Pileated woodpecker at work on a tree in Québec City
The Pileated Woodpecker has a height of 48 centimeters. The work it did on this tree in Sillery, in Quebec City, caused damage over a meter long. But the tree was already in bad shape, as the bird naturally chooses the trunks that are easiest to perforate. Let’s just say that after this Pileated Woodpecker is done with the tree, the owner will have to prune his tree for safety.
Wood chips resulting from the work of a Pileated Woodpecker
Above is a glimpse of the wood shavings gathering at the bottom of the tree as the Pileated Woodpecker gets busy.
End of December 2022. It’s hot in Quebec City. The city was first swept by a storm that left hundreds of thousands of Quebecers without power, some for more than a week. A heat wave then swept through the province of Quebec for several days.
One positive aspect of this warm air is that it melted the thick layer of ice and snow that had accumulated on the roofs of homes during the December 23 storm, resetting the clock for the remaining portion of the winter to come.
But when it comes to winter sports, it’s a different story. One had to walk around town on the last day of 2022 to see the changes in just a few days.
Passing by the public skating rink maintained by the municipality on the Battlefields Park, I took this picture that sums up the situation: a warm rain falling on the snow and accelerating the melting to the point where a thick fog sets in, puddles of water several centimeters thick covering a layer of ice.
I use this water to add the reflections of the skaters in the photographic composition. Fortunately for them, the sportsmen benefit from a mechanically cooled ice rink to continue practicing their favorite activity.
The exhibition of Mosaïculture of Québec City 2022, entitled “Once upon a time…the Earth“, ends in a few days, after having been a great success throughout the summer.
Two elephants at the Mosaïcultures de Québec 2022
More than six million plants were used to build 200 animals and insects in the Bois-de-Coulonge, not to mention the flowers along the way to further enhance the tour.
Four zebras at the Mosaïcultures Québec 2022
In a few months, hundreds of thousands of visitors will have walked through the circuit of 90 minutes to visit the largest edition of mosaiculture since its creation in 2000 in Montreal. In Québec City, more than 80% of the works were exposed for the first time.
A beekeeper and his bees at the Mosaïcultures de Québec 2022
The site had to be prepared nine months in advance. As intensive watering became mandatory, Québec City temporarily modified its watering regulations, explaining that it was an exhibition and not a horticultural production.
The man who plants a tree at the Mosaïcultures de Québec 2022
Above, a shepherd plants a tree in a place that seems to be very unfertile, indicating at the same time the need not to give up when it comes to saving the planet.
These Québec 2022 mosaicultures will have been another major tourist attraction for Québec City, after a cascade of other summer events. In fact, there have been times when so many tourist activities overlapped at the same time, that residents and tourists had to make choices. A spectacular rebound from a pandemic that forced people to make sacrifices for two years!
An American Robin and its fledgling in Sillery, Quebec City.
In Quebec City, an American Robin came to make its nest near our back door. Since it had been there brooding without giving birth to anything, we were beginning to believe that the mother was sterile.
Major construction work was to begin shortly at our home and would last a few weeks. We were almost glad that no chicks were born, as this would simplify the transportation of materials.
A day before the renovations were to begin, the first chick was born. From then on, all construction workers would have to be blocked off and asked to make a detour each time they needed to take scraps out of the house or bring in new material.
All labor groups agreed to our request without a second thought. For two weeks, electricians, plumbers, floor layers, delivery people and installers of all kinds came and went, sometimes asking for updates on the condition of the mother and her chicks.
In Quebec City, three two week old American Robins.
The photo above shows the three chicks one day before they fledge. The lack of light due to the location of the nest, as well as the desire not to disturb the fledglings, necessitated the use of a powerful telephoto lens and a camera capable of cropping without loss of quality. A full-frame cameraCanon 5DSR with a Canon 70-200 f2.8L IS II USM telephoto made the job easy. The ISO was set to 200 and I severely limited the depth of field to get the best possible shutter speed to avoid motion blur.
This morning, all the birds had left the nest. The parents were flying around nervously, attacking predators while the young were quickly learning to become independent. The blue jay that regularly visits us for its “dish of the day” was denied access to the backyard by both parents.
There are now three new American Robin in the area and it is almost certain that the mother will return next year to the same location, given the success this year.
Old publicity on the promising future of plastics.
