Late Season Backyard Wildlife in Macro Mode

The ongoing warm weather has certainly been a boon for insects. So I have been busily photographing whatever I can find in my yard and immediate area. This colourful Orchard Spider was in our rain barrel.

On our continuing tomato plants was this Tobacco Hornworm, the larval form of the Carolina Sphinx Moth.

 The 'horn' at the tail end is where it gets part of its name.

On some late flowering goldenrod were a number of wasps, but they were more interested in sipping the nectar than they were about my camera lens bearing down on them at close range.

Northern Paper Wasp (Polistes fuscatus)

A Spotted Beet Webworm was visiting the Echinacea. There are still quite a few flowers of the Echinacea in good condition, with more developing heads that will likely continue until the weather takes a serious turn for the cold. As noted in my previous post, there are still butterflies congregating on the Echinacea. It is not surprising to find Painted Ladies and Peck's Skippers still feasting on them, with the occasional Common Buckeye and more numerous Cabbage White, Orange Sulphur and Clouded Sulphur in the vicinity.....as well as Monarchs.

Spotted Beet Webworm

Speaking of Monarchs, they are still developing! I had this one form a chrysalis not that long ago, and it finally emerged in due time.

 It is interesting to see the chrysalis case turn clear, showing the folded up adult inside. When it gets to this stage, it is typically ~24 hours until the adult emerges, usually within an hour or two of first daylight.

 The frustrating thing is that the actual emergence can happen in as little as a minute or even less! There has been more than one occasion when I was keeping a close eye on the chrysalis only to step away for perhaps less than 10 minutes and when I returned, it was out with partially opened wings. But for those who have watched this more successfully, it is said to take less than a minute, sometimes no more than 30 seconds. The wings begin to unfold shortly after emergence.

 Eventually the wings are fully extended, and the butterfly spends an hour or two waiting for the fluid it has pumped into the wings to dry and harden, allowing the stiffness required for flight.

After this Monarch finally got its wings spread and dried and ready to fly, it took flight for a ways only to return and land on my shirt. After a minute or so, it then flew off for good. Although it seems a tad late for this stage of monarch life, there are still some in the chrysalis even now. My next door neighbour had a caterpillar on one of several milkweed plants in his yard up until a few days ago, and now has a chrysalis hanging on a wire beside the house. It has been in that form for about a week. I check it every morning, and it could emerge any day now.

Blacklighting after dark is always an adventure. Each time is different. On this occasion when I had the light set up in the back yard for about two hours, it was great to see such diversity of insects arrive at the white sheet. One of the most peculiar critters was this Nut or Acorn Weevil (Curculio sp).

Chickweed Geometer (Haematopis grataria)

Crane Fly

Dingy Cutworm (Feltia jaculifera)

Greater Black Dart (Xestia dolosa)

 This next one is a type of Green Lacewing, perhaps the Golden-eyed Lacewing (Chrysopa sp).

 

I had seen the following things in the garden earlier, but didn't know at the time what left them. They are the eggs of a Green Lacewing.

Large Yellow Underwing (Noctua pronuba)

 An unexpected but significant visitor was this next one: a Round-tipped Conehead (Neoconocephalus retusus). According to the accepted range maps in a couple of my grasshopper/katydid reference books, it doesn't occur in Ontario or even Canada, and I wondered if it was something else. It does occur both to the east and west of Chatham-Kent at a somewhat similar latitude, however, so not beyond the realm of possibility. I posted it on BugGuide and an orthopteran (grasshopper/cricket/katydid) specialist from the New England states confirmed its identity, so this could possibly be the first Canadian record.

 This next one is anything but rare. It is the Striped Cucumber Beetle (Acalymma vittatum).

 Although insect activity is winding down as the weather approaches more normal condition, undoubtedly there will be more opportunities to capture some late season critters on digital film....stay tuned!

Winter photography

The title might conjure up snowy landscapes and such, but this post will be about a different type of winter photography.

I am involved in a project which in part, involves getting photos of twigs of trees and large shrubs, focusing especially on buds, leaf scars and other characteristics that are helpful in their identification. I must admit before this I had never spent a lot of time using such minute characteristics to identify trees. Instead I would consider the type of habitat the tree was growing in and rely on its overall form, as well as the bark characteristics. So this project was a challenge, especially since it relied on a fairly precise form of macro photography. I've explained a little about my macro technique at the end of this post.

I'm not sure exactly how many I have photographed so far, but well over one hundred species. This has involved a lot of time looking through the camera, as well as countless hours processing the images afterwards. But it has been an eye-opener in some ways.

Lots of the buds and leaf scars are extremely small, and at first glance one doesn't look a whole lot different than another. But a closer look just highlights the tremendous diversity there is. This first one is Black Maple, an uncommon tree in Canada limited primarily to southern Ontario. It has fine gray hairs on the cluster of terminal buds.

