Big And Not That Big Mammals

A display case features several North American mammals that are designated mustelidae, a family of carnivorous mammals. The river and sea otters, the American mink, the marten, various weasels, ermines, fishers, the badger, and the wolverine all belong to this group and can be found in the display.

A larger diorama features a confrontation between sled dogs and musk oxen in the far north.

This panel examines the social structure of mammals. Some live in packs, groups, or herds, while others live more or less a solitary existence, but they follow certain social rules for their species.

Here we have a diorama of caribou.

Display cases beyond feature smaller animals, such as the skunk.

The porcupine is its neighbour.

More dioramas include this one for an Arctic ground squirrel.

This one is the Eastern grey squirrel. The accompanying panel says the location is the Gatineau Hills. The painted background suggests the spot might well be one of the lookouts on the west flank of the Hills, as that ground and river look similar to views from the Champlain Lookout. Decide for yourself by looking at my posts from last fall here and here for looks from the spot.

I finish today with another diorama, featuring the collared pika, a tiny resident of the far north.

A Visit Into The Mammal Gallery

The Mammal Gallery is the next major space inside the Museum of Nature. One of the first things one sees is this display. Taxidermied specimens are common throughout, often in diorama settings that are a mixture of artificial topography and painted backgrounds, each set in places within Canada and during different seasons. A mother and cub polar bear are at a hole in the Arctic ice. Unseen from this angle is a seal surfacing for air.

Red foxes are making inroads into the far north as the climate changes. This display case features one with an Arctic fox.

This display features a mother cougar watching over her cubs. Their attention is caught up with a vole on the forest floor.

This one features a pair of Arctic hares.

Two adolescent grizzly bears are seen in this display. Look closely at the bottom of the picture hiding at the rock edge. There's a pika there.

This display features beavers hard at work.

While this one finds a bison squaring off with a wolf pack.

Here we come across a majestic moose.

A herd of pronghorns are in this display, in a setting of the Saskatchewan prairies.

And for today I finish off with this set of Thinhorn Sheep, otherwise called Dall sheep.

No Shortage Of Salt In The Oceans

Carrying on with this visit to the Canadian Museum of Nature today. The freshwater section of the Water Gallery includes this panel on the importance of wetlands.

This panel highlights the blue whale skeleton that forms the heart of the gallery.

Here we have another look at that leatherback turtle.

More panels explore different elements of the ocean. In this case, the focus is on the squid.

Models of three ocean giants, with a human model placed beside them for scale, are found here. The whale shark, the giant squid, and the blue whale are true behemoths of the seas.

Here we have more panels.

Just how much salt is there in the world's oceans? This addresses the matter in a local manner- enough to cover over the Peace Tower if spread evenly over the surface of the planet.

The Earth has water- but water is something that's elsewhere out there in the cosmos. 

I finish off with one last view of the blue whale skeleton.

City Daily Photo Theme Day: Purple

The beginning of each month is a theme day for members of City Daily Photo. For the first of May, we continue this year's colour theme with Purple. You can see how others are interpreting the theme right here.

I'm starting with Winterlude, our annual February celebration of the best season of all. Ice sculptures are a big part of that, and are lit up by shifting coloured lights at night. I photographed the carvers at work, and purple light illuminated these works. The sculptures were housed this year in the Byward Market downtown.

Taken nearby, this is one of those accidental shots taken while walking that we all do. And yet the purple tone of the shot kept me from deleting it.

I was on my way to this. The European Union has a diplomatic presence here in Ottawa, and each year tends to sponsor an ice sculpture. This is in one of the courtyards of the Market, and features a number of items embedded into the ice from across Europe.

It was in the same courtyard as this display, tied to First Nations peoples. The purple lighting on the walls suited the theme.

Winterlude extends to the Quebec side of the Ottawa River, and here in Gatineau's Jacques Cartier Park, where I visited the winter playground, some of the regular play equipment was also out and about. That included this purple dinosaur, fortunately far less obnoxious than Barney.

Back to the Byward Market. A light display was on during Winterlude that had these lights triggered by wind chimes, dancing and shifting colours. I caught them at a moment when purple was highlighted.

Here we have a finished ice sculpture in purple light.

In early April I paid a visit to the Canadian Museum of Nature, a series that I'm presently in the midst of here at the photoblog. On the top floor, in what's called the Arctic Gallery, a group of slabs of ice are found, with images projected onto them. I caught them bathed in a soft violet light.

One day in mid-April, I was up at Richmond Landing to get some photography in. I passed through a pedestrian underpass on leaving. There are two of these here, both containing replica works by First Nations artists. This one also suited the theme. We Are Resilient is the title of this work by Cree artist Tara-Lynn Kozma-Perrin. I decided a close up of the colours would be in order.

I photographed this on the Easter weekend in the Glebe. Outside Fourth Avenue Baptist Church, planters had been arranged with flowers, including some purple, and draped with ribbons that included purple, entirely appropriate for the Easter season.

And I finish with a T-shirt, taken as a selfie while I was wearing it. This Batman among the stars design features purple highlights. I picked up the shirt from a vendor last year during ComicCon here. That's coming up from May 10th-12th, a reminder to those in the Ottawa area. I'll see if I can down there.