ESC-ESO 2013 Conference, Guelph (Oct 20 to 23)

I just returned from a four-day ESC-ESO conference at Guelph, and it was a great conference with excellent presentations and posters.  This conference also attracted a large number of CANPOLIN students showcasing their research on pollination, and it was great to see fellow peers whom I had met the past two years, but it was also bittersweet because this was the last official meeting for CANPOLIN members as the initiative comes to an end.

The conference also promoted the use of social media: Twitter: (#ESCJAM2013), YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIn22KYNkQI), and blogs (e.g., The Bug Geek, Ibycter, and The Boreal Beetle).  The conference also invited the well known insect photographer, Alex Wild, to teach a photography workshop and to speak to everyone at the banquet dinner about insect photography techniques - keep image simple (i.e., avoid messy background), light (know where your light sources are), tell a story, avoid centering the subject (i.e., follow rule of thirds), and patience.

My trip began with a six-hour Greyhound trip from Peterborough to Guelph (via Toronto) on Sunday morning.  I was unable to make the proper connection at Toronto so I ended up waiting in Toronto for two hours (which I used the time to check out cameras at BestBuy and had lunch at McDonald's).

Lady Eaton Drumlin in late Summer

I had been busy this past week working on my thesis revisions, so I didn't really take any photos during the week.  It had also been relatively uneventful this week, aside from the fact that another graduate student in my lab successfully defended his Master research and we went out for lunch at a popular BBQ place in Keene, and then last night we had a post-defense party at my supervisor's place.  Weather-wise, it definitely feels that autumn is approaching (although it was really hot on Wednesday) with the evenings getting colder now.

On a somewhat unimportant note (to most people), Olympus announced the release of a new camera called E-M1 on Tuesday (news here).  As my Olympus E-620 DSLR is getting older, I am thinking about upgrading the equipment to improve my photography skills.  However, this new camera is very very expensive and I need to buy an addition adapter for my current lenses (which kind of defeats the purpose of using a small and lightweight system like Olympus).  So eventually I will be in a dilemma of continuing with the Olympus brand or switching to a new system (e.g., Nikon) that is more well-supported by the company and its customers. 

In the mean time, I will continue to enjoy my E-620 and the photos that I can get with it.  Today, I hiked around the Lady Eaton Drumlin before going to school to do some work, because I seriously needed to be outside and enjoyed nature a bit.

First wildlife I saw was a Downy Woodpecker (Picoides pubescens).

Flower visitors to soapberry (Shepherdia canadensis) flowers in Ivvavik

The weather had been relatively bad the past few days (but nothing as bad as the one faced by people on the east coast), especially last night with heavy rain and strong winds.  It is currently just rainy and wet out at the moment.

Anyways, here are some more photos from Yukon.  This field season, I was more or less continuing to study the pollination of soapberry (Shepherdia canadensis) with a few tweaks here and there, and pollination of another (gyno)dioecious species - Silene acaulis (moss campion).  But here are some of my photos of insects visiting S. canadensis.

Unknown ant species (Formicidae) visiting female flowers.

Pollinators Drinking Nectar

Another day hanging around the community garden hoping to see and photograph the hummingbird.  The hummingbirds were nowhere to be found and so I decided to photograph the pollinators instead.  Looking through the photos made me realize how different the feeding methods are for all of these creatures.

Skipper with its long proboscis.

St. Louis Zoo and Insectarium

After the field project presentations and clean-up the field equipments in the lab, all the students decided to go to St. Louis Zoo (free, by the way) to pay Mr. Ed Spevak and the insectarium a visit.

Before heading back to the apartment to put my stuff away first, I came across this Common Buckeye (Junonia coenia) on the sidewalk in the drizzling rain.  I gently picked it up and put it on a tree where it has more shelter.  What a beauty!


We were at the zoo with only about 1.5 hours to spare before closing, so we only had time to visit the insectarium.