Baltimore and the 100th ESA meeting

After returning back to Ottawa (from Colorado) on August 2nd, I spent most of my days preparing for my presentation at the Ecological Society of America (ESA) centennial meeting in Baltimore (August 9th to 14th).  My labmates and I departed for Baltimore on the morning of the 9th, drove more than eight hours, and arrived at Baltimore just before midnight; and my presentation took place in the following afternoon.

With ESA being the largest ecological society in the world, there was an incredible number of ecologists present, as well as numerous sessions taking place at the Baltimore Convention Center.  Overall, I thought my own presentation went well, and I enjoyed most of the presentations that I attended.  Unfortunately, I was unable to tour Baltimore as much as I would have liked.  Here are some of the photos I took when I was not busy inside the convention center speed-walking from one session to another.

The convention center lobby.  This place is completely packed in the morning, during lunchtime, and at the end of the day.  I snapped this photo when I took a break between sessions.

Attempting photograph dragonflies in flight

Do insects sleep or do they just take breaks resting in their busy short lives?

Bumblebee "resting" on a blackberry leaf.

First nice weather of April

Yesterday's constant rain was probably Mother Nature's way of saying Happy April Fools. Regardless, today's nice weather made up for it.

Blossoms and then Cooper's Hawk

First thing today was going to London Heritage Farm to find myself some critters. I didn't see much until I reached the back corner of the farm and saw bees flying towards it.

It's a Bee Yard!

Windy day so calmer waters on the wharf

Today was sunny but extremely windy, which made biking to the dyke quite a workout.

Good birding day to start off February

Another sunny day today for me to go out and enjoy the bike ride to the dyke. Even though I don't bike that often now to the West Dyke Trail, you can definitely see and hear the Red-winged Blackbirds coming back and getting ready to claim their territories.

All the bird feeders along the trail are dominated by these blackbirds, except when I get near and start to take pictures, then they flew away and the other smaller birds start to take over.

A couple of Downy Woodpeckers enjoy the food as well. Now that I looked at the feeder again, the drawing outside is quite beautiful.

My home (range)

Today's weather was so nice that I biked from my house to the South Dyke Trail, to Steveston, then to my old West Dyke Trail.

Ship and Wind Waves

Painted Turtles enjoying the Sun

Langley and then sunset watching at dyke

Today was quite tiring. I had an on-call job all the way in the Kwantley University Langley Campus today, so I had to wake up really really early and after 3 bus transfers and more than 2 hours later, I was there. After it finished around 3-pm. I took the bus again back to Richmond. It rained most of the day, but it stopped when I got home in the afternoon. The golden sunset looked quite interesting today and so I grabbed my bike immediately after I got home and enjoyed the sunset.

Visiting Steveston on a Sunday

I bought a monthly transit pass this January and so today my mother and I visited Steveston using the Sunday special (one family per monthly pass).

Even though it wasn't sunny, the weather was dry and many people visited the harbour.

A black and white shot of the harbour.


There were many boats as usual. This is suppose to be a colored image, but for some reason only the boat in the middle stood out from the seemly black-and-white surroundings. Nice unintended effect, no?

Sky-watching

Gull on Patrol

While photographing, I noticed something on the water surface. Turned out to be a Harbour Seal, Phoca vitulina, swimming among the boats.

It never raised more than its eyes and nose above the surface, but my mother and I had a great time trying to spot this mammal. Last time I saw a seal was about a year ago at the same spot.

On the other hand, the visitors focused more on the magnificent and attractive Mute Swan.

Mute Swan (Cygnus olor)

Someone brought a huge bag of bread loaf sides and was feeding them.

Having enough of people feeding wild animals, my mother and I walked to the other side of the harbour.

A magnificent ship - Ku'ulakai.

Someone sailing away, I wonder where to.

Then we walked along the waterfronts and saw this male Common Goldeneye (because of the rounder white spot). It swam farther and farther away from us as I was trying to attach my teleconverter lens to the camera.

Bald Eagles on the other side of the bank.

Resting a bit.

Enjoying the golden reflection

A lone male Bufflehead (Bucephala albeola) was found.


It played catching-up with us, and I had a difficult photographing it.

We also saw this cute Pied-billed Grebe (Podilymbus podiceps) in winter plumage.

It swam farther away from us. We saw it eventually again on the other side of the waterfront as we were heading to the bus stop, and it was continuing swimming towards the harbour.

What a great day!

Back to work tomorrow. Hooray! (but not really).

365 days ago (2009-01-03) ...
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