Canada’s diversity

Today, July 1^st, marks Canada Day and the country’s 152^nd birthday.

Canadians value and celebrate diversity — by which they mean cultural diversity. However, some feel that the preservation of our species diversity merits a similar attention.

This selection of images, taken from the blog since last year’s celebration, was chosen more for variety than drama.

I start and finish with an uncharismatic phylum: arthropods. This deer fly is laying eggs.

A Northern Flicker father feeds ant’s eggs to his chicks. 

Turkey Vultures warm their wings in the morning sunlight, while eyeing tasty Kokanee spawning in the creek below.

An Osprey struggles to lift a large Kokanee from the Lake.

An elk browses in the woods.

If you are a small bird and you see this Merlin out of the corner of your eye, you are toast. 

Not all natural delights are wildlife species. This is a circumzenithal arc. 

A long-tailed weasel hunts. 

Succeeding in shooting a snipe in flight qualifies me as a sniper. 

A pika chows down on leaves. 

Two Double-crested Cormorants comment on the flyby of a third. 

A Rough-legged Hawk speculates on the edibility of my camera. 

A bee-mimic fly visits a flower.

A raven flies off with a Cassin’s Finch 

A Western Bluebird couple looks out from a nesting box. 

This striped skunk is probably out in the daylight because it is looking for a mate. 

A Bohemian Waxwing flies by. 

A mule deer stots

Migrating Trumpeter Swans have been feeding in the shallows of the Lake. 

These Western Toads are in amplexus.

A diving muskrat looks as if it is kissing the water. 

Two Great Horned Owlets, still in down, size up their new world. 

I close this collection with two more arthropods: a crab spider consuming a flying ant.