Tag Archives: Edmonton

Alberta Oil (Beetle)

By Adrian | Published 22 May, 2013

Oil Beetle – Probably either Meloe niger or M. exiguus.

Last year, based on an oil beetle I photographed in Grasslands National Park, Sask.,  I jokingly mentioned that the oil beetle should be Alberta’s official insect, because we have so much of the oily stuff. Well, this year I found a wealth of the little beggars strutting around the Halfmoon Lake Natural Area just NNE of Edmonton. I found a female digging a burrow, and she was soon joined by a male, who did absolutely nothing to help prepare the maternity room!

Mounting Meloes

Mounting Meloes

Check out the video below to see some of the behavior I recorded…

Note that all segments in the video above are available at regular frame rates (1920×1080, 30fps) for serious applicants.

◊ Read more on the fascinating lifecycle of oil beetles at a previous post.

◊ Thanks to v belov at BugGuide for the great assistance with ID!

 

(Top: Canon 5D Mk II with Canon 100 mm f2.8 macro lens. Flash – 1/3. ISO 200, 1/60sec @ f16. Middle: Canon T2i with MP-E65 mm lens. Flash. ISO 200, 1/200 sec. @f11. Bottom: Video Olympus E-PM1 with 14- 42 mm lens)Enhanced by Zemanta
Posted in Behaviour, Bugs, Canada, Coleoptera, Insect, macro, Meloidae, photography, Season, Spring | Also tagged , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Hobomok Courtin’

By Adrian | Published 25 April, 2013
Poanes hobomok (Harris, 1862)

Hobomok skippers, female and male.

Again from last year, probably a pair of Hobomok skippers, Poanes hobomok (Harris 1862) photographed cavorting on a sunny woodland verge in the North Saskatchewan River valley in Edmonton. The female is the dark form,  known as ‘Pocahontas’. These were photographed in natural light under an overcast sky.
More information on Hobomok skippers in Canada can be found at the Strickland Virtual Museum and the Canadian Biodiversity Information Facility Species Bank.
Thanks to John Acorn and Gary Anweiler for the ID.
(8 June, 2012. Canon 5D Mk. II, Tamron SP AF 180mm f/3.5 Di LD IF Macro lens, ISO 320, 1/80 @ f13, -1/3EV. Cropped from original)

 

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Posted in Alberta, Bugs, Camera, Canada, Equipment, Lenses, Lepidoptera, photography, Summer | Also tagged , 2 Comments

The Week on Sunday #28

By Adrian | Published 21 April, 2013

On with some inter-web finds from the last week…

♦ If you are a macro photographer, one of the best ways to increase opportunities to photograph insects is to have a diversely planted naturalistic garden. You need only step outside your door for subject matter: so easy when you can’t find the time to get out to wilder places. For an example of what you can do, check out this video by John Dunstan, for his proposed “Insect Garden Channel‘:

♦ Here are some timely fact-sheets for spring, from the Xerces Society, which is devoted to invertebrate conservation:

and for those with sub-urban, acreage or farm properties:

Be sure to visit the  Xerces Society for more information on how to make your local environment more friendly to butterflies and bees.

♦ As I have mentioned before, I have yearned to do high-speed in-flight insect photography since I first read Stephan Dalton’s book, S. DaltonCaught in Motion. High Speed Nature Photography 30 years ago. Stephan Dalton’s system was engineered from the ground up, at an estimated value of over $30 000 dollars! How times have changed…

Cognisys, manufacturers of Stopshot and Stackshot now have the magic ingredient for successful daytime high-speed in-flight insect photography: a high-speed shutter. That means the Stopshot system can now be sold as a new package, the Cognisys Insect Rig. Here is what it looks like:

Cognisys Insect Rig

Visit Linden Gledhil’s Insects in Flight gallery to see what can be done. This rig is sold at a cost of a mere $2300!

(No doubt well worth the price, but,… ahem…would anyone care to sponsor me to obtain this delightful system?)

