Monthly Archives: January 2011

Sunday Snapshots: Snow falling on cedars

Posted on January 30, 2011 | 5 Comments

…and spruces, and pines, and hemlocks, and firs, and dog.

From a recent hike through the 100-acre woods.

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Posted in hiking

Puppy fundraiser

Posted on January 29, 2011 | 19 Comments

Yellow-rumped (Myrtle) Warbler - 7x6"- Niagara Birds - SOLD

We’re getting a puppy! For the last year or perhaps even longer, Dan and I have discussed getting a friend for Raven. While we lived at the lake house there was a beagle down the road who would occasionally come by, and the two of them got along famously. However, she has little opportunity to see other dogs now; the only one in the neighbourhood that we see much of Raven is ambivalent at best towards, and most of the time our walks don’t take us down the road anyway (we’ve got plenty of our own land we can roam, where I can let Raven off-leash). Perth has no dog park, and the nearest one is nearly an hour away. When she meets other dogs now it almost seems like she’s forgetting the language. We thought that adopting another dog would not only give Raven someone to socialize with, but would also give her a friend for company during the hours Dan and I are working and to play with when we go outside.

Four weeks old here - isn't he sweet?

After considering the temperaments and traits of various medium-sized breeds, we settled on Boston Terrier as being hopefully the best match for Raven, and when a litter came up for sale not too far from us we put our name down for one. I went to met them last week. The little boy above will be coming home three weeks from now. It will probably take us a lot longer than that to settle on a name.

As anyone who’s adopted a dog knows, there are a lot of expenses that come with it. Besides the adoption price, there are also toys and accessories if you don’t already have them, shots and neutering/spaying if they haven’t already been done, and of course puppy food. Fortunately, we do have most of the dog accessories because we have Raven. To help out with the other costs, I’ve decided it’d be a good time to clear out some old artwork I have.

These are drawings I did in 2008 for the now-published book Niagara Birds by John Black and Kayo Roy. At the time they were planning on illustrating all of the accounts with black-and-white artwork, I suppose because the cost to print b&w was less than that for colour, and they had a tight budget. They asked me to draw all of the warblers of Ontario, plus the turkeys (the latter based on a sketch I included in an electronic Christmas card that they liked). Final tally was 38 drawings. Then sometime during the manuscript preparation process they decided to go with colour photographs for most of the accounts instead – I’m not sure if they were having trouble finding enough artists, or realized the cost for colour wasn’t as much as they were expecting, or some other reason. In any case, fewer than half of my drawings ultimately got used. The original plan had been for the book launch to also be an art show of all the contributing artists’ works, but given that the book was mostly photographs, that didn’t happen either.

So long story short, I’ve got 36 drawings that have been sitting in my portfolio for the last couple of years (I already sold two to friends – can you figure out which species?). They are all light-resistant, waterproof ink on acid-free paper (meaning they won’t fade or yellow). The paper dimensions are 9×12 inches, but the actual drawings vary depending on the image – measurements given in the caption as WxH. These are all original, not reproductions. Each one represents about 6-8 hours of work.

I’m offering these at the fire-sale price of 1 for $40, 2 for $60, 3 for $80, or 4 for $100. Etc. Price includes shipping/postage. If you are interested in buying any, leave a comment here or email me (canadianowlet AT gmail.com) saying which ones you’d like.

The ones that were included in the book are indicated below the image. Two drawings (Northern Waterthrush and Yellow-throated Warbler) are favourites of mine that I’d like to reserve for myself, but would consider selling at actual value for an 8-hour work ($120). Larger versions of all drawings can be viewed by clicking on the image.

