Andrew Trundlewagon's photos

A painted lady butterfly, St. Bruno Park, This year we have had an extraordinary number of painted lady butterflies (Vanessa cardui).

Showy tick trefoil, (Desmodium canadenses) growing beside a lake, Mont St Bruno Provincial Park, Quebec. It is in the bean family, and this one is at the end of flowering and has produced seed pods.

The bridge is looking at you?

A blasted tree,

Here's looking at you. (Photographed as found, not posed).

The correct answer to any relevant question. (All questions to which it is not the correct answer being, by definition, irrelevant).

Need I say more..

The female Giant Ichneumon wasp, Megarhyssa macrurus, possesses an ovipositor several times her own length with which she drills into the side of diseased trees to lay an egg on the larva of another wasp, the pigeon horntail. The horntail prey larva is killed, and after hatching the ichneumon larva feeds upon it. The ovipositor is composed of a central delivery shaft through which the egg passes, and two outer sheaths that protect and stiffen the central “hypodermic needle”. At the beginning and end of the drilling process the last segments of the tail split apart and a flexible membrane is inflated between them, (see the other photo) and in ways not clear, at least to me, this assists in the manipulation of the ovipositer as it enters and leaves the wood. Before the drilling begins the wasp walks methodically up and down the tree, “feeling” with her antenna to sense the presence of the host larva buried below the surface.

The female Giant Ichneumon wasp, Megarhyssa marurus, possesses an ovipositor several times her own length with which she drills into the side of diseased trees to lay an egg on the larva of another wasp, the pigeon horntail. The horntail prey larva is killed, and after hatching the ichneumon larva feeds upon it. The ovipositor is composed of a central delivery shaft through which the egg passes, and two outer sheaths that protect and stiffen the central “hypodermic needle”. At the beginning and end of the drilling process the last segments of the tail split apart and a flexible membrane is inflated between them, (the white moon-shaped structure in the photo), and in ways not clear, at least to me, this assists in the manipulation of the ovipositer as it enters and leaves the wood. Before the drilling begins the wasp walks methodically up and down the tree, “feeling” with her antenna to sense the presence of the host larva buried below the surface.

Face of a meadowhawk (also known as darter) dragonfly (Sympetrum).

Dozens of these painted lady (Vanessa cardui) butterflies were feeding on burdock flowers, more than I've ever seen at one time before. According to the web this is the mostly widely distribute species of butterfly in the world, found on all continents except (unsurprisingly) Antarctica.

A fflaming orange day lily, Hemerocallis fulva, has escaped from gardens and now grows wild in roadsides, the edge of woods (as were these) and meadows.

A small spider (probably Enoplognatha ovata) captures her dinner.

A bee's view of a fox glove flower. The pollen sacs are empty and the stigma has opened.

Ragged-robin, a European wildflower now growing as an alien in Canada. Yamaska, Quebec.

A vey wet musk rat- not a true rat but a large rodent that feeds mostly in water and lives in burrows on the river or lake shore. This one was eating grass on the lake side in park St. Bruno near Montreal.

Swallowtail

Monarch butterfly, Don valley Toronto, resting on viper's bugloss.