♦ An interview I had earlier this year is now an article at PhotoEd Magazine. PhotoEd is a Canadian magazine aimed at educational institutions and features established and up-and-coming Canadian photographers. It’s a good article with excellent photo reproductions and  am very pleased with the results. Below is a glimpse of the article. The magazine can be purchased at Chapters/Indigo or through subscription at PhotoEd. I will also have free copies available for anyone who attends the next few small-group workshops.

img011img009 img008-001Spring/Summer 2013 PhotoEd Magazine

When Felix Rosso sent his questionnaire he included the following statement, which not only goes to the heart of why I began blogging, but speaks to all photographers, artists and any one else who has taken the path of self-directed learning:

“I like your logo quote “Splendour awaits.” It does not come to us – we need to search it out. Your self-directed learning is inspiring – education is too important an endeavour to put in the hands of others. I have been in education for over 40 years and have always recognized the power of the individual following his/her interests. “

“It does not come to us – we need to search it out.”

Words to live by.

 

♦ And ending on a personal note: how fairs the season for bugs and blooms?

The last week has seen a warming trend, but still far below seasonal averages. The week ahead looks more promising:

from the department formerly known as 'Environment Canada'
from the department formerly known as ‘Environment Canada’

I may be able to get the pond ‘flowing’ again and begin the many garden chores of spring. Most yards that are not facing south will still have lots of snow cover, or be wet, so this is not the time for lawn care (if you still have such an archaic feature in your garden)! Soil compaction can be a danger now, so use a planks to create walkways to do your chores if the soil it still wet. In central Alberta and north , this will be the week to:

  • complete pruning of trees and shrubs
  • renovate old  hedges
  • clean-out eavestroughs
  • set-up rain barrels
  • clean-out and/or place nest boxes for birds
  • set up new bee hotels, renovate old bee hotels
  • clean and fill bird-baths

So far few bugs, one lone centipede that scurried away as I moved an old clay pot. Looking forward to more soon!

 

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Posted in Alberta, Bugs, Canada, close-up, Conservation, Equipment, garden, Hymenoptera, Insect, Inspiration, invertebrates, Links, macro, photography, Season, Spring, Web LInk, Workshop | Also tagged , , , , , Leave a comment

Diversion ahead…What’s going on?

By Adrian | Published 15 April, 2013
Little Pooting

Diversion Ahead…

Some may have noticed that there have been a few changes around this blog recently. Here’s what’s happening:

My time blogging  at Splendour Awaits (previously ‘The Bugwhisperer’) and the many bug photography field trips that I have enjoyed for the last few years, could not have been done without the blessing of my wife and the support of my daughter. I owe them a great deal of thanks for the time they have allowed me. However, in the mean time, my income has been sporadic – I  spend some time doing landscaping and gardening, and I earn a bit here and there with my photos, but I am not earning a regular income. I am at the age where I have to pay attention to a future in what is commonly known as ‘retirement’ (some people think I am there already!). And even now, with half-a-dozen one children child teenager young adult to feed, clothe and send to university; oil-company subsidies  taxes to be paid and our urban hovel to be maintained – every penny nickel dollar of extra income will helpful. I have to decide soon if I am going to try to make a real living with nature photography or if I need to find real reliable income elsewhere.

To solve this impasse, and to avoid returning to other, less satisfactory types of work, I have started to take a multi-pronged approach to earning income. For instance, in order to help sustain this website I have joined the Zenfolio, Photocrati and B&H affiliate programs. I have tried to keep the ad’s unobtrusive yet visible: no flashing banners or irritating pop-ups will infest this blog.

◊ I am moving my galleries to Zenfolio to handle the unprecedented (i.e more than one ;) ) demand for prints. If you have an interest in producing a full-featured photography site that organizes,  displays and sells your images, you should consider checking Zenfolio through the link on the sidebar.

◊ Or if you want to be more independent, you could find your own web-host and then use the website/blog templates from Photocrati. The designs and features are excellent and fully customizable, and you can have your website, galleries, blog and shopping cart up-and-running in no time.

◊ If you are looking for good deals on equipment, please check B&H through any of the links on this site. Use the search button on the right to find the latest in photography equipment deals. B&H has by far the best designed website and intelligent search features, along with offering very competitive pricing. Great for Canadians too…easy duty/shipping calculations so you see all your expenses up front, and even with the costs included you will usually save money.

