A flower by any other name

Summer wildflowers are beginning to come out. I’m seeing many that I tend to associate with the hot, still, “dog days” of summer. Flowers such as chicory, daisies, vetches, bladderwort, Viper’s Bugloss, and others. One that I spotted recently was the above. I’ve always known this as Indian Paintbrush, so I was a little surprised [...]

Gray, but not really

The weather cooperated for me, and I was able to get some mothing in on all three nights I was at my parents’. The nights were relatively warm, and there was quite a bit of activity at the blacklights, so I took my time browsing over the sheets looking for species I hadn’t seen yet. [...]

Life on a maple branch

One of the necessary chores that comes with keeping horses, of course, is having to muck out the stalls. It’s a pleasant sort of physical labour, where you feel you’ve had a good workout and been productive at the same time. If kept on top of every day it’s neither a lot of work nor [...]

By the hundreds

Hundreds of moths
This is my 100th post. It arrived rather quickly, it’s hard to believe I’ve written that many entries already, on subjects as varied as fungus and flora, birds and bugs, earth hour and green parties (the events, not the political groups). I thought the hundredth post deserved special attention, to mark a milestone, [...]

Emeralds in the garden

When I went out to photograph the wrens, I also poked about the garden a bit. It had rained all afternoon, so all the foliage was damp, but also vibrant. Not much was flying, as far as insect life, and I was mostly looking at the flowers (many of which, after a week of daily [...]

Home among the colewort

One of the things I love about waking up at my parents’ house is the sound of the birds singing in the morning. Specifically, the House Wren, who has settled in just under the guest bedroom’s window. For the last half a dozen years he’s sung from the garden, adding some very bubbly life to [...]

A few colourful moths

I’m at my parents’ this evening, and it is chilly, unseasonably cool (it seems to me) for a mid-June night, nearly summer. I would ordinarily be outside, checking for moths on the blacklighted sheets I’d have set up, but it’s too cool for that tonight; approaching 10 C (50 F), the moths are, for the [...]

Wrigglers, tumblers and skeeters

It’s that time of year – the time when any foray out to the country or conservation area necessitates packing a can of deet-filled bug spray, when bug jackets and bug traps and bug lights and bug incense all start flying off the shelves. When many people lose many hours of sleep listening to a [...]

On Father’s Day

Today is Father’s Day. Neither of my sisters were able to make it to visit my parents today, so we’re getting together next weekend instead. I called my dad this evening, however, to wish him a happy father’s day and catch up.
I somewhat regret that I didn’t spend more time with my dad growing up, [...]

A birding interlude

I’ve been very busy this week, it feels like I’ve barely been home. I returned to my parents’ on Monday, and remained there till Wednesday morning, whereupon I headed out for a dentist appointment. Fortunately this was just to have some routine x-rays done and a couple other similarly benign procedures, so it wasn’t a [...]