NATURE

Robert Allen

Another New Hobby

This past Spring and Summer, I took up another hobby, as if I don’t have enough already.

Photos by Robert Allen

Trying to get these things to sit still can be a challenge; for some I had to use the burst feature on my camera and take a dozen or so photos, then choose the best one or two.

Mourning Cloak in Logan Lake Western White Admiral at the Whitehorse Airport

Pine White near Sechelt California Tortoise Shell near Leavenworth, WA

Blue Dasher Dragonfly Chalk-fronted Corporal Dragonfly

I had a few butterfly photos that I showed to a friend and he suggested I put them on a site called iNaturalist.org.

I had a few butterfly photos that I showed to a friend and he suggested I put them on a site called iNaturalist.org.

From butterflies I branched out to dragonflies, damsel flies, birds, and animals. I posted them to my own site on iNaturalist.org. Trying to get these things to sit still can be a challenge; for some I had to use the burst feature on my camera and take a dozen or so photos, then choose the best one or two. Some of my photos are shown here but there are many more on https://www.inaturalist.org/ observations/sir-vayor.

My camera is a Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS50; I bought it in February 2018 and so far have taken nearly 7000 photos with it. The camera has numerous settings to allow all sorts of different modes for different types of photos and, best of all, it fits easily into my pocket.

The Mourning Cloak butterflies have different coloured wingtips. I don’t know if that is due to the different times of the year I took the photos or, whether it’s because one variety is from southern British Columbia and the other is from the British Columbia interior.

As I was watching the eightspotted skimmer, it flew off the small twig and came quite close to me and caught a mosquito, went back to its roost, and made a quick meal of it. Better for the mosquito to have been eaten than for it to “eat” me. s These articles were first published in The Link magazine in December 2019, Volume 44, Number 3.

From butterflies I branched out to dragonflies, damsel flies, birds, and animals.

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Robert Allen, BCLS (Life Member), CLS (Retired), Sechelt, BC. Robert Allen is a Life Member of the Association of British Columbia Land Surveyors (ABCLS), a Life Member of the Canadian Institute of Geomatics, and a Canada Lands Surveyor retired from active practice. He is a Past President of both the ABCLS and the Association of Canada Lands Surveyors and served as Chair of the ABCLS Historical and Biographical Committee for more than 25 years. Raised in Courtenay, he spent most of his working career in Sechelt. In his retirement, he is active in the Sunshine Coast Search and Rescue (Team Leader and Treasurer), the Sunshine Coast Lions Club (Past President), and the Sunshine Coast Lions Housing Society (President) that runs a $20 million, soon to be $50 million, subsidized housing complex for Seniors and others with disabilities in Sechelt. He enjoys anything to do with the outdoors . . . hiking, fishing, hunting, and photography.