Time to revive the blog, and I've found just the guy to get me back to it.  I've been chasing....er, attracting moths last summer and again this spring.  A UV light at the window to the balcony and a white sheet over a shelf outside, and voila!  here they come.  Dozens of them, hundreds even.  I haven't finished processing all the photos from last year so don't know the count of species, but this year I process and upload to iNaturalist as soon as I get them downloaded.  This started in April and as of today I have 130 species, give or take a few due to errors or omissions in my recording

Last year I was lamenting that I didn't see a single Luna Moth, I usually see at least 2 or 3 per summer.  On May 22, 2023, at around 2:00 a.m., there he was, in all his splendid lime green with purple shoulder highlights, sitting ever so quietly on the windowsill.  I was nearly dancing across the balcony for joy.

The caterpillars have the same beautiful green colour with spots of red/magenta, and are as large as my thumb.  A number of years ago I was transplanting some trilliums and dug up a large cocoon.  I put the cocoon in a plant pot, covered it loosely with soil and leaves, put in a stick for "whatever it was" to crawl up on, kept it moist, had it on my desk,  and waited.  A couple of weeks later I was working at the computer when I heard a rustling sound, and was started when "this thing" ran around on the leaves and up the stick.  A luna!  I was going to see a luna emerge!  I took a series of photos (somewhere in my archives) as the wings enlarged and hardened.  It was a lovely female.  I build a cage out of a big cardboard box with some screens taped to it, and set that out on the balcony the next night.  Sure enough it attracted a male, and I was able to coax them out onto a log for photos (also buried in the archives).  After they warmed up they flew off into the trees.  One of my most memorable encounters with these beautiful insects.

Most people don't pay attention to moths, first thing that comes to mind are the annoying caterpillars that get into one's closet or pantry, or explode in population like the tent caterpillars and spongy moth caterpillars.  Being nocturnal also prevents most people from noticing them.  But if you're lucky enough to live like me in an area with lots of woods, away from neighbouring houses, there are plenty to see if you know how to draw them out.  There is an incredible variety of shapes, sizes, and colours, once you get interested in finding them it becomes an addiction.

A Variable Carpet Moth.  One of the moths with plain colours but a very interesting pattern.  I would love to knit a shawl or sweater with some of these patterns.  The caterpillar feeds on raspberry and prairie rose, both of which I have on my property.

A Night Wandering Dagger.  Another wonderful pattern that would be nice for a sweater.  Food plants include poplar, I have those around.

 Now that the summer is over, I have the notion to start the RASC's Explore the Universe  project.  I had started a couple of times before but through circumstances and responsibilities and various interruptions was unable to follow through with it.  And now I am motivated to try again.

The initial step is to print off the 10 pages listing the required observations, planets, constellations, moon phases, etc. , as well as the sheets for the recording of those observations.  This I have done and placed them in one of these plastic notebooks with the clear plastic sleeves.  Thursday night was clear but a happy camper had come in for the weekend and came to visit for the evening, and seeing as how my social opportunities will soon be greatly lessened I decided to put off the initializing of observing.  Friday night was too cloudy for the targets I had planned on the southern horizon, and I was tired from running the chainsaw cutting firewood.  Last night we had a bit of a celebration for my nephew, steak dinner for 5 of us, a certain ordeal that has been ongoing for the past 5 years is finally over, and he and his girlfriend can finally make plans to begin their lives anew on a positive note.  Today it is raining and tonight will be cloudy, so now I have to wait until Monday evening when conditions are predicted for clear skies.  The moon is also at waning crescent, so hopefully I will have a couple of clear nights to get started.

We had a miserable hot summer.  MISERABLE.  Lost a family member, middle of June it got brutally hot and stayed miserably hot until the week before Labour Day, so damned hot that I simply couldn't work outdoors and get many of the little jobs done that badly needed doing.  There were also a number of things going wrong.  The lake pump died, I got stung in the face due to a yellow jacket's nest at the far cottage, my brakes failed when some nitwit in a huge pickup truck pulled into my lane and we missed having a head-on collision by mere seconds, and inches, the small lawn mower won't start, there were leaks that had to be fixed, the list goes on.  All of this during the covid pandemic, that alone causing enough stress for everyone.  First big issue to deal with was when half the big pine tree beside the garage came down in early spring and ripped the power lines right off the pole.  The first 3 weeks of May were as cold as the summer was hot, while cutting firewood one afternoon heavy snow came falling down and I had to yank a tarp over the wood and head indoors to the stove.  Delays, delays, delays, then with the heat and the grief it was impossible to work on most things.  I have learned over the years that when you get a run of difficulties, just hunker down and deal with things.  It was not merely day to day, it was hour to hour.  Problems were solved, and things seem to be lightening up lately.  I keep telling myself not to focus on the growing list of problems, but be happy that most of them have been resolved, I have prevailed, be proud of being able to overcome.  I don't know who came up with the saying of "that which does not kill you makes you stronger".  True to some degree perhaps, but dammittohell it wears on you and you get tired of having to put forth effort to overcome unnecessary obstacles.  There are things I would rather be doing, like enjoying astronomy.  Going fishing.  Taking photos.  Today is raining, an opportunity to spend time in the basement cleaning out crap that has accumulated.  In the meantime a nice little lunch should perk me up.