And continuing with prongs of income…

Last year (thanks to the sponsorship of Dr. David Walter) I had the pleasure of attending the Joint Annual Meeting of the Entomological Societies of Canada. During that event I was surprised to find people – professional entomologists – introducing themselves to me and telling me they visit the blog and appreciate my photography…and could I do some workshops, please? I had considered doing this before, but I was not convinced that bug photography had the popularity required to draw people to sustainable workshops. However, with the prodding I received at JAM 2012, I have reconsidered this, and under the motto of, “If you build it, they will come”, I have begun developing and leading macro photography workshops. (Golly Gosh! There are two more coming up soon!)

Continue reading »

Posted in Alberta, Bugs, Canada, Diversion, Entomological Society of Alberta, Entomological Society of Canada, Equipment | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Alberta Bug Magnets: Blazing Star

By Adrian | Published 30 March, 2013

After going through eight years of digital photographs, I can see a pattern in the bugs that appear on our garden flowers. With Spring officially in progress (he says with more than a hint of cynicism, one week after shoveling 25 cm of snow off the sidewalks and driveway…) I thought it would be a good idea to share some of the more successful plants that attract bugs to our Zone 3b (or is it Zone 4 now?) garden in Edmonton, Alberta.

Source: USDA Plants.

The first bug-magnet I want to mention is the Blazing Star or Gayfeather, Liatris spicata (L.) Willd. This perennial is native to grassy areas of  eastern North America, favoring moist to average soils on the edges of marshland, mesic prairie and open woodland clearings. In the best conditions it will grow up to 120cm in height, but in our drier sub-urban garden the plant usually only reaches a height of about 60cm.  It displays an erect composite flower head, with the individual purple-rose blooms which open from the top down. The leaves are grass-like around the base, with narrow leaflets covering the flower stem. 

For those wildflower enthusiasts there are two native species in Alberta:  Dotted Blazing Star (Liatris punctata Hook.) and the  Meadow Blazing Star (Liatris ligulistylis (A. Nels.) K. Schum.) which you can learn more about from The Home Bug Gardener.

The gallery below is a sampling of some of the visitors to the garden as they make use of Liatris blooms.

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Posted in Alberta, Apidae, Bugs, Canada, Edmonton, garden, Hymenoptera, Insect, Lepidoptera, macro, Orthoptera, photography, Season, Summer | Also tagged , , , , , Leave a comment

The Week on Sunday #21

By Adrian | Published 17 February, 2013

Welcome to another Week on Sunday!

♦  The first half of yesterday was spent at City Centre, Edmonton, recording and photographing Chinese New Year’s celebrations. However  after an excellent free lunch at the Famous Wok, I stepped out, made my way to the LRT and then sped over to spend an afternoon at the U of A’s Earth Sciences Building. I was attending the launch of a new citizen-science program by the Alberta Lepidopterists’ Guild. AltaLeps  has initiated a new citizen-science project to create a butterfly atlas for Alberta. This will be a digital continuation of the original atlas, Alberta Butterflies (1995), which was co-authored and ‘fathered’ by Dr.Charles Bird. In  this program, John Acorn gathered a select group of speakers to tell us more about why a new atlas is needed and how this citizen-science project can benefit scientific research.

AbButterflyAtlas20130216_0035

Dr. Felix Sperling, Dr. Maxim Larrivee, Dr. Charles Bird, Dr. Greg Breed, Dr. Katy Prudic and John Acorn

John Acorn introduced the meeting by telling us why an online butterfly atlas is an important project to help link scientists and butterfly enthusiasts. I particularly appreciated  John emphasizing the social aspects of butterfly watching and how data collected by butterfly enthusiasts could,  in the future, be used in ways that have not been thought of yet.

Max Larrivée, who is one of the originators of eButterfly Canada, talked about his experiences with eButterfly and how the data collected has already helped his own research, showing how climate change is pushing the range of butterflies northward. He stressed how important it was that all contributors have access to all the data that is collected.

Katy Prudic, from the University of Oregon spoke about her own research in: “Continental Co-Evolution: Using eButterfly to understand the geographic mosaic of plant-insect interactions.” Katy has been involved establishing  eButterfly in the USA.

Greg Breed, a Banting Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Alberta, spoke on his work in Massachusetts, where he has be using multiple sources of observational data (including citizen science based data) to study changes in butterfly ranges. He particularly noted that he could not have done his research without the help of archived citizen-enthusiast observations.

Charles Bird talked about how we should not lose the information collected in the pre-digital era, where a lot of data exists in private collections. He noted that eButterfly now has the ability to upload correctly formatted data in bulk. With Max Larrivée’s help, the data of over 500 of his  butterfly observations had just been uploaded to the eButterfly.ca site!