Times are changing and plastic is losing steam because of its effect on the environment. However, there was a time when it was just the opposite and when we praised the promising future (with good reason!) of plastic. Above you can see a photo of an old advertisement with a very different message than what we hear today. We even offer to teach you how to use plastic at home!
Pileated Woodpecker (female) at work on a silver maple in 2020.
Last week, a Pileated Woodpecker female landed on our silver maple. When it digs a hole in a tree to find food, the bird hits the trunk harder and at a much slower rate than the Hairy Woodpecker. This is what caught our attention.
This Woodpecker is impressive, especially when it is the first time that we have the chance to observe it at work. The Pileated Woodpecker measures between 40 and 49 cm and is found in Canada and the United States. When its work is completed, it leaves a hole of about 10 x 7 cm in the tree.
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The Lake Agnes Tea House can be reached by a very well maintained 3.5 km pathway that starts outside the Château Lake Louise. The climb is only 400 meters (1300 feet). Lake Agnes is located at an altitude of 2134 meters. From there, it is possible to continue the ascent up to the Big Beehive, which tops at 2270 meters.
No road allows an access by car to the Lake Agnes Tea House. This means that a part of the products needed for the tea house have to be brought up by foot by employees. The garbage is disposed in the same way, when employees go down the mountain. Customers can help by bringing down a little bag of garbage when they are ready to head back to their hotel. That eases the employee’s task. The tea house menu offers only a few choices, since there is no electricity. But the experience is always interesting.
The picture above was taken during summer 2018 with a Canon 5DSR camera equipped with a Canon EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM telephoto lens. The focal length was adjusted to 200mm and the ISO to 2500 for this photo taken with a hand held camera.
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Freezing rain and nature during the winter 2019 in Quebec City.
The effects of the freezing rain that fell over Quebec City this winter were not only negative. Photographers seized the opportunity to immortalize rapidly changing situations.
In the picture above, the “blue” that is visible in the ice represents the reflection from the magnificent winter sky. On a bigger screen, the ice shows the white birch trees that were surrounding the scene.
In order to avoid any distractions, the background was keptblurred by setting the aperture to 3.5. The presence of moderate wind required a higher shutter speed, in this case 1/6400. The ISO was limited to 250, to protect the quality of the picture during the enlargment. The 50.6 megapixel full frame sensor offered all the necessary flexibility during the digital processing.
The picture was taken with a Canon 5DSR equipped with a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L II USM telephoto lens. I only had that lens at the moment of my walk. The focal length was 200mm with the stabilizer “on” and a setting of “1.2 meter/infinite” instead of the usual “2.5 meters / infinite”.
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By cropping very tightly a picture of the St-Louis-de-Gonzague school’s entrance, in Quebec City, it is possible to modify the access to the school.
To the right of the hole in the wall, you can see “Entrée des élèves”, which means “Entrance for students”. With this reinterpretation, the students are invited to leave school as soon as they arrive. At a time where the society promotes an alternative education and the environment, this is an ideal opportunity for the students!
« Passer par le Nord » (Northern Sea Route), by Isabelle Autissier and Érik Orsenna, is an essential book for the reader who wishes to learn more about the profound transformations brought on by global warming, with regards to geopolitical, economic and ecological issues in the Arctic.
The book is at the same time a lesson in geography, history, politics, ecology and economy. It will certainly captivate those who are interested in maritime traffic and the development of new maritime routes, as well as the race towards the appropriation and exploitation of the immense oil and gas resources of the North.
Book cover of “Passer par le Nord” by Isabelle Autissier and Érik Orsenna
In order to sustain the reader’s interest, several maps are included in the book. They are very useful when comes the time to better understand the history and different uses, past and present, of the seas, islands and territories like: Kara Sea, Barents Sea, Laptev Sea, Franz Josef Land, Novaya Zemlya, Aleutian Islands, New Siberian Islands, North Land, Wrangel, Bering Strait, Svalbard, Spitzberg, Oslo, Tromsö, Kirkenes, Murmansk, etc.
Some of the seaways of Russia, which are among the longest in the world, are equally presented: Ob, Yenisei, Lena and Kolyma.
