Andrew Trundlewagon's photos

Plants behaving badly: Beech-drops (Epifagus virginiana) are parasitic plants that grow on the roots of beech trees. They only emerge above ground to flower. Beech-drops lack chlorophyll as they obtain all their nutrients from the host trees with most of their life spent underground attached to the tree root. In this way they can survive in the deep shade of the forest floor. The flowering plants are about 20 to 30 cm tall and look like dead sticks until backlit, when the delicacy of their flowers appears.

The REM (Réseau express métropolitain), a new light rail system for Montreal and its suburbs. It has been open for about a year, but so far only serves five stations (out of about 24). It works very well so far, except that the brains behind its design forgot to include enough parking at the stations to make it a more practical option than simply driving to town. I guess you can't expect everything.

An azure butterfly feeding on goldenrod flowers.

A small Downy woodpecker.

Fox tail grass with an empty silk cocoon, probably built by a spider.

A small house finch.

A bee balanced on a goldenrod frond.

Infinite patience; a spider at work.

A male meadowhawk dragonfly (Sympetrum) with the sunlight showing through its wings.

A yellow-collared scape moth among the goldenrod flowers.

Going to work. A bee and a daisy.

Jewel weed (Impatiens capensis; L'Impatiente du Cap) growing beside water. If you look closely there is also a very long-legged spider hiding under the leaf behind the flowers. I didn't see it until I got home, which I suppose is a lesson to look more carefully when I take the photos.

A locust borer longhorn beetle in goldenrod. The larvae live in black locust trees and can spread fungal disease to the host trees, but so far I haven't found any locust trees here, so I don't know where they breed.

White turtle head flowers. They tend to grow beside water or in wet woodlands. These were close to a small frog pond in the woods. They seem to do well in shady conditions and flower in late summer or early autumn.

A small Peck's Skipper butterfly (Polites peckius) feeding on a thistle head.

A European common Blue butterfly on a black-eyed Susan flower head. These butterflies are immigrants, only appearing in the Montreal area in around 2005, but by now they are very well established and are flourishing in their new home.

A wasp feeding on sedum flowers.