just being attractive.   Since it is only early spring here in eastern Canada, we didn't see any bees constructing new nests in the nest boxes and saw only some hepatica flowers in the quadrats.

While I was checking the nest boxes, I noticed this Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) pecking a tree nearby.

Spring fauna and flora at McCarthy Woods

I went to McCarthy Woods today to practice UV photography on the flowers.  I am still missing the 40.5 to 48 step-up adapter ring, so handholding the filter in front of the camera lens is not ideal.  Plus, there may be focus shift that I need to adjust once the adapter ring arrives.  While photographing the flowers, I saw many interested things that I photographed with my E-M1.

The first was this Pileated Woodpecker (Hylatomus pileatus) pecking a fallen tree.

Weekend activities - helping a friend & bird-watching

I really should take pictures every single day, otherwise I could not remember what I did each day (unless something really significant happened that day).  For example, I didn't take any photos last weekend and now I couldn't remember most of what I did then.

Well, I did bring my camera with me this weekend to record helping out a friend on Saturday and then bird-watching this morning.

Photograph of a staircase.  I really like patterns and lines when looking up/down stairways, such as these inspiration images (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) captured by one of my favorite photographers.  My image was taken inside one of the biology buildings on campus, but it wasn't very interesting so I replicated and flipped the image next to the original image.  Not too bad.  I need to find more interesting staircases in Ottawa.

Remnants of Autumn

I finished grading a bunch of lab reports yesterday, and when I woke up this morning, the weather was so nice that I decided to visit the Arboretum for a long overdue nature walk with my camera.

I have been so busy lately that autumn is slowly disappearing in front of my eyes and yet I haven't got any free time to take some photos with my camera.  I was very happy today when I got to the Arboretum and saw there were still some trees with their fall leaves.

Tree on fire

Pileated Woodpecker in McCarthy Woods

I went out for a walk this afternoon after working in my room all day, and wow, was it cold when I stepped outside (-35 degrees Celsius and frostbite warning, apparently)!  I went to a forest near by called McCarthy Woods, and saw a large murder of crows, one nuthatch, some chickadees, a few squirrels, and caught a glimpse of a woodpecker flying away.  It was so cold that I had no motivation to take out my camera from my backpack and take pictures.

It wasn't until near the end of my walk when I heard something knocking on a tree near me.  I looked around until I realized there was a Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) on the tree right next to me.  I was very excited because this will be my first time properly seeing and photographing a Pileated Woodpcker (if I don't scare it away first).  My previous attempts at photographing this species are pretty pathetic, if I must say so, for example this and this.  So I slowly and stiffly (from the cold) took out my camera and snapped away.

Right on top of me.

Walking to school (part-way) yields wildlife photos

Hi all, I am back in Ontario (since last Thursday, actually).  For the past three days, rather than just busing to school and then work for several hours, I decided to exercise a bit by walking a part of the way to school, especially when the weather has been quite nice lately - chilly but sunny.

On Tuesday, I wasn't having much luck seeing wildlife until I saw this woodpecker pecking underneath the bark.  I actually saw a similar one at the same tree last month (but it was too cloudy and so I didn't post about it).  Initially, I thought it was a Downy Woodpecker (Picoides pubescens) but now that I have taken a closer at the beak-to-head ratio, I am not so sure anymore, especially because the photo is taken at an angle. 

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.