Where does the time get to.......

Been over a year since I last put a post on this blog, gotta get back into it.  The older ya get, the faster time flies.  Need to get back into my photography.  Too many hafta-dos interferin' wid the wanna-dos.  At least I got out to see the Perseids, not the best show I've seen but there were a few good meteors.  Lasted until 2:30 a.m.  Frustration sets in when the camera is pointed in one direction and the meteors fly *just* out of field of view, still haven't downloaded so don't know how many I actually caught.  It seems that time is flying by almost as quickly as these meteors, and time for fun is just as fleeting.  At least we've had good weather this summer, at times a bit too hot, but come mid January I'll be wishing I were back in the warm lake.  I'm making sure I'm in swimming at least once every day, good exercise.  Lost a few pounds and want to keep up the momentum with the diet/exercise routine, get a good start before firewood gathering season which is always guaranteed to trim a bit off the ol' bod.


Looks like I'll get a bit of exercise chasing this rotton little mosquito.  I was just telling people that the mosquitoes haven't been too bad this year while we were sitting out on the deck, then a swarm came along as if to dispute my claims.  Bad enough that the little pestilences torment you with their bites, now they've joined in a conspiracy to ruin your credibility as well.  But try as they might they  were unable to spoil the enjoyment of good company.

Redwing blackbird with 4 bands

Yesterday was a nice sunny day, so decided to take a paddle down the lake and back.  On the way back saw some grackles on the shore, drifted over and took some pictures of them.  A redwing blackbird flew in, I  took a couple shots of it, and noticed something shiny.  Looking closer I could see that it had 4 leg bands.  So I tried to get as close to possible to it.  Moving canoe, moving bird, good luck with that.  I managed to get a few shots.  Having shot raw files I was able to enlarge quite a bit, converting to 1000 dpi I even managed to get some of the markings on the numbered band.  Now, not the clearest shots, but I'm hoping that if I find out who's doing the banding on the birds maybe they'll at least be interested in where one of them is currently located.  Seems unusual to have 4 bands on a redwing.  Can't quite make out the markings on the band but hey, as small as it is from about 20 feet away, at least it's something.

Argh!!

I had been happily painting away, enjoying my art class, then got interrupted by a miserable head cold and a few other little "emergencies".  One of the things I did find time to work on was our present subject, leaves, and started this exercise from a photo I had taken a few years ago of autumn leaves on lichen-covered rocks.  I drew the leaves, transferred to watercolour paper, started painting, all was going well.  In fact I was rather pleased with how well the leaves were turning out.  Then I tried to lay in the background of rocks and lichens.  The idea was to put down the colour, use "back splats" to create some clear spots to paint in the lichens, throw on a little salt to make some little spots.  Well I got splats all right.  And pooled up areas that dried into lines that I didn't want.  The more I try to fix it the worse it gets.  I think I'll just start over.

Cattails

We were continuing with leaves, I was piddling around with techniques we had learned and got thinking of cattail leaves, so tried a study on cattails.  I'm realizing that cattail heads are more "hotdog" shaped when in their prime, they only start to deteriorate into the fat-batten shapes in winter when the seeds are fluffing out.  I was just happily drawing in leaves and heads, this is where I  need to pay more attention to details in  reference and specimens.  Or...I can just use the ol' standby excuse of "artistic license"....yeah, let's go with that.  ;-)

I need more practice on the leaves, gotta work those greens, and don't like that one that divides the composition in the middle, but it's good practise and I like it.  Going to do some more of these.

Tulips

On to specific flowers.  Tulips are fun to draw and paint.  I like the simple form and clean lines, although "simple" isn't always the word to use when depicting them.

This one I'm happy with, going to cut  a matte and frame it and put it on my wall.  All these classes over the years, gotta put something on the walls to show for it.

Leaves

Onward to more parts, we looked at leaves.  Looking through field guides there were types of leaves listed, for fun I put a bunch of them together.  At one point I took a break and got a cup of coffee, got sidetracked, came back and forgot to finish one of the segments, so see if you can find the "mistake".

