Monday, May 26, 2014

someone found a little cone


only a few of all those immature cones, are trying to become a cone

Saturday, May 24, 2014

immature spruce cones

Around this time of year i always pick sprucetips.( light green with golden cap)
I noticed the sprucetips had seem to come in different colors this year.
 A closer look revealed the spruce trees are full of immature spruce cones.
What is that all about?
A few years back there was a bumber crop of cones in the top of the trees.
Last year we first noticed how squirrels nip of the tips of spruce tips eat the heart and discard the rest, we have seen that again this year







i shook the branches to make a cloud of yellow pollen.


they are quite tasty!

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

butterflies

i did start a new blog, i know, again
and probably will post all insects there...
http://ytbutterflies.blogspot.ca/

Monday, May 12, 2014

bumblebees and coltsfoot flowers



Petasites sagittatus 
and
Tussilago farfara


tussilago - cough
farfara - coltsfoot
petasites - broad rimmed hat
sagittatus - like an arrow head

Both are coltsfoot, I spotted the yellow one, that doesn't grow here, in the botanical garden in Toronto on May 2 2014. 

And for the bees, they are both bumblebees, but the one with the orange bum, smaller and more slender, and the wings larger in proportion.

And the snail... i leave that up to you






Sunday, May 11, 2014

The Great Sandhills, Sasketchewan










April 25, 2014


mother moose

and lo and behold more moose


on the Alaska Highway close to Cracker creek.

Pronghorns

An adventure:
http://www.greatsouthwest.ca/great-sandhills/

Sabina and i found the  Great Sandhills by the way of the pronghorns, we did see life deer on this day. And on my trip as a whole i have seen 7 moose! 4 of them on the prairie.



from wikipedia:The pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) is a species of artiodactyl mammal indigenous to interior western and central North America. Though not an antelope, it is often known colloquially in North America as the prong buckpronghorn antelopecabri (native American) or simply antelope




Saturday, May 10, 2014

an explosion of green

this was 2 days ago, moose skull lake thawing.
this was yesterday, the leaves turning green en mass.
I have been away for 3 weeks and came home Wednesday, to summer land, Yukon! Where did i go for a holiday?  to Southern Canada, where it was still very much winter most of the time. 
I hitched a ride with Alexander back in April, driving down South. Only 10 km away from Taber (AB) we saw a shimmer of green. I never knew Canada was such a cold country ( you probably always knew that).  I did know that Canada is a beautiful country, even in the drabness of snow gone and spring not there yet.
Hopefully i will soon make an album here of all the wonders i've  seen.
And maybe a story of the pure joy of travelling with the greyhound.