Andrew Trundlewagon's photos

A walk in the woods.

A duck showing her finery. I think they were gathering to migrate south.

A Northern Cardinal in the garden

A bee behaving strangely. I am not sure what this bee was doing. It was moving in circles and every now and then raising it hind quarters and lowering its head as though it were kneeling. It seemed very deliberate but I couldn't see what purpose it served.

A bit of an oddity. This is a pure white squirrel in the grounds of McGill University in Montreal. A little Googling and it turns out he/she is known on the campus and is called Cloudberry. The photo is not the best quality, it was taken by cell phone from quite a distance but it was so unusual (at least to me) that I decided to post it anyway. Cloudberry behaved like any other squirrel, was very active and seemed undisturbed by its unusual coloration. (PS. I posted this earlier today but accidently deleted the original post, this is the second upload, hope that doesn't mess anything up).

Pokeweed berries and an apple. The pokeweed turned up by itself in the garden. It's the first time we have had it. The berries are attractive but toxic to humans

Old pic. I was playing with settings on the phone camera, using the 'document' function to take regular photos. Mostly it didn't work, the program, which recognizes the hard edges of documents and reprocess the images to include only what is inside these edges, got very confused. But I liked the way this one turned out. It took the long vertical lines of the sides of shelving, and interpreted them as a very long, narrow document.

Ingredients for autumn vegetable soup.

Sticky sage (Salvia glutinosa) is, as its name suggests, covered in sticky hairs. It has a strong aroma, not unpleasant but not sweet either. This is a male flower, and to my mind its white pollen on the anther makes it look like a "toothy" open mouth. When bees land on the platform they activate a lever mechanism that deposits the pollen grains on their backs. It's a beautiful example of floral engineering.

Tiny purple perilla flowers. They are only about a few mm across but a big hit with the bumble bees.

A locust borer beetle, (Megacyllene robiniae) on goldenrod flowers. (Taken with a cell phone).

An hibiscus after the rain. We take it out in summer and keep it indoors through the winter.

lavender from the garden

A white butterfly flying among the lavender. It was quite late in the day in shadow and with fading light. Their flight paths look so random but when you watch them you see just how accurately and deliberately they position themselves for landing on the flower of choice.

Natirasukti, Chaseur de phoques, or Natirasukti, the Seal Hunter, by Ruben Anton Komangapik, who is originally from Mittimatalik, Nunavut. The sculpture is in Anse au Griffon (Griffon Cove), a small village by the Gulf of St Lawrence in Gaspé, Quebec.

An ancient Egyptian statuette of a servant from the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. It's a small piece, but three or four thousand years ago someone took the time to carve it, paint it and put it together. Someone knew what it meant and someone put it in a grave, presumably of someone they loved.

La Specola, Padua. The tower is part of a 14th century castle that was turned into an astronomical observatory in 1767. It is called Galileo's Tower, although it is unlikely he had anything to do with it. From old holiday photos.

A male hairy woodpecker (Pic chevelu, Dryobates vellosus). This was a "one and done" photo, as he didn't stay for another shot. I liked the foot, showing how he hangs onto the vertical surface by his long and flexible claws.