Touring Quebec City and Montreal

I have been slowly getting settled in my new apartment for about two weeks now.  It is at a convenient location close to Dow's Lake, Arboretum, bike path to school, Ottawa River, and more.  Shortly after I moved in, my mother flew from Richmond for a month-long visit, so I have been hosting her since then and that explains why I have not been photographing or blogging as much.

This past weekend, we visited Quebec City and Montreal with a mostly-Asian tour group.  And like most tour groups, the schedule was packed and there was little free time to do anything else.

We left Ottawa early Saturday morning, and the first attraction was Château Frontenac in Quebec City.

Waxwings in backyard & Photo updates

There was a large museum of waxwings (about 200 individuals - mostly Bohemian and some Cedar) hanging out in my backyard this morning.  I left my E-M1 camera at school yesterday so I had to use my phone and E-620 to document them eating the berries in the backyard.

Mostly Bohemian Waxwings (Bombycilla garrulus).

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.

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.