We spent a week at a cottage near Calabogie, Ontario. While the younger folk were catching fish, I was out with my camera to see what I could catch.
And just like in fishing, "the one that got away" makes a good story, the photos missed also tell a story...
1. Great blue heron sitting on the dock. I shudda, cudda, wudda taken the photo through the window, not gone out on the deck and scared it off.
2. Female deer standing behind me watching my photo technique. A passerby mention that as I was down on my knee taking pictures of a flower, a female deer was standing unnoticed not far behind me. It is often said "the best picture is the one behind you".
3. A ruby throated hummingbird, on two days, flew in silently, hovered noisily for about 2 seconds, and then left. No way was there time to get a shot.
4. Having to stop for a skunk, in the middle of the road, taking a stand playing chicken with car. It slowly siddled off the road to allow us by.
There were a few birds around, including an uncommon for the area, palm warbler, a non-singing song sparrow, and a few robins and chickadees
A male downy woodpecker was up by the road while a female hairy woodpecker checked out the trees by the lake
Blue jays came by every morning, but not in easily photographable spots. A flicker did its best to stop me taking its photo
Two osprey dipsy-doodled through the sky for about 10-15 minutes while we were out in the canoe with no camera. It looked like a parent giving flying lessons to junior. I settled for a later distant shot of an osprey flying by on the far side of the lake
While we didn't see any loons (it's a big lake) I did make some recordings, using my phone, at midnight while shooting star trails (see below). The loon calls in the "video" have been edited, cleaned up and amplified.
There was a red squirrel running around most days, but I managed to catch a chipmunk in pixels
There was a resident garter snake there when we visited in 2021 and I was told there was a big one living there this year. I didn't see the big one, but a young one, about 18" long did come out from within the rocks
I have this thing about mushrooms.....
There were a good number of wildflowers in bloom. Scroll over for ID
golden rod
hairy golden rod
yarrow
Queen Anne's Lace
aster
Tall rattlesnake root
bird's foot trefoil
burdock
wild basil
wild basil seed pod
knapweed
rose campion
tufted vetch
bull thistle
red clover
yellow clover
Helleborine, an invasive Eurasian orchid, had finished blooming. There were lots of expired blooms
In some areas tall stout grass stems were making a stand
The berries of dogwood shrubs and false solomon seal were easily spotted
The cultivated gardens featured some nice flowers including some of the normal light mauve hosta blossoms and I had-not-seen-before purple blooms
The black-eyed susans were brightly blooming
Lily blossoms only last a day, but the dying flowers collect nice dew drops
There were a few stems of soapwort which were a nice touch in a cultivated garden
All these flowers attracted many insects (the ID of some is open to question)
Bumble bees get right up into the hosta blooms and also enjoyed the knapweed
Tri-coloured bumble bee and longhorn bee
Many sizes and variations of sweat bees including metallic ones (last photo)
Furrow bees
Mason or potter wasps
A hoverfly of some sort and a snout hoverfly (They look like bees but aren't)
A parasitic fly or tachinid fly
Goldenrod soldier beetle
Spotted cucumber beetle
Glenn's epiblema (?) moth caterpillar
Grasshopper
One day there were a good number of tiny crab spiders on the black-eyed susans, the next day there were none. Birds snacking perhaps??
A cold rainy morning produced some mist over the bay on the far side of the trees
There were no nice sunsets, just a hazy setting sun
I managed to catch a single perseid meteor in a star trails picture. It is the straight line slightly to the left and above Polaris - the north star around which all the other stars appear to rotate (actually it is the earth that is rotating)
Another missed shot. Due to sun flare activity, the northern lights were being seen quite far south, even into the southern US. They weren't there all night and couldn't be seen by the naked eye, but a time lapse photo would pick them up. The camera took in the northern lights, but unfortunately was out of focus, so this is simply a record shot. (The white line across the bottom was the light on a boat going by)
