Swarming, sex-craving ants

There were ants swarming everywhere in Springbank Park a couple of weeks ago. Some sections of curb were a quarter inch thick with swarming ants for 50-feet or more. I'm pretty sure they were ants. I checked the Internet and PennState says its easy to tell ants. Just check their waists. "The waists of ants are thin and appear to be constricted . . ."

So since the swarming ants were along the curbs in the London park, I think it is safe to say these were "pavement ants." These ants are normally slow, sluggish, short-legged, and often nest under pavements and foundations.

According to PennState: Usually in the early spring and late summer these ants leave the nest and swarm. Females and males mate and the males die soon after. (I guess we can add another thing these ants like to do on pavement and near foundations: have sex.)

The mated female , now a queen, is soon laying eggs. She feeds and cares for the first generation until they are mature adults. After that they and succeeding generations care for her. She remains in the nest producing eggs the remainder of her life.

Oh, about that waist-checking advice, I wouldn't bother. PennState adds: "Respect these small insects since they do bite and some can also sting." In other words, if you can see this waist you're way too close.

Green Trilliums

I thought the green striped trilliums were really cool. They are --- but they are also diseased. The green striped trillium at the top of the picture is the same as the three flowers below, except for one thing, It is infected with the bacterium Mycoplasmas.

The infection causes the normally white flowers to exhibit varying amounts of green in the blooms. In fact, sometimes the entire trillium is green rather than white. The disease also distorts the shape of the petals and may even cause the plant to have more than the usual three petals. Diseased trilliums have been know to have as many as six petals.

So the diseased trilliums are pretty and in a very dramatic fashion. Is there a downside? Unfortunately, the answer is yes. Eventually, the affected trilliums die from the stress of the infection.

Blue jay test

London Daily Photo has some new equipment. Two new cameras, a Canon S90 and a Fuji HS10, plus a new notebook computer - a Dell Studio 16 XPS with a 250GB SSD drive. Why all the new toys? LDP is about to go on a hiatus and Rockinon Travel will be getting a little needed attention.

You see, my wife and I are taking my Morgan and hitting the road come the end of the month. Our daughter, her husband and Miss Baby are going to keep the home fires burning while we are out gallivanting. (Maybe I should teach them to blog?)

We're going to drive right across the top of the U.S., hitting Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone, and Yosemite before reaching the Pacific and visiting San Simeon. Then it is up the coast to San Francisco and then on up the coast all the way to Washington state.

Then we are heading into the mountains and north to Canada. Once in Canada, we are heading home.

It will be a long trip in an aging British roadster. But then, I am an aging British roadster owner. We were both new when we met some forty years ago. (Actually the Morgan was new; I already had a couple of decades under my belt.) No comment on my wife's age. She's ageless.

I'll try and blog whenever possible, posting both stories and photos.

Today's picture is a blue jay at our backyard feeder. It is not a great shot but it is interesting as it was shot from inside our kitchen through the window looking out onto our backyard. The Fuji has a 24mm to 720mm lens and it works well. Unfortunately, the small, electronic viewfinder goes dark when you take a picture and the camera does suffer from shutter lag. (I keep hunting for settings to minimize the drawbacks.) Mix these two minuses together and you have a situation that many would find intolerable.

When I am more familiar with both cameras, I'll post a review on the Rockinon photo blog.

April showers are a month late

It has been cool lately, frosty in fact, but it has also been very wet --- lots of rain. It even snowed briefly this morning. Luckily it did not keep snowing. With the leaves already on the trees, snow can linger on the limbs of the larger, aging trees and tear limbs free if too much snow falls.

Red-Winged Blackbird

A red-winged blackbird at a backyard feeder in London, Ontario, Canada.

I thought that red-winged blackbirds were mainly birds of marsh areas as they are very common in the wetlands bordering Lake Erie. But, I guess I was wrong as they are very common this spring at our bird feeder.

PodCamp London

Steve Groves: Ldn. Free Press web strategist.

This weekend was Podcast London. There is a strong "geek" community here in London, Ontario. I use the word geek because the group of computer wizards themselves use the term in a humorous, modest manner.

An intrigued Ryan Wiseman, left, meets with Nick Wynja.

These are bright, in many cases brilliant, people. And Saturday they shared some of their knowledge.


A young man, Nick Wynja, gave a demonstration on shooting and editing video using nothing more than an iPhone. He can have the finished ready-for-air clip back at the television station before the competition has returned to their cars.

Newspapers, with their growing Internet video presence, could also use this technology to advantage.

Work at a paper? Check out this VeriCoder Technology link and their 1st Video app.

An sound editor is a word conductor.

Another speaker talked about editing sound with respect. He approached a speech recording as others might approach a piece of music.

There is a rhythm, a cadence, to our speech. John Meadows told us, "If people can hear your edit, your edit isn't working."

Rod Lucier points to the Creative Commons symbols in use.

Rodd Lucier, left, discussed copyright and the  development of the Creative Commons designations and symbols.

For an explanation of the various CC symbols, check out the Creative Commons site.

All images shot at the event are covered under the Creative Commons designation.

It spells NUJV. Huh?

Speaker, Nik Harron, told the audience the Beatles, in this famous picture, are spelling out a word in semaphore and it isn't "Help." Spelling help was the original idea but it was decided "those letters didn't look good." NUJV appears in the picture. 

I think that is another way to spell "Oops!" 

Sprouting signs

The chap tilling his garden is a fellow with whom I once worked. He has a home bordering the coves just west of the city core. The coves are formed by an oxbow in the Thames River as it leaves London. The soil is fairly good but a bit sandy when you dig down. I don't know for sure, but my guess is that the billboard on his property yields a better return than the vegetables he grows each year.