Andrew Trundlewagon's photos

Dancing fossils. This is a bird fossil (cast);130 million years old from China. It is roughly the size of a sparrow ("Liaoxiornis delicates, Royal Ontario Museum. Toronto).

A pair of fossil birds, Confuciusorni dui, from China, 130 million years old, united in death. Probably a female and male. In the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto.

An Ichthyosaur fossil in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; from Germany, Baden-Wurttemberg: Holzmaden; A kind of reptilian dolphin.

Fading roses,

Sculpture, Toronto. "Tembo, mother elephant and calves". This was taken using a cellphone and then converted into "Drawing" mode in the phone.

Snow and sleds, Toronto, December

Winter games, December, Toronto

A blue jay in autumn.

Sea-doo, Thousand Islands, Ontario

A squirrel waits in the cold hoping for peanuts.

The last roses

A mural in an alley Montreal. I don't know if the melting watch on the mans wrist is a comment on the nature of time or reference to some of Dali's painting like "persistence of memory" which are strewn with melting clock faces.

Earlier in the year in mid-autumn.

A mother deer feeds her youngster. It is not the clearest shot as they were quite deep in the woods, and it does not show in a still image but the young fawn was so excited, waving its tail vigorously.

I don’t expect too many people to care for this one. First, it’s a beetle, second, it’s a black beetle. It is an oil beetle, (Genus Meloe, there are several species and they all look the same to me). When threatened they pump out a fluid from between their leg joints that contains cantharidin, a compound that is more than a little nasty. In small doses it is reputedly an aphrodisiac, the famous Spanish fly is based on cantharidin, but consume too much, (and by all accounts, a little is too much), and a grim, writhing, agonizing, death ensues. Their reproductive habits also tend toward the macabre. The female lays eggs in burrows. The first generation of larvae hatch, crawl up plant stalks to settle in flowers. Here they are picked up by bees. In fact, some oil beetles emit pheromones that attract male wild bees. The larvae climb aboard the bee. The male bee mates with a female bee, and the larval oil beetles are transferred to the female. One web-site referred to this transfer as 'six-legged venereal disease', which is a troubling comparison but apt. The female bee lays her eggs and stuffs the nest with pollen. Meanwhile, the oil beetle larvae having dropped off the mummy bee, set about to eat the pollen. Then they eat the larval bees. Then they make themselves scarce without so much as a thank you note.

A painted lady butterfly, St. Bruno Park, This year we have had an extraordinary number of painted lady butterflies (Vanessa cardui).

Showy tick trefoil, (Desmodium canadenses) growing beside a lake, Mont St Bruno Provincial Park, Quebec. It is in the bean family, and this one is at the end of flowering and has produced seed pods.

The bridge is looking at you?