July 24th - 28th 2025
| LOCATION: Mainly North Dumfries | WEATHER: Hot and Sunny |
Playing a bit of catch up with these posts, but as you can see its a bit of a mix between birds and some insects. The primary highlight for me I think would be the Grasshopper Sparrow - I have been looking for one for several weeks, and based on a tip from a fellow birder I was able to snap a few images. Secondary highlight was the Scarlet Tanager - I was quite surprised to find on in one of my regular drive-by spots !
July 23rd 2025
LOCATION: Close to Home (Kitchener)
| A few birds and bugs from today !! |  Black-billed Cuckoo |
July 21st & 22nd 2025
| LOCATION: Local to Kitchener | WEATHER: sunny .. mainly |
Close to home is often the best. The Question Mark (updated) was in fact in my back yard ... a nice bug for me and a first of the season for this species.
July 20th 2025
| LOCATION: Beverley Swamp & Urquhart Gardens | WEATHER: Sun/cloud/Hot |
 Banded Hairstreak  Black Swallowtail | Met up with my good friend Helen this morning for an insect forage in the areas north of Burlington, with a particular emphasis on finding a few Butterflies. I was delighted with the range of species we found and photographed ...a really good mix of insects and reptiles. We plan to head back to the same area in a couple of weeks or so as the species of butterflies will likely change ... I hope anyways :) As always ... click on any image to show full size. Also by hovering your cursor over any image will provide a title |
July 18th & 19th 2025
LOCATION: Close to home in Kitchener
A decent couple of days and only a few miles from home just except for the American Snout, which was in my back yard foraging on our Trumpet Vine ...a first for me with this species!! As the images below suggest I am definitely in macro mode and especially for Butterflies as my main target and Dragonflies/Damsel flies as secondary
July 17th 2025
| LOCATION: Puslinch area, then Kitchener | WEATHER: Mainly cloudy. and Hot!! |
Weather, initially was forecast as being rainy, but on getting up the forecast was updated as mainly cloudy, so headed out to my favorite gravel road in the Puslinch Lake area ... with some minor success.
July 16th 2025
| LOCATION: Another day close to home (KW) | WEATHER: Sunny & hot !! again |
 Common Whitetail (female) | I took generally the same route as yesterday, this morning and was able to nab a couple of bird images. There was a 3rd bird hanging out, and I would have loved a chance at an image ... a Black billed Cuckoo was calling, but he stayed well hidden so I was outta luck as far as getting a snap, but you can be sure I will be checking out this spot in the coming days. |
Jul 15th 2025
| LOCATION: Around my Kitchener neighborhood | WEATHER: Hot & sunny |
Almost 100% insects today. I di9d catch a glimpse of a few birds that were worth photographing, but they had different ideas :)
Jul 11th - 13th 2025
| LOCATION: North Dumfries | WEATHER: Mainly sunny with occasional rain |
As you can see the "Bugging" is getting a lot more productive over the "Birding", which I kinda like. A nice change getting into Macro mode, and continually trying out variations to my close-up techniques. Some success in finding some more interesting butterflies over what I have found and photographed around the same time in previous years.
Tip of the Day: Insects can dart around a lot so you will need to be patient. However, after just a few minutes you will even be able to predict where they might land and get good at following their movements. This is where the magic happens. Once you can get in since with their habits, you can create some pretty amazing pictures.
As always ... click on any image to show full size. Also by hovering your cursor over any image will provide a title
Jul 10th 2025
| LOCATION: North Dumfries | WEATHER: Sun and lots of cloud |
I took a drive around the gravel roads in and around Grass Lake ... Grass Lake had lots of Savannah Sparrows and I even heard a Grasshopper Sparrow, but didn't get a sighting or a photograph of this elusive species. On the bug side of things Grass Lake had lots of large dragonflies including one that I have been unable to capture ... the Halloween Pennant.. until today :)
Jul 6th - 9th 2025
| LOCATION: Halton, Kitchener & North Dumfries | WEATHER: Mainly sunny and quite hot !! |
A few days getting out around the area. No huge surprises but some interesting sightings nonetheless.
Jul 3rd & 5th 2025
| LOCATION: Kitchener area | WEATHER: Hot & sunny |
A few species found around my local area ..... over a couple of days
Jul 2nd 2025
| LOCATION: North Dumfries/Brant | WEATHER: Mainly sunny and quite hot |
It was one of the better days .. it seemed that at each stop I made I was finding something that would pop up and give me a shot or two ...Certainly one of the better days I have had recently. The highlight was the Yellow-throated Vireo - funnily enough I heard another two Vireo species (Warbling & Red-eyed) but I never got either of those two to show .. but I am not complaining :)
Jul 1st 2025
| LOCATION: North Dumfries | WEATHER: Hot & sunny |
All local stuff ... within 10 mins from home !!