Botanicals

In the parttime course catalogue for St. Lawrence College, winter semester, I saw that my favourite art teacher was giving a course on watercolour botanicals.  (Unless I know someone doesn't mind having their name mentioned in a public blog, I won't publish it.)   At any rate, got me signed up, and have been enjoying the course.  Our first assignment was doing a study on the parts of a flower, which is a good review for me, couldn't remember some of them.  Having to draw, paint and label helps make it "stick" a little better, and makes you pay attention to shapes and structures.  This first one is from a handout we were given, I drew it freehand.  (140 lb coldpress watercolour paper.)

This exercise got me looking through some of my field guides, and I soon discovered there were other types of flowers and more labels for the parts, so I did another study.   This one was on hotpress paper, drawn in pencil and outlined in ink, painted in with watercolour.  For these types of studies I'm putting reference notes and "for personal educational use only" since it is copied from some artists' copyrighted artwork.  Also, it is annoying when I look back through my collection of artwork and can't remember where I got the reference image from, my photo or some publication?  Now if it's not my original image it's going to have the obligatory disclaimers.

I finally did it.

I finally got wireless.  Watch out world, now I can post more often.   I'll start with an aurora image from November 14, 2012.

Found some more Foxfire

It's that time of year again for the Great Canadian Pasttime:  gathering firewood for the winter.  I've been cutting most of our supply by myself, Dad just turned 88 years old and can't quite run up and down these rocky hills like he used to.  The one bright side to last July's drought was the drying out of one of our swamps, I was able to get in there and cut a bunch of fallen dead maples and ash trees and throw the lengths onto a rocky outcrop where they could be retrieved later when the rains returned and refilled the swamp.  Easier said than done, it's a long walk up and down the woodland path to the road.  Even so, I've got a respectable pile already gathered for the winter.  My legs and shoulders are sore this morning.

Some of the smaller and more decayed pieces are being used here at the summer residence.  Several small ash trees had died and fallen over, pulling up the root ends with them.  I had brought one of these back to the house and cut it up, and put the pieces in the woodbox last night.  When I shut the lights off the box was glowing lime  green from one of the butts that we had split in two, got some lovely foxfire again this year.

Took some pictures and have tried to upload, but this old slow dialup is proving to be a major pain in the hind end.

How hot and dry is it?

It's hot and drive enough to drive out a poor old hairy tail mole out into the open to look for some moisture.  Dad had watered the grass and some plants by the side of the house and garage and came and me to see "some creature in the grass".  I ran for the camera and then slipped up to it, literally got nose to nose with it as it worked its way through the wet grass.  It looked as if it were licking the grass, so I asked Dad to bring me some water.  He brought some in a plastic drinking glass, and I lay the glass in front of the mole.  The mole sniffed around and then headed straight for the water and drank its fill.  It then meandered around a bit as if disoriented, after a few minutes it acted more decisive in its movements and headed for the tall grasses and weeds and disappeared.

I'm wondering about the effects this drought will have on many of the shrews, chipmunks, mice and other small creatures of the forest.  The seed crop will no doubt be affected and the food supply will be limited for the winter.  Lack of mice and other rodents may affect the food chain on up.  Sometimes these little creatures are far more resilient than we realize, certainly in the case of mice, who are so prolific, their numbers can go from low to high in a short time.  They demonstrate this on a regular basis when invading my house.

It's hot.

Hot, hot, hot.  And dry.  Scary dry, we're in the midst of a drought.  There's the promise of a 60% chance of rain this afternoon with risk of a thunderstorm, keep fingers crossed we get it, we need it badly.  The only bright side is that the skies have been clear at night, good for astronomy.  Haven't had time to lug out my big telescope, but I have gone out where there were predictions of auroras and managed to get some good pictures.  Saturday night's show was the best, took some 30 second exposures that brought out the colours.  I'm not a fan of using bug sprays, but thank goodness for that can of Off, the mosquitoes came out in hordes where I jammed the boat in along the shore.  Someone had discarded one of those nice gravity chairs, one of the bolts had broken off the arm support.  Didn't take me long to fix that.  The chair fits nicely over the seat in the boat, I can sit comfortably while taking pictures, and only restricts the rowing a bit. 

At least the heat has warmed up the lake, the older I get the warmer I want the water.  I'm getting in there every chance I get, when I stand on the dock in November I'd like to think that I didn't waste my swimming time.  Nights have mostly been calm, which is good for the photography, you get the stars and auroras reflected in the water.

Orion, Jupiter, Venus, and the new moon

Along with Venus and Jupiter, the new moon is joining the show. Went out to the lake last night and got a few images of the sky.

