White-Faced Meadowhawk
August 3rd, 2011
If you see a bright red dragonfly in late summer or autumn, it's probably a meadowhawk. White-Faced is one of the most common of the seven species that occur in Ottawa.
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A Beautiful Spot
July 31st, 2011
A view of Chelsea Creek in the Gatineau, from Sugarbush Loop. Michael and I went there yesterday, sat at the waterside and watched jewelwings perch on the rocks.
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Steeplebush
July 29th, 2011
Ebony Jewelwing
July 28th, 2011
Sugarbush Loop is becoming one of my favorite hiking spots. Foremost of the reasons for this is its population of Ebony Jewelwings, a magnificent odonate. When you first see one fluttering around, it looks like a dark butterfly. Then it perches, revealing its vivid metallic blue-green body and its eponymous delicate ebony wings. Jewelwings prefer wooded streams and creeks, which is perhaps why they're not a common sight in Ottawa--our greenspace has a lot more marsh and pond than it does fast-flowing water. But in appropriate habitat, they occur in good numbers.
I was delighted to find one hunting for food on Chelsea Creek. He perched on grasses leaning over the water, and periodically sallied forth to snap up insects from the surface. He had a habit of returning to exactly the same position on exactly the same perch after one of his sallies, which was fortunate for me! Once I'd set the focus on my lens, it stayed good for some time.
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The females and juveniles are duller-colored, and have pale spots on the tips of their wings. My favorite female picture of the day is this rather startling flight shot.
A Selection Of Odes
July 21st, 2011
No, not poetry. "Odes" is shorthand for odonates: dragonflies and damselflies. Here are some I've come across recently.
Four-Spotted Skimmer (wallpaper available)
Mosaic Darner (wallpaper available)
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Cooper's Hawk
July 18th, 2011
Cooper's Hawks have nested in the tall pines at Mud Lake for a few years now. These long-tailed raptors are voracious consumer of songbirds. The Mud Lake pair also seem to enjoy, and have helped temper, its bountiful squirrel population! Before the hawks took up residence, squirrels used to follow hikers down paths looking for handouts, or come out when you were sitting on the platform and just stare at you. The Black Squirrel Mafia, I called them. They've since learned to make themselves a little less conspicuous.
This Cooper's, judging by eye color, is a young'un--likely fledged from this year's nest.
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Eastern Kingbird
July 17th, 2011
Eastern Kingbirds are common throughout Ottawa, but Mer Bleue is an especially good place to watch and photograph them. They perch on the boardwalk and make flycatching sallies over the bog.
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Hexagenia Limbata
July 16th, 2011
...which is to say, a mayfly. I like mayflies--both the pale waxy subimagos that cling to windows in spring, and the colorful adults.
Blue Mud Dauber
July 14th, 2011
I'm still enough of a novice at insect-watching that things can take me completely by surprise. Example: I had no idea we had metallic blue wasps in Ottawa! This one caught my eye at Mud Lake while I was watching the heron struggle with his lunch.
Many thanks to the folks at What's That Bug for their help. I was disappointed that it didn't turn out to be the badass-sounding Steel Blue Cricket Hunter--that is, until I learned that the Blue Mud Dauber is far more badass. Its favorite prey is Black Widow spiders! The adult actually lives on nectar, but captures and kills spiders to feed its young. As there aren't many (any?) Black Widows in Ottawa, I'm guessing this wasp is not particularly common either.
The second photo shows off the violet highlights in the wings:
Biting off more than he can chew
July 12th, 2011
This Great Blue Heron looked mighty proud of himself having caught a large catfish...until it occurred to him that he was going to have to swallow it. I watched him struggle with the thing for upward of fifteen minutes.
The final picture looks like success but wasn't--it managed to flop its way back out of his mouth! When I left he had the thing sitting on shore, apparently waiting for it to die so it would go down without a fight.
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