November update

I apologize for not posting anything until the end of the month, but life is getting too busy for me to take breaks just for photographs.  During this month, I bought a year-long student membership to the Museum of Nature (and went there twice already), took up swimming during lunch breaks, and went out bird-watching three times.

Early November when the temperature was still pleasant enough to sit outside.  I was sitting on a bench and studying for my biological modeling midterm before taking this photo.

July update - Hiking to Treasure Mountain (4,103 m)

Last Saturday (July 11th), everyone in my lab took a half-day off to hike Treasure Mountain.  To get to the trailhead, we drove from Gothic to Paradise Divide and then hike to Yule Creek Trail.

Paradise Divide.

Great Backyard Bird Count in Ottawa

I returned back to BC last night for a week off from school.  Before I went to the airport in the afternoon, I went out bird-watching with a friend for the Great Backyard Bird Count in the morning.  We actually went to Strathcona Park on Valentine's Day to scout some of the species found there (e.g., Mallards, Common Goldeneyes, Great Black-backed Gulls, Herring Gulls, etc), and then began our Monday bird count there as well.  It was quite cold on Saturday and Monday morning, so I didn't bother taking photos then.  After surveying the birds at Strathcona Park on Monday morning, we took the bus to Remic Rapids along the Ottawa River, which was my first time there.  The temperature felt warmer by then and so I started snapping some photos.

Remic Rapids and some impressive rock-balancing.

Daily life in Colorado - Part 4

Research

My field season is slowly winding down with the flowers setting seeds (a.k.a. nutlets).  However, the nutlets contain elaiosomes that are removed by ants (and the plants are also eaten by deers), thus I have to be extra diligent in nutlet-collecting before other creatures get to them first.

Ants also steal nectar from flowers.  Here is one removing the flower.

Nunaluk Spit, northernmost point of mainland Yukon

Two days ago, the inner tube of the back bike tire completely blew out when I was on my way to the trail.

 While walking back home with the broken bike, I manged to get a few photos of a bumblebee visiting someone's Moonflowers.

I bought a replacement this morning.  Hopefully I will be back biking tomorrow.  But for now, here's what happened on one of the days during my field season.

On June 23, 2012, I had the rare opportunity to travel to the northernmost point of mainland Yukon called Nunaluk Spit, it is basically a gravel bar that extended along the coast and the Beaufort Sea.

On the spit is a cabin built by the descendants of the famous Arctic explorer, Vilhjalmur Stefansson.

Halfway to Heaven of Ivvavik National Park - Part 2

June 21, 2011

Halfway to Heaven of Ivvavik National Park - Part 1

Happy 2012, everybody! Life is still busy regarding school work, and with the BC weather being so normal and so crappy, I have been spending a lot of time indoors.

So I thought I'd share the last of my landscape photos from Ivvavik National Park. In addition to the hikes to popular destinations Inspiration Point and Sheep Slot, the best named and most beautiful destination is Halfway to Heaven. It is about two to three hours from the Sheep Creek campsite and a pretty good hiking-workout. From what I gathered, it was named because the hikers who gave its name experienced a bad storm on that day and thought they'd perish on that day.

I went to this spot twice last year - the first time was on June 21 and it was cloudy and windy. The second time was on Canada Day and it was sunny and hot and humid. Such is the (unpredictable) weather in the north in the summer.

As you can see, there are very few vegetation that survive up here, except some Dryas spp. and Phlox.