Danger in the Bog. Part III

And then it happened…

More voices, children squabbling, a cry of , “Look, this bog  is  dry too!”

They were coming down the trail towards me, the chattering of children, and an adult head of hair just visible above the shrub-line.¹

Then an bellow, “STAY ON THE TRAIL! CAN’T YOU READ?”

For a moment I thought she was talking to  me, but I quickly realised she could not have seen me yet, her attention be fully bound to the mob that milled around her.

Besides, I was on the trail.

I was gob-smacked. Unless this was a second school class having a tour, the teacher from h..k had actually not only contrived to send groups of children in small, timed package-bombs up the trail the wrong way, she had divided the class and sent some up the right way! In other words, she had deliberately arranged the school tour to be as disruptive as possible to the other inhabitants of the bog…

Of course I was not standing there dumb-struck. All this passed through my mind as I hastily bagged the loose equipment, donned the back-pack, gripped the tripod and legged it back to the exit. I had had enough. Not for me the noble sacrifice for the sake of art. Every man has his limits, and I had reached mine. I had lost the day.

I fled as doth  foxes, with torch attached.²

A marl pond.

¹ Or, as my brother would turn the phrase, "...an adult head of shrub, just visible above the
  hair-line."
² Judges 15:4/5

 

Danger in the Bog, Part II.

WARNING: The phrases ‘young children’, ’school tour’ and ‘parent volunteer’ may appear.

The shrill cries and pounding footsteps drew closer. They knew no fear, boldly announcing their presence with wolf howls and the harsh calls of  birds of prey. Occasionally there would be speech, with a young voice boldly asking,

“Is this an orchid?’

Followed by the murmur of an unfortunate parent volunteer,

“I think it could be an orchid…”

I trembled afresh. Sweat beaded on brow and the drone of mosquitoes converged toward me. Still I waited.

My knees began to ache. Would they never pass? Just as I was beginning to loose hope, the clatter and the last questions faded into the distance. I peered around my twiggy shelter. The coast was clear, and I rose to my feet…

And then it started again “I found an orchid!” came the cry, and a howl followed, and a crash and a snapping of twigs. “I see water!” came another call. Astonished, I dropped back behind the grove. Then it struck me! The teacher, obviously as guileful and deadly a creature that could ever be found, had split the class into parent-led groups! I was near despair.

I don’t know how long I waited. Each time I thought the final group had passed another would tramp into hearing. Twigs poked, mosquitoes whined, flies buzzed…eventually there was silence from the trail. Still I waited.

Black Spruce Bog

Eventually I gathered up my courage and ventured cautiously out. Back on the trail, I realised I was finally through the worst of it. I had survived. I could now continue far behind the group without fear of being overtaken. Except for the occasional distant youthful howl, things were now as it should be. I paused at a bench to gather myself and prepare my equipment.

And then it happened…

To be continued.

 

Wagnerian Wandering

 

Red Squirrel

The Wagner Natural Area is known for the number of species of wild orchid that can be found there. The season begins in about mid-June, so I decided to take an early walk through to see how things are developing.

Marsh Marigold

Unlike my own garden where the marsh marigolds have completed flowering and are setting seed, the marsh marigolds in Wagner are in full bloom, creating a patch-work effect throughout the forest floor. It was a cool morning and there was not much insect activity, except for one distinct looking wasp that caught my attention: black and long-bodied with white-tipped antennae. As is usual for my walks, I set-up my camera with the D80 mounted with the 80-400mm zoom and  the 1.4x tele-extender so I am prepared for birds and distant flowers. To photograph the wasp I had to quickly set -up for macro photography with my D70. Of course the wasp was gone by the time my flash rig was attached so it set me thinking of  preparedness and equipment handling for the umpteenth time. It would be nice to be able to walk through the woods with just one camera set-up to do everything, but technology has not reached that level yet. …. it leaves me walking through the woods looking like some kind of one man band, clashing about with a camera on tripod, camera around neck, a vest with plumped out pockets and a rucksack on my back, dangling with reflector, diffuser and knee-pads…

Winter Firefly

That’s how I must have looked to Terry Thormin, a local naturalist who was strolling through at the time. Terry was the assistant curator of invertebrates at the Royal Alberta Museum and has a vast amount of experience in the natural history of Alberta. When I last saw Terry he was presenting a slide show on bugs for the Edmonton Nature Club. He now shoots with a Canon SX10 IS….. and a sample of his work can be found here. Terry’s photographic collection shows what can be done with a non-DSLR camera. He was strolling through, nattily dressed in his outdoor garb with just a single small camera bag over his shoulder. Now why couldn’t I do things so simply?

Getting back to my wandering, I did finally use the flash bracket to photograph a beetle, a member of Lampyridae or Firefly family. This appears to be the Winter Firefly, Ellychnia corrusca, ‘back lit’ by a marigold bloom.

False Solomon's Seal

In the undergrowth one of the more elegant plants that are blooming now is the False Solomon’s

Shooting Star

Seal, Smilicina stellata. Shrubs such as Ribes and Honeysuckle were also in bloom.In the area of the marl ponds a few Shooting Stars were flowering, although the majority were still in bud. Nearby the round leaves of the Round-leaf orchid could also be seen. As I re-entered the spruce zone there was quite a few wild strawberries blooming amongst the dead wood and mosses. And finally, as I passed through the deciduous woodland before entering the final meadow, I found the many shoots of the Yellow Ladies slipper orchid, Cypripedium calceolus. It looks like orchid season will be on schedule.

