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Mute Swans family. Sunset on the lake.
. #Finland #Summer #Sunset
Kyhmyjoutsenten perhe-yöelämää...
Thanks to everyone for your visit, kind comments and faves! :-)
Much appreciated!
Have a nice Sunday! :-)
PS. One more photo in the comments!!!
Kyhmyjoutsen perhe Pikkuvesijärvessä.
Thanks to everyone for your visit, kind comments and faves! :-)
Much appreciated!
Have a nice weekend! :-)
London | Architecture | Night Photography | London Underground | Tokyo, Japan
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"Standing Tall" Fuji TV Building, Tokyo, Japan
AUDL ultimate frisbee - Montreal Royal vs Ottawa Outlaws
Shawn St-Jean Timmins flying to catch the frisbee and score a point.
Taken at night - ISO 6400 - Canon 7D
London | Architecture | Night Photography | London Underground | Tokyo, Japan
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"Within Our Sphere" Fuji TV Building,Tokyo, Japan
A gauche l'Old England (Musée des Instruments de musique) au centre l'église Saint-Jacques-sur-Coudenberg.
London | Architecture | Night Photography | London Underground | Tokyo, Japan
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"Cocoon Tower" Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan
AUDL - Montreal Royal vs New York Empire.
He caught the frisbee and scored the point. But I'm not too sure it would have counted if we had video replay :)
50 shades of blue:
In Easter Island there are five coves or small bays (hanga in rapanui language) from which local fishermen go out to sea. The most remote are La Perouse on the northeast coast, Hanga Nui, near Ahu Tongariki, and Vaihu on the south coast.
View of the three Poike ma’ungas (hills) from the north coast:
At first sight the Poike only shows a landscape of gentle slopes, desolate meadows and steep cliffs that fall over the sea. However, this unique corner of the island contains several places of interest in which history and legends of Easter Island are mixed.
The three ma’ungas:
On the northern slope of the Poike peninsula, there are three unique mounds or domes formed by the superposition of multiple lava flows. Their names starting from the coast inland are Ma’unga Parehe (broken hill), Ma’unga Tea Tea (white hill) and Ma’unga Vai a Heva (magic water hill). These small elevations, that form a striking “crest” on the slope when they are seen from the north coast, have been the scene of several episodes in the history of the island.
These curious geological formations were used as trachyite quarries, a dense volcanic white stone, with which they carved several moai statues. Most of the statues that have been found in Poike were carved in this resistant material, although a few come from the Rano Raraku volcano.
In addition, taking advantage of its elevated position, small ahu or ceremonial platforms used by priests and sages during their sacred rites were built on the small plateaus of each of the three peaks. It is still possible to see some remains as the small and eroded statue on the top of Ma’unga Parehe, the closest to the cliff.
These hills were not only used by the natives of Rapa Nui to honor their ancestors and divinities, they were also spotted by the Spaniards who arrived in 1770 in the second European expedition that arrived on the island under the command of Felipe González de Haedo.
On the morning of November 20, 1770, a detachment of 250 men ascended to the Pu’i hill to recognize the terrain and complete the details of the first cartographic map of the island. Later, another group of 250 soldiers, sailors, officers and chaplains landed on the Ovahe beach with the mission of officially taking possession of the island.
This second detachment was joined by many islanders and together they went in procession to the Poike. After a difficult climb they planted three wooden crosses on the tops of the three hills or ma’ungas. The three “Viva el Rey” (long live the king) when raising each cross, accompanied by musket salvoes plus the 21 cannon shots of each of the two anchored boats, had to leave a strong impression on the ancient natives.
An act of formal possession of the island was written in the name of Carlos III, the King of Spain, and was named San Carlos Island, in honor of his majesty. The act, which was signed by several officers and three native chiefs, is the first known written document that contains signs similar to those of the Rongo Rongo tablets.
London | Architecture | Night Photography | London Underground
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"Silhouette Orange" Little Venice, London, UK
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"Mad As A Hatter" Camden Town, London, UK
The Mad Hatter, a character in Alice In Wonderland.
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"A Man and His Dog" Little Venice in Maida Vale, London, UK
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====Good Things Come In Threes====
"So There I Was III" London Eye, London, UK
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"Architectural Reflections in Black & White", London, UK
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"Rise and Shine" Houses of Parliament, London, UK
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"Something Blue, Something Red" London Eye, London, UK
The Northern lights were along way away but I was lucky enough to have caught this. taken in Durness, Scotland looking over Sango bay. using an wide angle lens extension
It's been in the news: "This is the first big partial eclipse to happen in the UK since 1999, and the next one isn't until August 2026, so this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity." - So all gear set up and waiting - hoping for a glimpse of that "once-in-a-generation" event...
BUT the weather didn't play by the rules where I live: Muddy skiess all morning... No sun to be seen, let alone the moon trying to cover it up...
Still, with all the gear in place, when the clouds went I decided to do a shot of the sun (background image - HDR'ed) and "post-processed" my moon in with Photoshop afterwards.
Ha: If you cannot rely on UK clear skies, create your own eclipse! ;-)
Made for mental sanity & Sliders Sunday: HSS!
patrickjoust | flickr | tumblr | facebook | books
...
Mamiya C330 S and Sekor 80mm f/2.8
Kodak Portra 160
Spring is coming! 14.3.2015 Finland. Sea ice.
***
Many thanks to everyone for your visit, comments and faves! Much appreciated! 😊
*****
Please do NOT POST awards pictures, group banners, sparkling icons or images in my photostream, thanks!!!