The numbers talk for themselves: to go from Rotterdam to Yokohama, a ship must travel 20,600 kilometers when passing through the Suez Canal. Only 12,800 kilometers are needed when using the northeast passage along the Siberian coast and 11,800 kilometers when traveling across the pole in the absence of ice during summer (this new transpolar route could be usable as soon as 2025). The need of resources by China and India, associated with melting ice in the poles, are rapidly taking Siberia out of its isolation.
Important people
The reader will certainly be interested by the information on the people who played a significant role in the discovery and exploitation of seas, islands and lands bordering the Northeast maritime route. Here are few of those names: the Viking Otar, Willem Barents, Simon Dejnev, Vitus Bering, Peter the Great, Alexander Baranov, Ivan Veniaminov, Adolf Erik Nordenskjöld, Ada Blackjack, etc.
The first northern crossing from the Atlantic to the Pacific belongs to a Swedish named Adolf Erik Nordenskjöld in 1879. Thirty-six years (1915) were needed to witness the second complete crossing, this time by Russian icebreakers under the command of Boris Vilkitski.
The importance of icebreakers
Icebreakers are extremely important for Russia, so much for protecting its recognized sovereignty and defending its new territorial claims than for economic reasons (insure the usability of the Northeast Passage and the continuous exploitation of the oil and gas resources along the Siberian coast).
The United States must also build icebreakers, so much for geopolitical and economic reasons than to insure the protection of a growing number of cruise ships that are about to use the narrow and risky channels of the Arctic.
An obvious collaboration exists between Russia and Norway with regards to fishing in the Barents Sea and in the south of Svalbard, a sector rapidly becoming more strategic with the northern migration of several fish species caused by the climatic changes. Ecosystems are nonetheless in danger due to the rapidly warming waters and insufficient time to adapt.
What are the obstacles presented by the Barents Sea towards tankers, ships and platforms? First the fog, which can last for weeks, than the “lows” which destroy vessels and twist superstructures. Finally,freezing spray adds excessive weight and freezes every crank on ships and platforms. In the event of an accident caused by oil or gas exploitation, the extreme meteorological conditions will present very important challenges.
One note on Siberia
The exploitation of mineral resources in Siberia was initially made possible, under Lenin, through work camps (gulags), since there were no volunteers ready to exile themselves in that hostile region.
The authors suggest, for whoever is interested in Siberia, the soon to be published book by Éric Hoesli. He has already published, in 2006, a very well documented book on the Caucasus: À la conquête du Caucase.
Oslo: Tschudi and Aker Solutions
The authors present two Norwegian companies based in Oslo which deal with logistics at sea: TSCHUDI and Aker Solutions.
Back cover of the book ” Passer par le Nord ” by Isabelle Autissier and Érik Orsenna
Shtokman and Yuzhno-Tambeyskoye natural gas reserves
The reader will certainly appreciate the chapter on the “eldorados glacés” (iced eldorados) which develops on the Shtockman and Yuzhno-Tambeyskoyenatural gas reserves fields (the latter holds 25% of the world reserve of natural gas). There are numerous challenges with regards to the exploitation of those fields: investments of twenty billion dollars, a necessary alliance between Russia, France (TOTAL) and China (CNPC), gigantic infrastructures to be built, the stabilization of all installations using thousands of posts, a constant fight against ice, the construction of thirty tankers (among them sixteen icebreakers), and the obligation to use the Northern maritime route.
Global warming
The book covers at length the accumulated effects of military, industrial and commercial activities on animal life and the environment. The fragility of the Arctic is well demonstrated. The reader will be surprised by the extent of nuclear wastes spread around the Novaya Zemlya.
The global warming favors the migration of species northward, an increase in the number of fishing vessels in the Arctic and political tensions between nations related to the ownership of the zone located between 12 and 200 miles along the different coasts. The native species are losing ground to the profit of the invasive species.
