I liked the little guy, and since I felt that I might have contributed to his fall, I freed him from the web and set him on his way.

A little later on my tour I found an unusual fly. This round-bodied guy is a Tachinid Fly, from the genus Gymnosoma. I liked the little arrowhead markings on his abdomen, and the melted-cheese look of the front of his wings.

Two new bugs on one trip around the building seemed pretty special, but I had bigger game to hunt that day. My plan was to head out to the Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary, where people had been reporting a trio of Red-necked Phalaropes. I'd never seen a Red-necked Phalarope before, and this seemed a good opportunity.

On my way to Reifel, I stopped along Ladner Trunk Road in Delta when I saw that the beasts were in the field at the One-Llama Farm. The One-Llama Farm is my name for this place, which mainly keeps a flock of sheep. When I first became familiar with the farm (by driving past it a lot) they had a single llama in amongst the sheep. Llamas turn out to be really good at scaring off predators and keeping the peace amongst all those notoriously rowdy sheep; they're better watchdogs than dogs.

The llama was out there this time, and I managed to get a decent shot or two of him.

After a few shots of llama #2, I left the newly-renamed Two-Llama Farm and was back on my way to Reifel.

I made it there after a short stop in Ladner to get a sandwich for lunch. At the refuge, I was immediately drawn to the regular flock of birds by the parking lot. A couple of Rock Doves there had caught my attention; they had particularly nice plumage.

The first one that I pursued was a brown-morph; they're not as common as the white, grey, and black ones. Here he was checking out the little seed that was scattered on the ground.

Naturally, this was courtship behaviour, and this is why we have so many Rock Doves in the world. Rock Doves have strong pair bonds and these two were probably already bonded. This chasing of the female by the male is a specific behaviour known as driving, and if you watch a spring or summer flock of doves for a while you're likely to see it for yourself.

After watching the doves a little longer, I looked up to see a few Wood Ducks in the slough, and, well, I have a hard time resisting taking photos of Wood Ducks, so here's a female for you.

But after that, I decided I'd better get on in to the park proper, to try to find those phalaropes.

I had walked most of the distance to the viewing tower when I spotted some damselflies flying around the path in front of me. I positioned myself on the other (sunward) side of them, and took some shots. The first one I got was light green with a brown thorax and red eyes; I wasn't able to identify his species.

The phalaropes had been reported to be hanging out in the north pond. I looked out over the pond from the base of the tower, but I didn't see them, so rather than climb the tower (from which it's hard to get good photos) I decided to walk around the pond on the outer dyke.

About halfway down the outer dyke, I spotted the birds I was looking for. They were behind a flock of dowitchers, but had the unmistakable shape of phalaropes and the correct black-and-white markings for Red-neckeds. There were indeed three of them; I think the one on the left is an adult (in nonbreeding plumage) and the other two are juveniles. The main visible difference between them is that the left one is lighter grey on the back where the others are a mottled black.

Palmated is a term that basically means having webbed feet; these guys are called semipalmated because they have webbing between only two of their three toes.

Another peep I found foraging around was this Least Sandpiper. Leasts are often easy to identify, because they're the only peep that we regularly get that has yellow legs.

I opted to go around the south pond on the outer dyke, rather than heading directly back to the entrance. I soon found myself looking a collection of Mallards and yellowlegs sunning themselves on some logs.

This was a good opportunity, because there was a Greater Yellowlegs right next to a Lesser. Here's a detail of that previous photo, with the Greater in back, standing, and the Lesser in front, sitting.

You might be able to tell that the bird in the rear is a fair bit bigger than the front one, and that it's got a much longer bill, relative to the size of its head. Those, and the width of their legs relative to the body, are some of the best marks for telling the two species apart.

I wandered along the dyke, and after a few minutes saw a butterfly on the foreshore side. The butterfly was big, and it was black and light yellow, and I thought that it was a Western Tiger Swallowtail, a fairly common butterfly around the area.

On second thought, though, I couldn't ever remember having seen a Western Tiger around sea level, and so I decided that I'd better have a closer look at this butterfly. I watched it fly around for awhile, and then lucked out when it lit right next to the path.

As I looked at it through the viewfinder while taking my photos, I noticed that is was a more black than Western Tigers. It was unmistakably a swallowtail, though, and it turned out to be an Anise Swallowtail, which was a new butterfly for me. It's always neat to see new critters...especially ones with neat colors and patterns.

My next encounter was with a pair that also had neat colors and patterns, but they weren't new to me at all. They were my old friends, the Sandhill Cranes. Although it might be hard to tell we were friends from the way this one was looking at me.

I was broken from my preening reverie by a loud squawking commotion from about twenty meters ahead on the trail. I identified the squawker as a Great Blue Heron, and that heron was soon airborne and flying past. I took a few shots as it did so.

After that, I made it back to the entrance to the refuge without encountering further subjects. Around the entrance, I found some domestic chickens; there are a number of them that I see in that area regularly. I love the color on red roosters, so I was not surprised to find myself getting positioned west of them and trying to get photos when they crossed from the shadow into the little pools of sunlight. Here's the best one I got.

That was it for the refuge, and so I headed home.

He's a pretty shy kitty, and went bounding deeper into the plants almost immediately. I was happy to have gotten a photo with him facing me full on.

I wasn't quite done for the day; after going inside and having a soda, I put the macro lens on my camera and went back out to try to find more insects. I found a few, but nothing particularly new. First up was an Anthidium bee nectaring at some Victoria Blue Salvia.

I guess if you're gonna nectar, you may as well dive right in.

A little ways along the waterfront, I found an ant hanging from a spider's web. I don't know if he was expired, or if he had given up, but he wasn't moving. But no spider had come out to wrap him up, either.

One thing I like about that photo is that you can make out six of his eyes on the front and top of his head. That's a lot of eyes.

I don't know if it's because I don't have quite that many eyes, or if it's for some other reason, but in the next little while I was unable to find anything else that I felt like taking photos of, so that spider was my last subject of the day.

Your friend with only four eyes,
Tom