Black-and-white Warbler - 6x7"

Bay-breasted Warbler - 6x6" - SOLD

Blackburnian Warbler - 6x7" - SOLD

Black-throated Blue Warbler - 9x6"

Black-throated Green Warbler - 9x7" - SOLD

Black-throated Gray Warbler - 7x6"- Niagara Birds

Blue-winged Warbler - 7x6"

Canada Warbler - 8x5" - Niagara Birds - SOLD

Cerulean Warbler - 9.5x6.5"

Cape May Warbler - 9x6" - SOLD

Connecticut Warbler - 9x5"

Common Yellowthroat - 8x8" - SOLD

Chestnut-sided Warbler - 9x6" - SOLD

Golden-winged Warbler - 6x8" - SOLD

Hooded Warbler - 8x6" - Niagara Birds - SOLD

Kentucky Warbler - 7x5" - Niagara Birds

Louisiana Waterthrush - 6x7" - SOLD

Magnolia Warbler - 6x6" - SOLD

Mourning Warbler - 7x6"

Nashville Warbler - 5.5x6"- Niagara Birds

Northern Parula - 8x6"

Northern Waterthrush - 9x5.5" - Niagara Birds - RESERVED

Orange-crowned Warbler - 7x5.5"

Ovenbird - 6x5"

Pine Warbler - 6x7"

Prairie Warbler - 7x7" - Niagara Birds - SOLD

Prothonotary Warbler - 6x5" - Niagara Birds

Tennessee Warbler - 8.5x6" - Niagara Birds

Worm-eating Warbler - 6x8"

Wilson's Warbler - 8x5.5"

Western Palm Warbler - 7x4.5" - Niagara Birds

Yellow-breasted Chat - 6x7" - Niagara Birds

Yellow-throated Warbler - 6x7" - Niagara Birds - RESERVED

Yellow Warbler - 5x9" - SOLD

Wild Turkey - 10x5.5"

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Posted in abiotic, birds

Moths-on-the-brain

Posted on January 26, 2011 | 7 Comments

7871 - Deidamia inscripta - Lettered Sphinx (3)

Hodges 7871 - Deidamia inscripta - Lettered Sphinx

The last little while I’ve been focused on (first-stage) edits and revisions of the moth guide. This book has provided me with an amazing insight into the publication process; I have a healthy respect for all the work that’s gone into the reference guides on my bookshelves, and deep sympathies for those other authors. It’s a lot more work than you’d think! We tend to take our books for granted, pulling them off the shelves when we need to look something up, happy to have them at our fingertips for reference; I suspect few of us think about how they came to be.

Anyway, back to the point: I’ve been hard at work on the moth guide. And at this time of year, I’m starting to suffer from winter cabin fever. The last outdoor moths I saw were more than two months ago (the ones I found in the logs, hibernating, don’t count); it’ll be at least another month and a half till the first moth of this year. Browsing all those familiar species names, sorting through images of familiar and interesting and beautiful moths, has brought on an acute attack of moths-on-the-brain. (Fortunately, much less dangerous and much more easily treated than water-on-the-brain, though it’s a chronic condition.)

So I feel the need to shuffle through my pile of moth photos – a rather large pile, that – and share a few here. Please bear with me… :)

6240 - Euthyatira pudens - Dogwood Thyatirid (2)

Hodges 6240 - Euthyatira pudens - Dogwood Thyatirid

The start of the new mothing season is a little like the return of the first migrant birds. Even the common species can cause a thrill when the first one shows up – the recognition of a familiar face, an old friend. The opening photo of a Lettered Sphinx, and the above, a Dogwood Thyatirid, are two of the familiar faces I look forward to in spring. The Lettered Sphinx was the first sphinx moth I ever saw, and at first I didn’t realize it was a sphinx – I’d been expecting something a lot larger! They do say you never forget your first, don’t they?

93-1553 (Hodges 10016) - Psaphida styracis - Fawn Sallow

I got this Fawn Sallow last spring, on April Fool’s Day. I love all these fuzzy-bodied sallows, spring fliers most of them, but the Fawn Sallow might have the thickest mane of all of them. This was the first (and only, so far) individual of this species I’d encountered. I love that about mothing: you never know what might come in to your light at a given night or location, and there’s a pretty good chance you’ll find something new to you, even many years on. I’m not many years on yet (this will be only my fourth full season), so I’m still getting lots of new species each year.

