John Muir

I love this quote from John Muir posted by Journals of An Amateur Naturalist:

"When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world." John Muir

Blacksmith Lapwing

October 21, 2006
Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya

I still have a few more birds from my Kenya trip to identify but haven't quite figured them out yet.

Cliff Chat

Lake Nakuru National Park
Kenya
21 October 2006

I found these, where else but on a cliff. The male is the one with the white wing bar. There were lots of these birds at the top of the cliff overlooking the park.

Ruppell's Long-tailed Starling

21 October, 2006
Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya

White-browed Sparrow Weaver

19 October, 2006
Kijabe, Kenya

Streaky Seedeater

October 16, 2006
Kijabe, Kenya

Cinnamon-chested Bee-eater

October 16, 2006
Kijabe, Kenya

Honey I Shrunk the Giant Squid

Lemoine Point, Kingston, Ontario
27 September, 2005

I've often found the strangest looking little invertebrates associated with mushrooms. I have no idea what this one is. I need a decent camera with a macro lens to do justice to these little things.

Unidentified Mushroom

Lemoine Point, Kingston, Ontario
27 September, 2005

The cap is slimy and about 2.5cm across. The stalk is about 3.5 cm tall.

Unidentified Mushroom

November 03, 2005
Lemoine Point, Kingston, Ontario

(Somewhat late in the season but under the right conditions it doesn't take much for mushrooms to appear)

Unidentified Mushroom

May 27, 2006
Frontenac Provincial Park

Unidentified Mushroom

May 27, 2006
Frontenac Provincial Park

Unidentified Mushroom

May 27, 2006
Frontenac Provincial Park

Unidentified Mushroom

May 27, 2006
Frontenac Park

Unidentified Mushroom

Opinicon Road, Kingston
May 28, 2006

I've decided to start posting some of the Fungi that I have not been able to identify. This probably represents about seventy percent of all the mushrooms I've found. I thought this one would be easy to label but even with four massive field guides I couldn't come up with an identification. It would have helped a lot if I could have obtained a spore print but it is rarely convenient to do that when the main purpose of the trip is birding.

Halloween Pennant

Halloween Pennant
Frontenac Provincial Park
August 05, 2006
This picture was an experiment in digiscoping dragonflies.
This dragonfly was at the top of a fairly tall dead tree in the middle of a swamp.
Turned out not too bad considering the distance involved.

Common Whitetail

Common Whitetail, Male

Frontenac Provincial Park
August 05, 2006
Arkon Lake Trail

Slaty Skimmer

Frontenac Provincial Park
Arkon Lake Trail
(August 05, 2006)

The Slaty Skimmer has a long season, ranging from June to September in Ontario.

Red-tailed Hawk at the Point

Found this Red-tailed Hawk at Lemoine Point near the boardwalk in the swamp. At first he was perched at the top of one of the dead trees but when he spotted me he moved to this higher perch in the big tree nearby. When he left the lower perch he swooped on a duck that was sitting in the swamp. The duck put up a racket but the hawk just flew off. The chickadees of course are always glad to pose for a picture.

Blue Dasher

This photo was taken on August 5, 2006 on the Arkon Lake Trail at Frontenac Provincial Park. The male and female are quite different. I always recognize the male (above) but the female (below) just doesn't seem to fit the name. The Blue Dasher can be seen right into September in Ontario.

Halloween Pennant

This picture of a Halloween Pennant was taken on August 5, 2006 on the Arkon Lake trail at Frontenac Provicincial Park. This is a mature male as you can see from the red dorsal markings on the abdomen. Juveniles and females would have yellow colored markings. The Halloweens begin to disappear about the middle of August and are usually all gone by the end of the month.

Lemoine Point

Beautiful, warm, sunshine at the Point today. The rest of the weekend and next week calls for rain. Sun and moon shared the sky this morning and provided a backdrop for the gathering of flocks of birds preparing to head south for the winter.

The trees were full of flocks of birds. This one contained a gathering of House Finch, a few trees down was a large flock of Red-winged Blackbirds who were finished with their work in the swamp but not quite ready to leave town.

Odonates in Kenya

These were the only Odonates I saw in Kenya. Our elevation was 6000 feet and there was very little water around so I didn't expect to see many Odes on this trip. I didn't have a net so was unable to photograph them in hand. I saw these on a number of occassions in a couple of different locations, always flying in the sunlight. They are vertical perchers and you can see from the pics they have a read stigmata on each wingtip. I don't have any field guide for Odes in Africa so I'll have to see what I can find on the internet.

The Island of Lamu, Kenya

Our Room at the Jannat House Hotel
(A two star hotel featuring electricity (when it was on), water (no hot water), mirrors in the bathroom that would be very useful if you were three feet tall, three tiny bars of soap for five men, strings across the ceiling to keep the bats from coming down into the room, and, of course, lots of mosquito netting. Air conditioning? What's that? Not even a fan!) The Hotel itself was very attractive and offered a beautiful view from the roof. If you want to order lunch be prepared to wait at least an hour and a half - it takes time to buy all those ingredients!

The view from the roof of our Hotel

Another view from the roof.

The Donkey Sanctuary in Lamu.

The waterfront was beautiful.