The 22nd was a Friday, a weekday, and that meant that any photography that I got in would have to be outside working hours. I had planned ahead and had my camera with me, so after work I stopped by Glenbrook Ravine, a small park in New Westminster. At the main entrance to this park, there's a senior's community center, a little pond, and a flower garden. I decided to see if there were any good flowers to be found.

While looking around at the flowers, the first thing that I noticed was a fly that had landed on some little yellow ones (old pansies, I believe). I quickly focussed and took a few shots of him, even though I had my big supertelephoto lens on the camera. The supertelephoto can get some decent close-ups, but I have a macro lens that does a much better job on the little critters.

The metallic blue-green of this fly leads me to believe that it is some sort of Bottle Fly, but I don't know which kind. (Bottle flies are also known as Blow flies.) My first guess would be that this is a Caesar Green Bottle Fly, mainly because they're the most common ones out this way. However, this fly's thoracic segments seem to me to be proportioned differently than most of the Caesar Green photos I've seen. So maybe he's Caesar, and maybe not.

This next one I think is a pansy (a.k.a. Viola), but again I'm not certain. I haven't been paying attention to flowers for very long, and learning flower identification is pretty tough. Especially with all those horticulturists out there breeding new varieties all of the time.

This one isn't a new variety, though, I've seen it around for quite a long time.

Frankly, I don't see that as much of a big deal, but don't tell the crane fly that.

The following smaller guy was also buzzing around. Although at first glance he looks like a honeybee, the relatively short hair on the thorax and lack of a "waist" between the thorax and abdomen lead me to conclude that he is a Drone Fly. A Drone Fly is a type of fly that makes its living imitating honeybees.

And I'm pretty sure that the flowers he's on are actual forget-me-nots. The latin name for forget-me-nots is Myosotis, which means "mouse's ear". That name refers to the shape of the petals on the flower; they have a little point on the end of them. And the petals on these flowers do indeed have have little points on their tips, although there are only a couple of petals in the photo on which this is very clear.

The next interesting flower I found, shown below, is probably some type of Doronicum, more commonly known as Leopard's Bane.

And the following one is certainly a Trillium; it is most probably Trillium grandiflorum, also known as Snow Trillium or Wake-Robin. I think that Wake-Robin is quite an appropriate name for them, because I've never seen a sleeping robin anywhere near one. Hmmmm...maybe they should be called Wake-Elephant.

There are several native Trillium species here in B.C., and I've seen Trillium flowers much like the one above when I've been roaming out in the woods.

This next flower is another mystery to me; I've looked quite hard for its name. Help me out on it if you can.

It's very pretty, though; I love the color and patterns.

This pretty much finished the flowers near the entrance to the park, and I continued on, walking the length of the ravine, to look for birds.

I didn't see too many birds, but I did encounter a few butterflies. This one is a Cabbage White.

I think that the juxtaposition of the bird and the aerial made that quite an interesting photo. But then again, that's just me, and everyone is entitled to their opinion.

On my way back down the ravine, I really didn't encounter anything, except the same types of butterflies that I had already seen. I headed home thinking about how to find flowers that weren't as weatherbeaten or old as some of the ones that I had just seen.

On Sunday I would find some; they will be coming your way in the next installment.

Communing with the finches,
Tom