9899.1 - Lithophane thujae - Cedar Pinion (3)

93-2571 (Hodges 9899.1) - Lithophane thujae - Cedar Pinion

And while the new-to-yous are pretty exciting, stuff like this is even more so. This Cedar Pinion came to my light while I was staying over at my mom‘s last year. The species is exceptionally rare in the northeast, I discovered; it’s not mentioned in the (admittedly 20-year-old) Ontario checklist, and was mentioned in passing in the (12-year-old) Quebec guide. On BugGuide and Moth Photographer’s Group there are only two other live-specimen photos besides my own. A bit of a thrill to discover something like that. Like being the person to discover a vagrant western bird species here in the east.

6235 - Habrosyne scripta - Lettered Habrosyne (3)

Hodges 6235 - Habrosyne scripta - Lettered Habrosyne

And then there are the species that you never get tired of looking at, no matter how many might come to your light. Like this Lettered Habrosyne. I got my first Habrosyne a couple of years ago, at the lake house. I’ve caught several more since then, but each one is a delight. I mean, just look at that patterning. How can you resist?

8897 - Diachrysia balluca - Hologram Moth (2)

93-1179 (Hodges 8897) - Diachrysia balluca - Hologram Moth

And finally, the species that you saw once, long ago, and keep hoping you might get to see again. This is an aptly-named Hologram Moth, with an amazing iridescent green patch in the middle of its back. The first and only one I’ve ever got was caught at my parents’ old house, in my first full season of mothing in 2008. Despite the fact that it’s a northern species, found throughout Ontario, I’m still waiting for another.

But that’s the wonderful thing about mothing: there’s always this year, and you never know what might turn up.

I can’t wait for March.

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Posted in moths

A woody problem

Posted on January 23, 2011 | 7 Comments

The last couple of weeks, we’ve had a woodpecker drilling into the side of our house. The sound of pecking on the exterior walls isn’t particularly unusual for us; in fact, it’s nearly constant as nuthatches will fly up to the rough logs and crack open their sunflower seeds there. Also, a few birds, probably woodpeckers, have discovered that the white material used to chink the logs has a texture not entirely dissimilar to punky wood, and every now and then one of them will try excavating a bit to see if there’s anything inside the “rotten” area. After a while, the regular pecking gets tuned out, part of the background noise of the house.

So it took me a while to clue in that this pecking was different. This despite the fact that it was noticeably louder than the delicate tapping of the nuthatches or the slightly more forceful but still muted sound of the woodpeckers on the chinking. By the time I got around to actually going out and investigating, the bird had excavated quite a sizable hole in the side of the house.

It was a Hairy Woodpecker, though I’m not sure whether male or female. It got so it could recognize the sound of me coming down the stairs, and it would stop hammering, and wait a moment. Sometimes I went into the kitchen to put on the kettle, or around to the living room to stoke the fire, and all was good. But once I’d discovered what it was doing, the majority of the time I’d go to the front door and peek my head out. It was sufficient to flush the bird from the house, and I hoped enough times of this and he’d get the idea.

I hadn’t counted on how stubborn he was. After seven or eight trips down to the front door to flush him away, I finally got a piece of plywood from the basement and propped it in front of the excavation. Ha! Problem solved! I thought.

Fifteen minutes later, the loud tapping resumes. But in a new spot this time, just to the side of the plywood.

Figuring the cause was lost, I decided to make the most of it and try for a photo of the bird at work. I put my camera on a tripod, set it to trigger by remote, and placed it on the porch pointing to the big hole in the wall. I could use my remote control to trigger the camera and take a photo without having to step outside. Brilliant!

Except the bird turned out to be camera-shy. He didn’t come back again. I left the camera out there for a few hours before finally giving up and bringing it in out of the cold.

The next day, the bird was back at it. His hammering woke me up, and I jumped out of bed, hurrying downstairs to put the camera out, hoping for another chance. And once again, the camera sat outside for a few hours, and the Hairy never returned. After four such attempts, I admitted the bird was smarter than I was, and I photoshopped in a Hairy Woodpecker from another photo I had.

I figured for the woodpecker to be so persistent about it, there had to be something good going on there, and sure enough, when I peered closer I could see the distinctive honeycombing of a carpenter ant colony. This is not very good news, but perhaps an inevitability in a home built of logs a short distance from a forest.