The session was completed with Felix Sperling speaking on how data has been collected since the publication of Alberta Butterflies. He mentioned the annual butterfly walks initiated by the Xerces Society  in the 1990′s, and how similar butterfly counts became a trend in Alberta under the leadership of Barbara and Jim Beck. He also pointed out how some data collected by members of the Alberta Lepidopterists Guild has already been available online through the virtual E.H. Strickland Entomology Museum, largely thanks to the work of Gary Anweiler, a moth enthusiast and founding member of the Alberta Lepidopterists Guild. Felix noted how important it is that all the various types of data should find their way into the eButterfly/Alberta Butterfly Atlas.

It was an interesting session, that gives a new sense of purpose for Alberta butterfly watchers, photographers and naturalists, knowing that their observations have the potential to influence science for many years to come. I look forward to learning more about the progress of the Alberta Butterfly Atlas and, most of all, being able to add data and explore the information that has been collected.

♦ From butterflies to lice: a video on the co-evolution of birds and bird lice. Illinois Natural History Survey ornithologist Kevin Johnson:

 

♦ And to close…

What can amateurs contribute to the science of entomology? Read this BBC article on The bug-hunters discovering new species in their spare time,

 

Until next week…

 

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Posted in Alberta, Alberta, Amateur Entomologist, Biodiversity, Bugs, Canada, Climate, Collection, eButterfly, evolution, Lepidoptera, Links, News, Week on Sunday, Winter | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Fungus Gnat and a Microscope.

By Adrian | Published 19 December, 2012

The previous post’s image turns out to be the nether regions of a male Dark-winged Fungus Gnat (Sciaridae), as identified on BuigGuide.

The photo is of a specimen I mounted in PVA in 2004. The image was taken through the photo-port of a microscope called Jenamed 2, manufactured in the former East Germany, by Carl Zeiss, Jena. I originally purchased this microscope over 17 years ago, as damaged surplus from a medical lab here in Edmonton. The damaged part was the microscope stage, which had a complicated system of wire, pulleys and ball bearing glides which I have been unable to fully repair, but otherwise the ‘scope is in good condition with a full complement of undamaged objectives and eyepieces. I do want to make the most of this tool, even though there will be limitations  due to the lenses, which are planachromats rather than the better corrected planapochromats. I have learned a bit online, but there are still some questions I have about this microscope and how to make best use of it.

"Carl Zeiss Jenamed-2 with Olympus E-PM1 on homemade photo tube."

Carl Zeiss Jenamed-2 with Olympus E-PM1 on homemade photo tube.

First, the objectives and the markings on them:

Planachromat 5x/0.10 ∞/—A
Planachromat+ 10x/0.20  ∞/—A
Planachromat 40x/0.65   ∞/0.17—A
Planachromat Hi 50x/1.0   ∞/0—A
Planachromat Hi 100x/1.3   ∞/0—A

The 5x, 10x etc. indicates the magnification and the number after the first / is the numerical aperture. The ∞ indicates that they are infinity-corrected objectives, and must be used with a particular microscope with a lens in the tube. The HI indicates that they are Homogeneous Immersion objectives, where immersion oil should be placed at the interfaces between the objective front lens and the specimen slide and also between the front lens of the condenser and the underside of the specimen slide.¹.

The /– indicates that the low powered objectives can be used with or without a cover glass on the specimen. On the 50x and 100x, the 0— means (from a response on a web forum) that no cover glass should be used, and the 40x requires a 0.17 mm thick cover glass.

As for the A…

“An A means an objective without chromatic difference of magnification. This objective has to be used with an ocular without chromatic compensation.”

I haven’t quite wrapped my brain around that statement, considering that these are achromats that do not have full chromatic correction, however, the oculars are the original (GF-Pw 10x) wide field eyepieces so that should not be a concern.

So the outstanding questions are:

  1. what does the “+” on the Planachromat+ 10x mean?
  2. what does the “Pw” on the ocular mean?
  3. and would the original phototube (which I do not have) have had any corrective lenses?

Any information on these questions, or any other advice on how to get the most out of this microscope would be appreciated!

¹http://www.olympusmicro.com/primer/anatomy/immersion.html

 

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