Welcome to Heaven, Dr. Jane Goodall. You made the world a better place.

The view from my back door in #Whitehorse #Yukon just now... the sun must be acting up!

What a wonderful trip to the Okanagan region with my dear friend, Richard Cannings. I feel so energized by the people I met and I can’t wait to get back to this very special part of our country. 🧡

I have been a long admirer of Margaret Atwoods prose, but just recently discovered her poetry. It is just as good #poemoftheday #poemoftheday #marriage

When people say “climate models could be wrong”, they are technically correct but should be aware that the models could be wrong by underpredicting change.

1901, photograph by Dr. Allan Warner of two 13 year old boys both infected with smallpox on the same day, one vaccinated as an infant and one not.

I don't see Golden-crowned Kinglets very often because their calls are too high for me to hear, but this one was in a pack of chickadees and warblers! These little birds often forage in mixed flocks after nesting, presumably to gain mutual benefit from predator detection. #birds Fox Lake, #Yukon

Sourdough from the Klondike! I've tried to resist posting sourdough photos, but last week I received some starter that reliable sources tell me is a direct descendant from sourdough during the Klondike gold rush, over 100 years ago! This loaf tasted pretty good, I must say.

It's the time of year when the horntails search out the recently downed spruce trees and lay their eggs under the bark, where the larvae can much on the yummy wood... You can always impress your friends by catching these in your hands, they're totally harmless! Urocerus flavicornis. #bugs #insects

Been a while but well done @nytimes.com for todays #taxonomicfail (and @bfly52.bsky.social for pointing this out) Do love a Spelling Syrphid Forum..

Aerial view of Wallace Creek. 1000s of yrs ago, the creek flowed nearly in a straight line. However, it flows perpendicularly over the San Andreas Fault, which runs horizontally across the center, causing the creek to become displaced at a near perfect 90° angles. Evidence of plate motions!

Expect delays due to ferrymeandering.

So excited to have this #dragonfly paper out! #Odonata systematics: past, present, and future: a review of the phylogenetic works in #Anisoptera (dragonflies) url: academic.oup.com/isd/article/... @ethantolman.bsky.social

When I was a kid, we didn't need fancy AI to confidently tell us wrong information. You just had to ask your friend's loser older brother, who was often high and ranting about things "they" don't want you to know about lost secrets of the Mayan empire.

A Sagebrush Sheep Moth (Hemileuca hera) on Mount Kobau in the Okanagan. What a great place to be for bugs! #Lepidoptera #Moth #iNaturalist

screaming

I don’t care what this adds to Canada’s deficit. Fund those scientists up here. Build whatever they need.

Actually my favorite bird etymology is that in 1400s England they gave human nicknames to birds (Jenny Wren, Tom Tit) but some of them stuck. Jack Daw became Jackdaw, Maggie Pie became Magpie. With Robin Redbreast they just dropped the original name of the bird entirely.

From Scott Loarie "I can assure you that I and the entire iNat team hates the AI slop that’s taking over the internet as much as you do." "there’s no way we’re going to unleash AI generated slop onto the site." his comment:

I didn't do it, but I wish I had.

Edmontonians have spoken - Black-billed Magpies are their city bird. #YEG www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

🐝🐝🐝 "Bees, Butterflies and Botany: Key Plants for Pollinators in BC Parks", the zoom event that serves as a primer for, and introduction to our summer parks programming is happening Wed July 9, 7pm – 8pm PDT. It is open to everyone and everyone. Register here: www.bcnativebees.org/event-detail...

Horse fly season has begun in the Yukon, so let's take a moment to appreciate these wonderful bugs! Here's a gorgeous, big-eyed male Orange-sided Horse Fly (Hybomitra lasiophthalma) hovering along a pathway near my house, presumably waiting for a female to come along. And hey, males don't bite!

Happy Canada Day! Canada Tiger Swallowtail, Papilio canadensis

Excited to reveal the cover of our imminent special issue on northern economic development! Many thanks to Nathalie Parenteau for permission to reproduce detail from her exquisite painting “Arctic Cotton Grass” (acrylic on canvas, 20” x 16,” 2013). www.nathalieparenteau.com Cover design, Guin Lalena

#newarticle "Yukon First Nations Settlement Land Development," by Paul Kishchuk, Vector Research doi.org/10.22584/nr5... #IndigenousEconomicDevelopment #YukonFirstNations #YFN #IndigenousDevelopmentCorporations #IndigenousGovernance

#newarticle "The Changing Nature of the Social Economy in the Yukon: The Transformation of a Frontier Culture" Chris Southcott ‪ doi.org/10.22584/nr5... #northerneconomicdevelopment #socialeconomy #communityeconomicdevelopment #socioeconomicchange

#newarticle Number 57 Editorial: Exploring Northern Economic Development, by Ken Coates doi.org/10.22584/nr5... Éditorial : Explorer le développement économique nordique, Ken Coates doi.org/10.22584/nr5... #CanNor #economicdevelopment #CanadianNorth #Arctic

This Boreal Chickadee was eating Willow Blotch Leaf Miner caterpillars that are inhabiting every willow leaf around Whitehorse these days... he'll have to step up his game to have any effect, though 🤣 (This is one of those tiny moths that has a name longer than itself: Micrurapteryx salicifoliella!)

