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.

 

In the Habitat

I am fond of sympathetically-done wild animal portraits, but I feel that in a string of  photographs it is important to also include pictures that reveal the habitat of the subject. In this photograph we see an immature night-heron on its hunting perch. Astotin Lake, Elk Island National Park, Alberta.

And, yes, I did not get close enough for a portrait!

(Taken with a Nikon D80 and the Nikon 80 – 400mm VR lens, hand held in a canoe. September 1, 2008.)

 

Chickakoo Lake Recreation Area

Another trip with the ATA Photography group. Like the Victoria Trail trip, it was an overcast morning with scattered showers. This time I was feeling more positive, despite the weather.  I sometimes think too much about the photographic potential of the day rather than enjoy the outing for its own sake. This was the second trip to the Chickakoo area by the group, and I was looking forward to exploring the trails again. We were early so we headed down to the lake near the parking lot. It was misty morning, most of the leaves on the trees had blown down previously, but the air was still for now. There was a wealth of webbing on many of the branches, and each strand of the webs was pearled with moisture. I was using my 90mm Tamron macro lens with the 1.5 Kenko tele-extender attached. With a DX lens this amounts to an almost 200 mm macro. This gives the necessary range to avoid one of the mishaps of web and dew photography – a short macro is more likely to bump into the web and knock off the drops. I had not tested this combination yet, so I was hoping for the best. My partner was my daughter Arwen, who was most fascinated by the birch trees and the multiplicity of hues revealed by the peeling bark. We walked and chatted, and enjoyed the day for what it was – a pleasant late autumn walk in the woods.