In the “wild”, carpenter ants target fallen logs and dead trees, or living trees with heartrot (the inner core is dead, while the outer, younger layers still live). Just like every organism, they have their niche, and play their role in the food chain, helping in the decomposition process of dead trees. And they’re one of the primary food items of Pileated Woodpeckers (boring beetle larvae are usually shallow, while carpenter ants tend to occur deeper inside; the Pileated needs its massive bill and long, strong neck to be able to excavate large enough holes to reach the ants, while the smaller woodpeckers usually eat grubs closer to the surface of the snags).

I suppose I should be grateful it’s not a Pileated making holes in our house.

For all that I appreciate the role carpenter ants play in the ecosystem, I don’t think I’m ready to consign our house back to nature just yet. It was nice of the Hairy, giving us a heads-up… Now to figure out what to do about the ants.

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Posted in birds, bugs

Hare fare

Posted on January 20, 2011 | Leave a comment

Earlier this week we had a one-day warm front come through. The day before had been around -14°C (7°F), and the day following was only a degree or two warmer. But that day it was 2°C (36°F) – balmy! It seemed like a perfect opportunity to take a jaunt over to the 100-acre woods and mosey about. I didn’t need my long johns, or my second toque, or my inside vest, and my mittens remained stuffed in my pocket most of the time. It should’ve been a really pleasant outing.

The problem was, I hadn’t accounted for the above-freezing temperatures making the snow heavy and wet. I wore my snowshoes, because the snow was just deep enough that I’d be disinclined to hike off-trail without them (and the 100-acre woods is all, pretty much, off-trail). And found their first (and to-date only) flaw: the built-in crampons on the underside of the snowshoe were spaced just perfectly to pack in and hold the wet snow. In half a dozen steps I had large snowballs underneath each foot. It was nearly impossible to walk on the packed trail, and even in the loose snow my feet would plant at funny angles.

I thought this simply annoying at first, but soon felt otherwise. It’s roughly 1 km (0.6 mi) from our house to the entrance to the 100-acre woods. By the time I reached there, I had blisters forming on the backs of my heels from rubbing unusual spots in the boots. I discovered that our neighbour, who maintains the trails in the woods, had been through recently on his ATV; I took my snowshoes off, limping the 2 km through the woods and back to our house along the packed snow of his tracks. I didn’t do much nature observation.

But the weather was nice.

The one thing I did notice was at the foot of our 30 acres, before the blisters had gotten too bad. It was the above scene. In a patch of brambles, there were several long, narrow depressions in the snow, most of them filled with bunny droppings. (The contrast in the photo is increased to emphasize the tracks). Snowshoe hares, by default; I have yet to notice any evidence of cottontails around here. The long depressions suggested they’d paused in the one spot for a while; the droppings that they’d perhaps hopped forward slowly as they left the depression. I bent down to investigate more closely.

And that’s when I noticed that many of the twigs had been snipped off at the end, sheared cleanly by sharp teeth. Obviously the hare(s – I couldn’t really tell if there’d been only one or if there were more, though hares are usually independent) had dallied here browsing. I was rather surprised by this. While I know that in the winter, when tender greens are scarce, hares will turn to twigs and evergreen needles for food, I thought there surely must be easier plants to target than the prickly stems of brambles.

Quite a few of the stems were nibbled, so the hares must have found them tasty. I wonder how they keep from getting poked in the mouth as they eat?

A short distance away I found a couple more depressions alongside a juniper bush. The tips of many of the juniper twigs were also trimmed off. This didn’t surprise me nearly as much as the brambles; although the junipers are pretty prickly, as evergreen needles go, they’re not the same sort of sharp as the needle-points of the bramble thorns.

It was interesting to see this evidence of the hares feeding. Ordinarily I see many tracks, criss-crossing back and forth through the forests, forming well-trod highways, but they’re always going from somewhere to somewhere. This was only the second time I’d noticed them spend any time in a spot, and the first time hadn’t looked to be for feeding.