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.

 

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!