Dinosaurs

 I was going to put up some more butterfly photos but I am feeling like a bit of a dinosaur today so I went with dino pictures from the Museum of Nature.

 Definitely experiencing some "hole in the head" moments myself.

I like this fellow. I think I feel a kinship with his ridiculous face.

 Going hither and yon. Lead the way fair dinosaur.

My physiotherapist told me I was walking improperly. Sigh! After all these years, I still need to  learn how to walk.

However, like this turtle-like dinosaur, I can float. Even old dinosaurs can swim:)

Butterflies - group shots Museum of Nature- Ottawa

 Bowls of fruit were popular with many of the butterflies

 If you click on this photo, you will see the whole image.  I counted 15 butterflies (not counting the blurry one). Perhaps there are even more.

I think I only saw one blue and white butterfly.  It looks like a pretty piece of china.

 In this photo, you can see the colour of the blue morpho when its wings are open, and the muted brown design with eyes that shows when the wings are closed.

The swallowtail butterfly on the left and the center one are very similar but not quite the same. Likely one is the female and the other the male.

Butterfly Delight

We went to the Museum of Nature in Ottawa to see the butterfly show. It was wonderful. So many butterflies! And lots of gorgeous Blue Morphos.  They are very active and when they rest they fold their wings and just show their brown outer colouring so I tried to get a short video of them.
Photos of  lots of butterflies coming soon.

Winter Dazzle

 After many dull winter days, we are having a dazzlingly bright day.

Edge of the cliff

 Shadow flower

Flannel pyjamas

Hairlines

I'll do some shoveling after lunch and enjoy the brilliant weather.

Mystery Tracks

 About a week ago, we noticed some unusual tracks near our house. They were bigger than cat prints, and too rounded for dog or fox prints. An online search made me wonder if it was a river otter. Down at the drainage ditch about 1/4 mile away, several well established track paths went from brushy patches down to the water.

This photo is washed out but it shows the tracks going from one side of the ditch, along the ice, and up the other side. None of the tracks extends very far beyond the edge of the ditch so it is definitely not dogs or deer. It is something that is living in the river bank or under the brush.
River otters are happy living near beavers and beavers regularly damn up this waterway.  In fact, I startled a beaver resting on the ice a couple of weeks ago. I have never seen an otter in the wild but they tend to be nocturnal so that's no surprise. According to the internet, the otters are fairly common, just not seen very often.  Welcome to the neighbourhood, Mr. (Mrs.) Otter, if it is you!

My Rant of the Year

I have just noticed yet another article where "scientists say the end is nigh" or something like that.
My question is "What does SCIENCE say?" See the difference? Not all scientists are bright, or honest, or unbiased. They are simply people who did a bunch of courses and a bunch of labs. My daughter has a Phd and, guess what , there are lots of things in her field that she doesn't know. I have had occasion to be helped by some amazing doctors, I have also rubbed shoulders with some pretty clueless ones.  Degrees don't necessarily impart intelligence or wisdom.

Remember that for 40 years, scientists said that fat was bad for our health. Now they say it's sugar.
I remember in the 1970s, scientists said we would run out of oil in 10 years.  They are not all-knowing.

The latest article referred to some data from 1981 to the present.  Wow, a giant sample in the history of the world. But always fear, the sky is falling. In 1998, we had a terrible ice storm in eastern Ontario and Quebec. I'd never seen anything like it, but old people from our area said it was like the storm of 1950. So if  I only looked at my own life, it was unprecedented, but historically it wasn't.

I have a real problem with urban jet-flying eco-warrior telling us what's up in the environment. I am up close and personal with the nature around me.  I have the mosquito , black fly, deer fly bites to prove it. I have scars from poison ivy that I got from my dog brushing against the plants. I have lots of beetles, caterpillars,and other insects that frequent my garden. I can tell  you about the butterflies and birds and animals and native plants in the area.. A while back a famous actress thought she would help out a Native Canadian band who were upset about potential environmental damage to their area. When she got there, they told her to get lost. What did she know about their land? Exactly. When Native people talk about the environment, I listen because they actually know what they are talking about.
Which brings us to wildfires. Native Canadians, Americans and Aboriginal people in Australia have for years been warning of terrible fires if the forests were not managed properly. And so...

A park in Montana that has glaciers had to replace signs that said the glaciers would be gone by 2020.
That's what the scientists said.
And then there's Greenland - funny name for a frozen, snow covered island. Except that it used to be green.

I see that in the last 40 years our growing season is a little longer. Our summers are cooler( yes, cooler!) and our winters milder. So , the climate is changing but climate is always changing. Ancient Aztec civilizations sacrificed children to try to control the ever changing weather. Other ancient civilizations disappeared  because of disastrous growing seasons. It's nothing new. Remember the Dust Bowl of the 1930's? Super hot and dry.

As far as temperature taking, headlines like " hottest summer ever!!!!" Uh-huh.Back in the 1700s or before, there were lots of weather stations taking temperatures, right? Also, temperature is so variable even in a small area. I could put 6 thermometers around our property and they would all give different readings and next year, any particular thermometer would give a different reading because the environment around it would likely have changed: a taller tree, a new building,more ground plants,etc. Let's take the temperature of the ocean and account for all the variables of currents, weather, underwater volcanoes, etc.

Right now volcano Taal is erupting in the Philipines. It will be a major weather influencer of 2020.

So there is my rant.  I love nature and I try to be kind to my little patch of it. But I don't like a bunch of pushy,noisy people and politicians trying to  manipulate me.

Ice

Lots of interesting icy shapes in the little stream.

Some rain and freezing rain over the weekend moulded this clump of branches together over the stream.

 Some high-bush cranberries knocked off by the stormy weather add some bright spots of colour in the drab landscape.

 There's even a patch of green.

Dangling drops of ice.
Next week we will get our usual January deep freeze.