This next one is Ohio Buckeye. For all intents and purposes it is an endangered species, although not officially so. It occurs naturally at only one location in all of Canada.

A somewhat similar species, at least in the same genus, is Horse Chestnut. It isn't native to Ontario, but is sometimes planted for ornamental purposes. Even though it is the same genus as the previous one, the bud and leaf scar are quite a bit different.

This next one does not have any legal status, although it is extremely rare in Ontario. It is known as Pawpaw, and at least from the historical data, is more common in Chatham-Kent than any other municipality in Ontario, which is a bit surprising given the overall lack of forest cover in C-K.

Next are a few of the hickories found in Ontario. First up is Bitternut Hickory, fairly common in southern Ontario deciduous woods. It is readily identifiable with its bright yellow buds.

 Next is Red or Pignut Hickory. It is quite rare in Canada, being found only in a small part of Essex County and several municipalities from about Long Point east to the GTA.

 Big Shellbark Hickory is scattered across an even smaller part of extreme southern Ontario than the previous species. A telltale feature is that this time of year, many of the leaf stems remain attached to the outer twigs.

 Much more common across southern Ontario and Quebec is Shagbark Hickory.

 These next few are shrubs. First is Flowering Dogwood, an endangered species in Canada. This first image of it shows the non-flowering buds.

 The flowering buds are quite large by comparison, and in late April or early May will open up into an impressive white 'flower', although what appears to be white flower petals are really sepals, another part of a flower, and the petals themselves are very tiny.

A common shrub especially in damp places is Red-osier Dogwood. In the winter its stems are quite bright red, as shown.

 An uncommon shrub is American Hazel, most often found in shrubby prairie, savanna and even drier rocky habitat. These are the male flowers that will open in the spring.

 Not a native species, but occurring in natural areas from time to time, is Winged Euonymus, which has prominent wings along its stem. Not all are as prominent as what shows in this next photo.

 A related, native Euonymus is Burning Bush, which has somewhat square branches.

Ash trees are on the decline in southern Ontario. For more on that topic, check out this previous blog post. This first image shows the terminal buds and twig characteristics of Black Ash, which occurs in quite wet habitat.

In comparison is Red Ash, with its densely hairy stem. It is, or at least was, one of the most common ash species in southern Ontario.

 A real rarity is Blue Ash, found in a few scattered locations in southern Ontario. It has declined due to the Emerald Ash Borer, and is getting harder and harder to find even where it formerly occurred. It is easily identified by its winged stems.

A cross-section of a Blue Ash stem

Another rare and declining tree is Butternut, legally endangered due to a canker that has killed many individuals.

 Closely related is the much more common Black Walnut.

 Next is English Walnut, not native but occasionally planted in landscape settings. The green twig is clearly distinctive.

The unofficial flagship tree species of the Carolinian Life Zone is the Tuliptree, with its distinctive buds.

 Hop Hornbeam, shown next, is identifiable as its partially developed male flowers are present throughout the winter.

Oaks are plentiful across the Ontario landscape. Their buds and twigs aren't always that distinctive, but in these next two examples I show White Oak, with its reddish, hairless twigs.....

 ....and Swamp White Oak, with its somewhat shaggy twig.

An extremely abundant shrub across southern Ontario, is Staghorn Sumac. Its twigs are densely hairy.

Another shrub is Wayfaring Viburnum, native to Europe but commonly planted  for ornamental purposes and as a food source for birds. The leaf buds are very different from almost every other species I have seen so far.

 Prickly Ash is not something one wants to go charging through at any time of year. The thorns are quite stout. The thorns in combination with the leaf scar bundles almost looks like a face, with arms outstretched.

And last, but not least, is this next one: Cherry Birch. It is native, legally endangered, and limited to one site in all of Canada, in the Niagara peninsula.

These are just a few of the many twigs and buds, etc that I have photographed over the last few months. It is a laborious task, but enjoyable, and I have been able to work with some really keen botantists and horticultural specialists in the process. Many of these photos were taken from specimens from the University of Guelph Arboretum, and I have lots more to do!

All of the above photos were taken with a full frame camera, a 100mm macro lens, and up to 68mm of extension tubes. Even at that, some of the photos were cropped. Almost all are at life size or more, although the photos as shown here are actually much greater than life size. The depth of field at this magnification is extremely shallow, in some cases only a couple of millimetres, so I have had to use flash, as well as a flash diffuser. I have also had the camera set-up on a tripod with a ball head, and a focusing rail which enables me to fine tune the focus to fractions of a millimetre.

So next time you are out hiking or birding during the leafless season, take a moment or two to explore and enjoy the interesting examples of nature's design all around you, including twigs. You might have to reverse your binoculars and use them as a magnifying lens to see some of the features.