Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: explore2014August09

This is a macro shot of a leaf tip belonging to a Venus Flytrap plant. In this photo, the trap is slightly open. I'll add a previously posted photo of an open trap, and of a white flower, in a comment box below. I'm not sure why some traps are green and others more yellow, orange or red, but I've had all these colours on one single plant. Perhaps they change colour with age? This leaf tip was somewhere around half to three-quarters of an inch long. Though I tend to think of Venus Flytrap as being a tropical plant, it's not. "The Venus Flytrap, Dionaea muscipula, is a carnivorous plant that catches and digests animal prey—mostly insects and arachnids. Its trapping structure is formed by the terminal portion of each of the plant's leaves and is triggered by tiny hairs on their inner surfaces. When an insect or spider crawling along the leaves contacts a hair, the trap closes if a different hair is contacted within twenty seconds of the first strike. The requirement of redundant triggering in this mechanism serves as a safeguard against a waste of energy in trapping objects with no nutritional value." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_Flytrap David Attenborough looks at how this well known carnivorous plant captures its prey. This short video is from the BBC. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktIGVtKdgwo

On 2 August 2014, I went on a birding trip with friends to Bow Valley Provincial Park, west of Calgary, at the very foot of the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains. Takes around 45 minutes to drive there from the western edge of Calgary. This was the park that I finally made myself drive to on 20 July, with my youngest daughter. It's a good thing that my daughter and I didn't come across certain certain things that were seen on 2 August! Not sure if the insect in my macro image is a moth or butterfly - I think a moth, though the antennae don't appear to be very wide. I'm going to use the trip leader's write-up of the events of the day - thank you, Andrew, for yet another great trip to a very beautiful place. Each year, this trip to the park makes such a great day. Hope you don't mind my using your report here! I should add that all these birds were far, far away, too far for photos and, for me with no binoculars, too far to see either properly or at all. We walked about 6 km in total. "We had six participants on this trip. We arrived at BVPP with early morning temperatures which started to warm up. We walked around the Flowing Waters Trail where we heard many of the species we recorded. The highlight of this segment was a Blue Headed Vireo (conceivably a Cassin's but we decided Blue Headed was the higher probability, based on location and the song). I do have some photographs but doubt they would delineate between the two species. (Later: confirmed to be a Cassin's). We had lunch in the Whitefish area and then went over to the Many Springs Trail. As we were assembling in the small Many Springs Trail's car parking area, we looked back along the road we just driven in by and saw a fairly large very glossy, very black Black Bear amble across the road and vanish into the woods. We carried on walking around the trail. About half way around we heard a call from ahead which sounded something like "bear on the trail". We exchanged a few shouted communications with the group ahead of us and concluded that there was a black bear with two cubs wandering around on the trail about 200m ahead of us. We all looked at the (suddenly small looking) bear spray I had with me and decided to turn around and head back to the car park. There were still six of us when we got back. We stopped briefly at Middle Lake and then stopped at the Morleyville Church on Hwy 1A on the way back to Calgary. We had cell coverage all day so I recorded all of the sightings on the Birdlog app, which created the convenient summary of the trip which follows. Checklists included in this summary: (1): Bow Valley PP - Flowing Waters Trails Date: Aug 2, 2014, 8:30 AM (2): Whitefish Date: Aug 2, 2014, 11:30 AM (3): Bow Valley PP - Many Springs Trail Date: Aug 2, 2014, 12:15 PM (4): Bow Valley PP Middle Lake Date: Aug 2, 2014, 1:40 PM (5): Morleyville Church - Aug 2, 2014, 2:49 PM Date: Aug 2, 2014, 2:45 PM 1 Mallard -- (2) 4 Common Merganser -- (2) 1 Common Loon -- (4) 2 Red-tailed Hawk -- (1),(3) 2 Spotted Sandpiper -- (2) 2 Solitary Sandpiper -- (3) 2 Hairy Woodpecker -- (1) 1 Northern Flicker (Red-shafted) -- (1) 1 Merlin -- (5) 1 Western Wood-Pewee -- (3) 1 Willow Flycatcher -- (1) 1 Cassin's Vireo -- (1) 8 Black-billed Magpie -- (5) 4 American Crow -- (2),(4) 3 Common Raven -- (2),(3) 6 Northern Rough-winged Swallow -- (1) 12 Tree Swallow -- (1) 2 Black-capped Chickadee -- (1),(3) 3 Mountain Chickadee -- (1),(3) 2 Red-breasted Nuthatch -- (1) 1 Townsend's Solitaire -- (3) 1 Swainson's Thrush -- (1) 6 American Robin -- (1),(3) 6 Cedar Waxwing -- (1),(3) 1 Northern Waterthrush -- (1) 3 Yellow Warbler -- (1) 1 Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) -- (1) 1 Clay-colored Sparrow -- (1) 1 Savannah Sparrow -- (5) 3 Song Sparrow -- (1),(3) 2 Brown-headed Cowbird -- (3) 1 American Goldfinch -- (1) Andrew Hart"

I rarely see Western Meadowlarks, so I'm always happy when I do spot one. I hoped it might turn around to face me, but no, I was out of luck. Fortunately, it did turn its head so that at least a bit of bright yellow could be seen. On 28 July 2014, I drove along some of the dusty, gravel backroads SE of the city. It was another really hot day, so I just had to get out of the house and into the air-conditioning of my vehicle. Some of the fields were still pure gold, but others seemed to have already lost their colour. Birds seen that afternoon/evening included a Barn Swallow, a young Marsh Wren that was enjoying a dust bath, a single young Sora, several Coots including one young one, two or three different species of shore bird (will eventually post photos, but I may not have the IDs), American Avocets, a couple of Swainson's Hawks, a lone White-faced Ibis on one of the small sloughs in the area. and this Western Meadowlark. "The buoyant, flutelike melody of the Western Meadowlark ringing out across a field can brighten anyone’s day. Meadowlarks are often more easily heard than seen, unless you spot a male singing from a fence post. This colorful member of the blackbird family flashes a vibrant yellow breast crossed by a distinctive, black, V-shaped band. Look and listen for these stout ground feeders in grasslands, meadows, pastures, and along marsh edges throughout the West and Midwest, where flocks strut and feed on seeds and insects." From AllAboutBirds. www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/western_meadowlark/id en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_meadowlark