FEATURED PHOTOS OF THE MONTH #3 (July 2003) |
It has been 2 months since I switched to digital. I am still amazed as I was the day I received my 10D.
The camera performs flawlesly and everything works well. I also enjoy my new toy lens -
Canon EF 100/2.8 macro. I am discovering a new world of macro. With the 10D's 1.6x focal length
multiplier it becomes 1.6:1 macro lens.
The first image I would like to present today is the image of a caterpillar. At first I thought that it
is a butterfly caterpillar, but later I found that it's a larvae of a Mountain Ash Sawfly. I took it
at Mount Royal Hill in Montreal. There were a few almost leaf-less trees which took my attention. At
closer inspection I found thousands of small caterpillars on the leafs. Standing under the tree I could
hear them cutting and eating the leafs. There were often 10-15 on one leaf.
The Mountain Ash Sawfly is a common defoliator in the northeastern United States and Canada.
The larvae, which are yellowish green with small black spots of uneven size and shape,
feed in colonies on the foliage from early June to mid-July. They straddle the leaf margin
and devour all of the leaflet except the midrib. Whole branches and occasionally entire
trees may be defoliated. Damage, however, is mainly to the aesthetic value of shade or
ornamental trees, due to the defoliation. It seldom seriously injures trees.
I took many images that day. I like this one which shows a self-defense bahviour. When Mountain Ash Sawfly
larvae are distrubed, they tend to rear up into an S-shaped position. I tried to shoot against the
light to show the veins of the leaf. The only problem that day was that it was slightly windy
and therefore getting sharp images at that magnification and 1/25 s wasn't easy.
I had to make many many images to get a few sharp ones. This I would never do with expensive
Velvias.
Mountain Ash Sawfly (Pristiphora geniculata)
July 4, 2003; Mount Royal, Montreal, Quebec
The second photo for this month is a photo of Black-crowned Night Heron. This species hunts usually
at dawn and dusk. There are just few places here in Montreal where you can observe them during the day.
One of them is Ile de la visitation regional parc. There is a small dam in the park and the herons
concentrate at the base of the dam catching small fish swimming towards them. The problem is that
the channel going from the dam is always in the shade so there is often not enough light. This one
decided to stop on a nearby tree for a while. I took only about 5 frames and he was gone. What I like
on this picture is the green foliage which goes well with the colour of the bird.
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