 

Wagner Natural Area

Arrow-leaved Coltsfoot

Entrance to Wagner Natural Area

The Wagner Natural Area near Edmonton is on my  list of sites to return to regularly so that I can observe and photograph the changes throughout the seasons. Known to many as ‘Wagner Bog’, this small area surrounds a calcareous wetland fed by springs. I spent the morning there yesterday, walking through at my photographer’s pace – slowly and quietly, trying to stay aware of all that’s around me so that I wouldn’t miss out on photographic opportunities. The birds were trilling  and calling in the trees, the day was comfortably cool and the mosquitoes were few and far between: a good day for a visit.

The trail first leads through a partially mown meadow,  prior to entering a deciduous balsam poplar woodland. The first bloom I came across was that of the arrow-leaved coltsfoot (Petasites sagittatus), rising proudly out of the brown  leaves of the previous season. It was well off the trail and  I did my best to respect the delicacy of the area by using my long zoom lens (Nikon 80 – 400mm VR) with an 1.4x multiplier to bring the plant in to view. This is a long combination and tripod mounting is necessary. Even with the tripod I could notice some vibration, so I left the VR on. I think this combination will be very useful in future, so I will need to work on a secondary brace to firm things up a bit.

Marsh Marigold

The next visible flower was the marsh marigold, Caltha palustris. Unlike in my garden, only a few blooms were open here in Wagner. Those that were open were attracting some small hover flies, as was the nearby flowering grass. I made several attempts at photographing the hover flies in flight, with no success.

The trail leads from the deciduous forest into an area of black spruce, tamarack and the

Hover Fly

evergreen labrador tea. This is typical muskeg, with sphagnum moss mounds growing throughout the forest floor. It is early in the season still and not much is blooming, but this is an area I will want to explore further. Many things happen at the ‘on-your-knees level’ here – a diversity of mosses and small flowering plants will show themselves later in the season.

Dry Marl Pond

After the black spruce forest you enter the marl pond area. The first ponds are dry, a depressing sight for me because this is the area, over 15 years ago, where I used to kneel at the water’s edge observing and photographing Dolomedes spiders.Years of drought combined with urbanization in the area are affecting the groundwater flow and the springs are not as abundant as before. I paused at a bench overlooking another dry pond when I spotted a cluster of ants at work. They were working at the head and pronotum of a water beetle, a Dysticus sp.

Ants with Dysticus

It was only further down the trail, after passing three dry ponds that I come across the glint of water and a pond that is actually wet. Willows were blooming alongside, and

Marl Pond

a blue jay swept up into the trees as walked by, bright in the sun.

As I left the marl pond area I passed through more spruce, many of which had fallen in the winds. Alaskan birch (Betula neoalaskana) can be found here as well and sections of white bark logs litter the forest floor. As I progress, the forest changes to young spruce and tamarack

Willow Flowers

trees and then poplar and aspen, which are spreading to fill the meadow on this final leg of the trail. It was here I was brought back to reality, with the sound of someone crashing through the woods and undergrowth, oblivious to the warnings to stay on the trail and disturbing my peace of mind.

It had been a lovely morning in the ‘bog’, but a reminder that I must now return to the raucous city.

 

Entering the Bog

Macro photography used to be a favorite back in my Olympus 35mm film days. Since converting to digital, and slowly building up our equipment, I have fallen away a bit from that fascinating world. Now with new Nikon digital equipment and accessories, I want to work out the ‘bugs’ and get back to the examination of small worlds. So first, a solo trip out to Wagner Bog, just west of Edmonton.

Round-leaf Orchid

This is the time of year to find blooming wild orchids, and they were in good supply. It was a lovely day, but mosquitoes were abundant so even with repellent standing still too long was not a good option. I came across the first orchids just before the first pond on the edge of a stand of spruce. This was the round leaf orchid, Orchis rotundifolia. I used our Nikon 18 – 200 VR lens with attached Canon close-up lens first, bringing the camera down to about 30cm above ground level with on the Manfrotto 190 Pro tripod. By the time this was set up the mosquitoes had begun homing in on me, so even though they were not landing on exposed skin, they were in sufficient numbers to be going behind my glasses and up my nose, as well as flying between the lens and subject. Without a right angle finder focusing was difficult, but I ventured a few shots as a trial.

Moving on to the pond side, I found an area where dragonflies were patrolling, so I removed the Kenko Pro

Dragonfly

1.4x teleconverter and tried some hand held pics with just the 18 – 200mm. This did not provide the crispness I required, so I placed it on the tripod and tried some shots that way – not with great success.

Elephant Head

Near to this location was a group of elephant-head fig wort – not an orchid but an interesting plant none the less.

From this I moved on to re-photograph the round leaf orchid, this time with my Tamron 90mm lens. The result, though not ideal, was much better in terms of sharpness than the first attempts with the 18 to 200mm. I used the same lens to photograph a fine group of yellow ladies slipper, which were flowering abundantly at the forest edge and into the grassy meadow area. I suspect that the combined length of the zoom lens with close-up adaptor caused too much vibration – and perhaps I should have turned the VR off.

Lady Slipper

The Wagner Natural Area will be worth returning to as more orchid species come into bloom – I hope by then that my grasp of the equipment and my technique will be up to the task of recording them properly!