Orion and the Zodiacal Light

We've enjoyed a week of summer temps. Literally. The hot weather dried up the laneway in to the lake, so I was able to get out and shoot the night sky while Orion is still high overhead. Jupiter and Venus are still in close proximity, and the no-moon dark sky made the stars shine like we never see near the city. I set up the barndoor tracker and took a few long exposures, I didn't see the zodiacal light with the naked eye but it shows up in some of the pics. It was great to be back out in "dark sky" country while listening to spring peepers, coyotes, and a pair of barred owls that set off into a frenzy of hooting when I imitated their call a couple of times. Sounded like I had disturbed a troupe of howler monkeys. The beaver wanted to come ashore but soon discovered I was there, and swam back and forth, slapping his tail to show his displeasure at my presence. So much for the peaceful woodlands. The most enjoyable part of this outing was the warm temperatures...and no mosquitoes! I would have stayed there half the night had I not needed to skedaddle on back home. It's unfortunate that a big system of cloudy weather has moved in upon us, I would have liked to have photographed the new moon with this scene, near Venus and Jupiter. The moon will soon outshine the stars, so I'll have to wait a couple weeks until the back side of the full moon before I get dark skies again.

Specs: ISO 400, f 4.0, Sigma 10-200mm lens at 10mm, 241 seconds, Canon Rebel XT 350D. Shot in RAW, minimal "tweaking" for exposure, cloned out a few hot pixel spots. Definitely want to get this one printed and hung on my wall.

Venus and Jupiter

Venus and Jupiter are coming close together in the night sky during their orbits 'round the sun, a lovely bright pairing in the western evening sky. Looks the eyes of some big cat staring back down out of the sky. From upper right in this shot: Orion, Taurus, Pleiades cluster, and Jupite and Venus lower left.

Auroras and Coyotes

Last night around 9:00 p.m. I realized that the sky was clear, and the temps were mild, so I decided to take the camera and tracker out to try to get some general shots of the winter night sky and constellations for my little astronomy project. I had checked SpaceWeather for auroras, but there were no predictions of a storm this far south. However, when I got out in the field out back of the cemetary, lo and behold there was a lovely green glow to the north! We were having an unexpected outburst of northern lights, and much to my delight I was able to take many shots. While I was setting up a coyote started yipping in the field just the west of me, and a group of coyotes just down to the south of the big field joined in the chorus. Sounded like about 5 of them, hard to tell exactly how many when they're all yipping and yowling. When their song ended I could hear one of them prowling along the fencerow about 100 feet away, it found something of interest and was scratching and digging in the snow and ice. As I was taking long exposures of the auroras it must have heard me cursing (ballhead doesn't hold tight, keeps slipping, too many lights on buildings nearby) and came closer to investigate. The field next to me has been unmowed and is covered in tall dead weeds, I could the rustling as it prowled back and forth. I wanted to shine a light on it but the stupid batteries in the flashlight were failing. Note to self: carry some backup lights!

Moonset pillar

The BigWetNose had me out of bed at 6:20 a.m. this fine morning, and while outside I noticed that the setting moon in the clouds was throwing up a pillar. I got bundled up, grabbed the camera and tripod, and trotted out to the cemetary field to try to get some shots. I am definitely NOT a "morning person", had quite the time trying to focus the lens, and not entirely successfully. Nonetheless I managed a few shots, a couple of them here.

New Binocs

Just before Christmas, Canadian Tire was running a special on Celestron 15 x 70 Skymaster binoculars, regular price $149.99 marked down to $49.99. Couldn't believe my eyes. Debated with myself for 24 hours, is this for real? Read reviews online, most said they were good binocs. Sooo...off I went and got myself a pair. I am quite pleased with them. They had a cheezy little plastic adapter to mount them on a tripod, as you simply cannot handhold these steady for star viewing. I set about building a sturdy mount plate instead, took a piece of hardwood, added a Tbolt for the quick release plate, stitched together some plastic padding to help reduce vibration, and added one inch wide strapping with a good dose of velcro. I adjusted the binocs to my eye width and strapped them to the plate, put them on the tripod and headed out for an hour long session to gawk at the sky. I am impressed. I can see the moons of Jupiter, the 4 stars in the Orion Nebula, and Pleaiades fills the whole viewing frame. Only problem is, now that I have my new toy, we're going to have crappy cloudy/rainy weather for the next 5 days. *sigh* just classic. Can't wait to take these out birding some nice day.

Fun with photography

A recent presentation at our photo club showed us how to use various light sources for various effects. I scooped a few of the discarded glow sticks at the end of the meeting and proceeded to play with them at home. I have a few "nature artifacts", sometimes they come in handy, like this deer skull and antlers. Still working on ideas for compositions, this is just trying out the light effects with long exposures.