“[My translation] The diminishing polar ice will favor an increase in the number of ships in the Arctic with the added risk of collisions and the emission of all kind of noises that disrupt animals and prevent them from feeding correctly and communicate properly between them or with their offspring. Seismic tests or low-frequency sonars used by fishermen and militaries are particularly devastating.” (p.203)
“With few exceptions (Norway, Japan, Iceland), the moratorium on whale hunting is respected. The official predation by Inuit and the Russian poaching are limited.” (p.203)
Map showing the links behind the accelerated warming of the Arctic (Source: http://arctic-news.blogspot.ca/2012/09/storm-enters-arctic-region.html)
Increase in extreme weather events
“[My translation] The diminishing pack ice will act on the oceanic currents, but also on the atmosphere by slowing down the higher jet streams. This phenomenon will favor an increase in extreme [weather] events (cold spells or heat waves, droughts or floods) at our mid-latitudes.”(p.219)
Response time when faced with an ecological disaster in the Arctic
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (USA) “[my translation] estimates that 61 000 barrels [of oil] would spill in the sea every day if a well exploded. The Shell Company indicates that it would need thirty-eight days to drill a relief well while it needed eighty-five in the Gulf of Mexico, infinitely more accessible and less dangerous. Admitting that it would show the same celerity as for Deepwater Horizon , which in itself would be a feat, more than 800 000 tons of oil would spill in the Arctic.
More likely, operating conditions in ice, fog and storms would prevent the realization of the work within only one summer. Once the polar night would set, a decision to let the well spill all winter would have to be taken, if not for many years in a row.” (p.229)
Methane
“[My translation] Methane has a greenhouse effect that is twenty-three time superior to that of the CO2, that is already presented as our worst enemy” (p.216)
“In the Laptev Sea, what looks like real fountains of several hundred of meters in diameter spew out methane. One can see the sea boil like if it was in a gigantic cauldron. 80% of surface waters and 50% of deep waters present methane concentrations varying from 8 to … 1 400 times the oceanic average!”(p.216)
Mammoth’s tusks poaching
There is a short passage in the book on the poaching of mammoth’s tusks buried in the ground on Liakhov Island. The operation is financed by Mafiosi. The tusks are carved then resold to Chinese collectors for a very good profit.
Global warming, and the thaw it provokes in Siberia, would indirectly protect the African elephant by allowing access to mammoth’s tusks. The new and important stock of ivory in Siberia drives the price down by increasing the offer, thus making the African elephant’s tusks less interesting financially.
Some names to remember
The Port of Kirkenes, in Norway, is one of the main ports of the new northern sea route. It has an ideal geographical position and its harbour is protected against storms. The city favors the development of the port. The efficiency of Norwegian employees is recognized. The Norwegians are used to deal with Russians, their immediate neighbours.
Murmansk, in Russia, is also expected to benefit from global warming. There are already dozens of mines in exploitation, with several of those mines producing rare earths which are vital for modern technology applications.
In the Arctic, the disappearance of the summer ice pack is expected between 2020 and 2030. The Northeast Passage could be accessible beyond the EEZ 200 miles, “which will favor Iceland “which could become a transport hub between America and Europe.”(p.218). “And it is said that some Beijing investors would be ready to offer 5 billion dollars to take control of the future Port of Reykjavik, the one that aims to be the hub of the North.” (p.245)
The Arctic Council
For a long time now, the Arctic has been a strategic area where numerous countries, among them few superpowers, claim an important part of the territory and resources. With the acceleration of the melting process, things get even more complicated.
In 1996, the Arctic Council was created to ease communications and reduce political tensions between the countries pretending to part of the Arctic territory and resources. These countries include Canada, Denmark, United States, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Russia. Associations of indigenous population are also part of the group, but as “permanent members”.
Militarization of the North
The Cold War between Russia and United States forced the construction of the DEW line by Americans and Canadians, a line that was eventually replaced by the North Warning System.
Today, the militarization of the area still goes on: “[my translation] Russia multiplies the signs and acts of militarization in the zone. Military exercises (parachuting, air patrols), reconstruction of installations in all of the islands (Wrangel, New Siberian, Novaya Zemlya, Franz Josef Land), orders of numerous ships among them new generation submarines (attack submarines and missile launchers), a complete program for the upgrading of the Boulava missiles … The [Northern Fleet] underwater base, near Murmansk (Severomorsk), seems to be in a state of complete reactivation.”(p.238)
Russia fortifying bases in Arctic region (Source: Heritage.org)
The transpolar maritime route
Geographic map showing the potential northern maritime routes (Source: www.businessinsider.com)
The Northeast Passage maritime route along the Siberian coast will be favored until the ice pack has melted at the pole (expected for 2025 instead of 2060 initially forecasted). So, in 2025, a new transpolar maritime route will be available to ship-owners. They will then be able to decide if they avoid the Siberian coast and the associated administrative hassle while they save an additional one thousand kilometers for a route from Rotterdam to Yokohama.
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