a place where nature, photography and writing meet
One of the problems that we encounter when trying to identify species is that there can be quite a lot of variation in appearance. The above example is a case in point. I found this very tiny lady beetle while I was walking about in the woods yesterday. Although it has 4 black spots on […]
This is the scene that greeted me when I sat up in bed to take a look out the north-facing window into our garden early this morning. Not a pretty sight! Shortly after, I saw three large “V” formations of Canada geese winging their way southward over the house. They looked rather *determined* — like […]
Last night, Don and I packed up the aquarium, flashlights, and my camera gear and headed off to the weekly Mudpuppy Night down by the dam at Oxford Mills. To save some space, here’s a link to my report from the last Mudpuppy Night attended, which gives some background info for those who aren’t familiar […]
Note: Each horizontal row of images can be clicked on for a somewhat larger view This is my Darwin Day tribute to Charles Robert Darwin, born Feb. 12, 1809. Originally, I set out to create something rather different, but changed my plans when I realized that they were far too ambitious. In the end, I’ve […]
After an unseasonably mild winter, we’re finally into cold weather. This morning, the temperature was at -24C (about -11F). With the windchill factor, it was supposed to be about -37C (-35F). It was colder during the night. The snow has taken on that dry, granular quality that allows it to quickly sift in to fill […]
Back in March 2006, I wrote about an outing to Mudpuppy Night, which takes place at the Oxford Mills dam just about every Friday night throughout the winter season. Last night, we packed up my camera gear and an aquarium, and headed off into the frigid night to meet up with Dr. Fred Schueler and […]
Green Frog (Rana clamitans) in the hands of a Grade 10 science student during a one-day stream survey workshop on the Jock River near Ottawa (May 2004). Earlier today, Wayne and I got into a small discussion in the comments that followed my post from a couple of days ago. In essence, we were batting […]