MosaïCanada150

2017 marks the sesquicentennial anniversary of Canada, and there are many celebrations happening in the capital city.  The most current one (from June 30 to October 15) is MosaïCanada150, which consists of artistic displays made out of flower beds (a.k.a. mosaiculture).  I went there twice, and each time there were many visitors which made photographing the displays very challenging.  Here are some of the photos without many people in them.

Puffins

Early fall colours in Quebec

My parents are currently visiting me and wanting to see the changing fall colours here in eastern Canada.  I booked a tour trip to Mont-Tremblant today, and although some of the views were spectacular, the fall colours were not at peak yet.

We first visited Gatineau Park and then took a boat ride on Lac des Sables in Saint-Agathe.  Lac des Sables is probably most well-known for the expensive houses owned by rich people along its shoreline.

Enjoying the almost Fall weather

The weather has been quite perfect lately.  It is approaching those days when some of the leaves are just starting to turn their color but are still on the trees, and you just want to be outside and bask in the warmth from the sunlight.  I walked to the Ornamental Gardens and Fletcher Wildlife Garden (FWG) yesterday to take some photos.

Bombus sp. at the garden.

More urban insects on campus - August 2017

Our pollinator group did two more pollinator observations (plus an single-audience pollinator talk) on campus this month since my girlfriend and I returned back from Portland.

And here are some of the photos.

A Bombus griseocollis queen missing her left antenna on anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum).

Sights from Portland, Oregon

My girlfriend and I just spent a rewarding but exhausting week in Portland, Oregon attending the Ecological Society of American (ESA) 2017 Annual Meeting.  Aside from going to presentations, eating, and sleeping, there was not much time to explore this interesting city.

For example, we woke up very early one day and went for a stroll around a park (Laurelhurst Park) in the neighbourhood, where we came across two young Cooper's Hawks (Accipiter cooperii).

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)

More urban insects on campus

As I mentioned last month, there is a group of pollination-enthusiasts conducting weekly pollinator observations on uOttawa campus.  Here are some of the insects and plants we have observed this month.

Because of all the insect photographs I am taking, I bought a small flash this month and started incorporating a diffuser and reflector into my macrophotography based on the tutorial from this blogger.

Rose Curculio (Merhynchites bicolor)

2017 Ottawa Jazz Festival

This past few days I was volunteering at the Ottawa Jazz Festival.  This was my first time volunteering for this festival, but the weather had been quite uncooperative for me to attend all the shows and properly enjoy the music.  The two main musicians why I volunteered for this festival were: Hannah Georgas and Feist, and I didn't miss them regardless of how bad the weather was.

Hannah Georgas put on a great show on June 23rd.

Wasp-mimicking Temnostoma fly

I was planting some native plants on campus today and saw a syrphid fly mimicking a wasp by holding its front legs out front like a wasp's antenna.  I believe it is a Temnostoma sp., which I saw a similar one more than four years at Algonquin.

Nature is so fascinating!

Urban insects on campus

This summer, I am staying in Ottawa and focusing on writing my thesis and not doing any fieldwork in Colorado.  To maintain a good work-life balance (especially when the weather is nice out), my labmates and I are helping setting up a group that focuses on enhancing our understanding about urban pollination on campus - by planting native plants and recording plant-pollinator interactions.  Yesterday, we walked around the campus and I photographed some of the floral visitors that we observed.

An Agapostemon sp. visiting and resting on a sage flower - definitely my best photo of the day.