ⓒRebecca Bugge, All Rights Reserved
Do not use without permission.
A type of stone lantern called a tōrō (exactly what sub-type it is, there are plenty of them, I can't say though).
In the Japanese garden at the Nezu museum - a garden filled with old statues and sculptures, tea-houses and a pond.
Elephants in the San Diego Zoo have a huge enclosure.
Today, seven elephants live in the Zoo’s Elephant Odyssey habitat. Its features include a state-of-the-art Elephant Care Center, helpful, as the herd is made up of older, non-breeding elephants at this time.
They’re enormous and intelligent, strong and sociable. Humans have been impressed by elephants for centuries, simply because they are so big—a male African elephant can weigh up to 7.5 tons (6.8 metric tons)! They also amaze us with their long and flexible noses, large and flapping ears, and loose, wrinkly skin. There are many stories about elephants—you’ve probably heard of Horton, Babar, and Dumbo. Elephants are one of the best-known animals in the world.
Elephants are large and gray and have big ears and long trunks, right? If all elephants seem the same to you, take a closer look. There are two elephant species that are usually recognized: the African elephant and the Asian elephant. There is some ongoing debate about how many subspecies may exist, or whether some of these might, in fact, be species in their own right. Here are a few ways to tell them apart:
- African elephants have large ears that are shaped like the continent of Africa, both males and females have visible tusks, their skin is very wrinkly, their back is swayed, and the end of their trunk works as if they have two fingers there to help them pick things up. African elephants are the largest mammals on land.
- Asian elephants have smaller ears, usually only the males have visible tusks, their skin is not as wrinkly as African elephants’, they only have one "finger" at the ends of their trunk, and their back is dome-shaped.
Empress and Queenie were the San Diego Zoo’s first elephants, arriving here in 1923 via train from San Francisco. After being led off the train, the two Asian elephants refused to move another step, no matter how much encouragement they received. The Zoo’s founder, Harry Wegeforth, M.D., was there to greet them, and it occurred to him that they were probably used to being ridden, so he climbed up on Empress and another staff member did the same with Queenie, and off they walked from the train station to the Zoo, gathering many astonished looks along the way!
Peaches was the San Diego Zoo’s first African elephant—and she made sure to be a memorable one too. When she arrived in 1953, she was three years old, smart, curious, and, as then ZOONOOZ editor Ken Stott described her, “playful as a quarter-ton kitten.” She had made the journey from Africa to San Diego with keeper Ralph “Gabe” Davis, and they got along famously—at least most of the time. When Gabe gave her breakfast, she would grumble and trumpet at him until he left her alone to eat—apparently, she was not sociable in the morning. She also showed a marked preference for men, even pushing away Zoo Executive Director Belle Benchley when she tried to say hello. Peaches did become more mellow as she grew up, but even as an adult, she still had a way of “flirting” with men while more often than not giving women a cool stare.
Since that time, we've had numerous elephants at our two facilities, and our first elephant birth occurred in 1981. In 1971, Asian elephant Carol became famous by appearing on The Tonight Show with the Zoo’s animal ambassador Joan Embery, to meet Johnny Carson and paint for him while millions watched nationwide!
Elephants have been hunted relentlessly for their tusks (even though they’re made of dentine, the same as our teeth). Elephants are now protected, but poachers still hunt them, and they face other problems, too. Because they are so big and need so much food, they can eat themselves out of “house and home.” Elephants and people often come into conflict as elephant habitats undergo dramatic reductions in size. Asian and African forest elephants are listed as endangered, primarily due to habitat loss and fragmentation. African bush elephants are threatened, primarily due to habitat loss and being poached for their tusks.
Elephants Without Borders has been deploying satellite-monitoring collars on elephants throughout northern Botswana since 2000, having tracked over 90 individual elephants; this is one of the longest and largest elephant movement studies in Africa. Every individual pachyderm has its unique character and intriguing story to his or her own seasonal march, preferred routes, and favored places. Each new elephant fitted with a tracking device provides new information to understand the ecology of these animals. Unpredictable individual ranging behavior coupled with a dynamic, ever-changing environment in Botswana underscore the need for long-term elephant studies. The elephants are tracked from a fixed-wing plane, which allows a visual assessment of collared elephants to determine herd structure and habitat use.
Conservation farming project
In collaboration with San Diego Zoo Global, Elephants Without Borders has established a conservation farming project in the Chobe Enclave in Botswana. This project is developing experimental plots with various methods of keeping elephants away from crops, including farming of specific chili species that are thought to be unpalatable to elephants and may deter them from invading crop areas. Along with aerial survey wildlife counts and satellite-collared elephant data, these projects are essential for developing community-based conservation programs to reduce human-elephant conflict and make better-informed conservation decisions for all.
- See more at: animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/elephant#sthash.uFZnr8tJ....
THE GLOBE AND MAIL 05 MARCH 2015
The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus will phase out the show’s iconic elephants from its performances by 2018, telling Associated Press exclusively that growing public concern about how the animals are treated led to the decision.
London | Architecture | Night Photography | London Underground
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Night colors at The Scoop, More London, London
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King's Cross Station Lightwall Tunnel, London UK
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London Night Life, Piccadilly Circus
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20 Fenchurch Street AKA The Walkie-Talkie, City of London
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Trafalgar Square, London - Dolphins and Mermaids Fountains - Black and White Photography
Réalisée le 17 novembre 2014 au Parc National de Sinharaja, Sri Lanka.
Made on November, 21rst / 2014 at the Sinharaja National Park, Sri Lanka.