Touring Toronto and Niagara Falls

My mother is leaving Ottawa this coming Saturday.  This past weekend, we went on another two-day tour - this time to Thousand Islands, Toronto, and Niagara Falls.

Our first stop was seeing the islands at Rockport, Ontario.

St. Brendan's Church

June update - Everything

Since arriving in Colorado, my life has been incredibly busy and interesting, which is why I have not updated my blog until now.  This post is a quite poor in terms of topic organization, I apologize.

Researches

One of my many research projects is to examine if Mertensia plants with different floral orientation are influenced by rain differently, and one measure of this effect is the number of nutlets (seeds) each plant produce.  To test this, I constructed and placed a rain shelter over a plot with several Mertensia plants, manipulated floral orientation (upward or pendant) of haphazardly chosen plants, supplemented pollen to these plants, and waited until the end of the flowering season to collect the nutlets.

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.

Arctic/alpine pollination workshop in Kluane National Park, Yukon - Part 2

During the workshop we had various presentations from researchers currently working in the Canadian Pollinator Initiative (CANPOLIN) and members from the Yukon government and local First Nations group.  We also discussed tasks that need to be done as the NSERC funded initiative is coming to an end, and also brainstormed topics/projects that will be of relevance to people living in northern communities and scientists in the future.

Thank you to the AINA for hosting us.

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.

 

Complete Rainbow(s) in Ivvavik

In the early morning of June 10th, 2012, I was outside my tent and saw a beautiful (almost?) double rainbow across our field site.  I grabbed my P&S camera and took several photos.  I just stitched them today using a free software called Microsoft ICE, and it actually worked better than the program I have been using.

What a gorgeous sight (and site)!  I think Yukon and NWT have produced some of the most spectacular rainbows I have ever seen in my life, or maybe it is just because the landscape the rainbow bridges (for example).  Since this summer was my second field season, I doubt I will ever come back again.  Quite sad to think about, actually.

Roadtrip to Whitehorse and Dawson City

Our roadtrip began in the afternoon of July 27th.

Driving on the infamous Dempster Highway.

Incomplete rainbow?

The weather in the afternoon was not as good as the morning; it was hazy and warm.

I have no idea what this phenomenon is, but there was just this patch of "rainbow" in the hazy sky.

Photographic post & Rainbow at the end of the day.

Such a cloudy day today.

Look at that cloud cover! Thank goodness it was retreating.

Sky slowly clearing.

All beautiful creatures to me & Typhoon before weekend trip

I came to work early today to check out if the nestlings are ready to fly or not. (By the end of today, the nestlings still had not left the nest yet - meaning overtime work for my co-workers who have to come in during the weekend to try and capture the fledgling barbets.)

Almost, but not yet.

Father Barbet waiting for his break once this clutch is over.

While preparing to go to the botanical garden in the morning to check on the status of the rat traps, a research assistant observing the barbet nest called us and said that a Crested Goshawk had just landed on the nest tree of the Muller's Barbets (just like last month). So I hurried and got to the garden to see the goshawk sunning itself in a majestic manner.

What a beautiful creature!

After awing over the beautiful raptor, we went to check out the traps. In the end, 7 out of 20 traps (just like I predicted) caught rodents - one Norway Rat (Rattus norvegicus) and six Asian House Shrews (Suncus murinus). This was my first time doing rodent survey in Taiwan, so even unimpressive results like this was still exciting to me. Although I was a bit surprised by the lack of squirrels caught by the traps.

Norway Rat (above photo) and Asian House Shrew (bottom photo).

We released the shrews on-site since we were able to identify them and their small body size won't able to tolerate being trapped in a cage for too long.

Shrew or not, I think they are quite beautiful too.

The Norway Rat was trickier to identify since there are other similar sized rodents in Taiwan, so we brought the rat back to the office for more identification.

In the end, it was definitely a Norway Rat because of the slender head and a blunt nose. Nevertheless, everyone in the office agreed that it is a charismatic rat.

A typhoon is heading towards Taiwan! Unfortunately, our internship program is arranging us to go on a weekend trip to Eastern Taiwan (where the typhoon is passing by) this week, I am still contemplating about going or not. Sigh, such a tough choice.

.

Natural Beauties

In the morning, while walking across the botanical garden to get to work, a Black-crowned Night Heron was resting.

For the rest of the morning, I spent my time in the office sorting data and typing up reports. Then in the afternoon, it was my shift to observe the barbets. This is the same nest as the one from last week, where we captured and leg-banded the parents and the nestlings were hungry during then.

Like last week, the nestlings were still hungry.

But this time, the father (with the pink and red bands on the right) was available to provide them with food. This time it is a cicada.

Ever since the leg-banding, the mother was rarely seen. So all the duties are performed by father now.

It drizzled a little bit in the afternoon, so a rare rainbow in Taipei City was observed!

Father barbet taking a rest.

A particular bird that searched for by photographers (and me) was the White-breasted Waterhen (Amaurornis phoenicurus). I kept hearing news about their appearances in the garden, but I have never come across them before. Finally, near the end of my shift, someone informed me about their appearance and so I was able to capture some images of this lifer! So beautiful-looking.

Back in the office, a co-worker had offered a home for this escaped Smooth Green Snake (Cyclophiops major) from a animal hospital. Is itn't a beauty!

.