#newissue Our latest issue is now published online & open access! Number 57 is a special issue Exploring Northern Economic Development doi.org/10.22584/nr5... Cover: detail from "Arctic Cotton Grass" www.nathalieparenteau.com French titles & abstracts: Sara Tahiri #CanNor

Some mammal drama on my Haines Road Breeding Bird Survey this a.m... at Stop 24 (along Clear Creek) a mom and calf moose crashed out of the bushes as I was parking the car, and about 40 seconds later (as I was counting Fox Sparrows) a Grizzly blasted out in hot pursuit! Bird counting delayed... #BBS

This hover fly (I think the Blackshield Meadow Fly, Chrysotoxum flavifrons) is such a good wasp mimic that it fooled the often amazingly accurate AI of iNaturalist, which only suggested two yellowjacket wasps! #Yukon #Syrphidae

Blue on Blue... find the butterfly! Silvery Blue (Glaucopsyche lygdamus) on Arctic Lupine, Atlin, BC #Lycaenidae #Lepidoptera

Bee flies are so friendly... Too bad this one has the unfortunate name of Anthrax irroratus!😅 Its English name is a little more mundane: Spotted Bee Fly. #Bombyliidae #Diptera #Yukon

Not as flashy as some of his cousins, but this little jumping spider (I think Platycryptus californicus) is certainly showing off his stuff well! In Penticton, BC, Canada #Salticidae

Showing her that I cracked the top ten in my county on eBird

I'm thrilled to be a new board member of the Nature Trust of British Columbia... especially love the hat! Proud to join an organization that does important conservation work throughout BC. #NTBC

The dragonflies are out! Here's a wee Hudsonian Whiteface (Leucorrhinia husonica) enjoying the sun in Whitehorse yesterday... now summer can begin! #Odonata #Yukon

Sukhjot Singh "This fierce peregrine mom was patrolling her territory to provide a safe airspace for her newly fledged babies. I thought she was going to attack a few gulls that flew close, but she decided to take a hard right and turn around, offering a rare face-to-face moment with the camera."

June is busting out all over! A pair of Badlands Tiger Beetles (Cicindela decemnotata) celebrating the arrival of warm spring weather in the Yukon. #Coleoptera

I was out collecting bugs on the south side of Whitehorse when I saw smoke billowing out of the forest... Great to hear that it was a prescribed, controlled burn attempting to reduce fuels, and not an actual wildfire! #Yukon

In case you are wondering about entomologists getting angry, and what that's like

A spectacular jumping spider from the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica. We found a clearing with several of these tiny (around 3 mm.) spiders in the leaf litter. Females are also colorful, but not quite as vibrant. (When I get an ID I'll add it in the comments.) 🐙🌿📷🕷️ #arachnids

Another spring milestone passed... the first bee fly of the year! This handsome one is the Pygmy Bee Fly, a close relative of (you guessed it!) the Greater, or Large Bee Fly. The larvae of these cute fellas are parasitoids of solitary bees. #Diptera #Bombyliidae

Our team recorded 99 species, but would have 100 if any of us could hear the Blackpoll Warblers Merlin kept reminding us about! Our "highlight" was a Starling! Donate if you would like to support bird conservation in the north: yukonbirds.ca. Click on Donate, choose Birdathon fund. #birds Thanks!

I can't hear the super high-pitched song of the male Blackpoll Warbler any more, so it was nice to bump into this female near my home in Whitehorse. These tiny birds have a remarkable migration to and from South America, so I always wonder what adventures they've had along the way... #birds #Yukon

SPEECHLESS BEFORE / AFTER #BLATTEN The magnitude of destruction after the 3:24 pm collapse of Birch Glacier is immense! 😱 All the forest has been razed and the ice/wood/debris dammed the Lonza river 🌊 Some buildings of Blatten are buried 🏠 📷 Pomona

Good news in the #caribou world - the Beverly herd population estimates put the numbers up by about 50% between 2018 and 2023. Find out more in our resources section, www.northerncaribou.ca/resources

Today was the annual First Day of Swainson's Thrush Song, an important feast day in the boreal forest calendar! #birds

The miner bees (Andrena barbilabris?) were out in the hundreds yesterday--swarms of males hovered over the sand hills of Whitehorse, looking for females. When they met, they hovered head-to-head, touching antennae... The males smaller and black/silver, the females a richer gold-brown. ID help, pls!