View allAll Photos Tagged ADULTHOOD
The White Camargue horse is an ancient breed indigenous to the Camargue area. They live in semi-feral conditions in the marshy land of the region and are born with a hair coat that is black or dark brown in colour, but as they grow to adulthood, their hair coat becomes ever more intermingled with white hairs until it is completely white.
One of the main differences between juveniles and adults is that younger birds tend to have pale brownish tails with evenly spaced bars.
Another reliable way to identify a juvenile Red-tailed hawk juvenile is by its iris, which is yellowish for around 1.5 years, then turning red-brown during adulthood.
Black Jacobin / Florisuga fusca
Portuguese: Beija flor preto e branco
Even with not-so-interesting colors, this black and white hummingbird was captured in very charming poses.
If seen in large you may notice that it has some feathers in iridescent colors. I do not know if it is because it is still young or if it will have them in "adulthood" :))
Found at the edge of the forest, capoeira, gardens, banana trees, often in tall treetops. He seems to stand more in the air than the other hummingbirds, always displaying their contrasting colors.
This photo to me, looks like a family where the mother is gathering her children together on a school morning and warning them to behave themselves and to be careful on the road. It harps back to my own school day where my mother used to do the same with us! She would check our ears and faces to see if we had washed properly and if she found a smudge on our faces she would take a clean hankie out of her apron pocket, spit on it and wipe it off! Its a wonder we didn`t all die of disease and ever made it to adulthood really!!!! Now of course its all anti bacterial this and that and we are all dying of all sorts of infections! Now tell the truth! How many remember their mothers doing the same to them? Lol!
These lovely trees are growing on sandy grassy dunes not far from the sea and they are Corsican Pines { Pine nigra maritima ] They are a long way from home and as the name suggests can tolerate salt and sea spray and the gales that blow in across the dunes.
I took the photo at dawn and I love it, and the memory of gentler times.
Hope you like it too and do have a super week with plenty of good memories.
P@t.
My images and others are also viewable on Flickriver
on the link underneath. There are also some amazing photos from Flickr members which are worth a look.
It's early evening and these two (of three) cheetah cubs are anxiously looking for their mother after getting separated from her. She had given up on a hunt and the opportunistic youngsters had gone after the wildebeest.
It was magic to spend time with them as they called for her from right next to our vehicle. What was amazing was that the cubs had stayed together and had supported each other while they waited for her to return their calls. There were four vehicles at the sighting and all occupants breathed a sigh of relief when mom finally answered and the cubs rushed off in search of her. Though they had not eaten, they would be safe that night.
The camera does not give a proper impression of the size of these youngsters, or any cheetah for that matter. The females, especially, are actually very small. Females typically reach 67cm (26 in) at the shoulder, and adult females weigh approximately 21kg (46 lb). Their heads are small and round, much smaller than that of a male. In this image the difference is already apparent, the cheetah cub at the back is a male.
We had the opportunity to see this mother and her cubs up close on a number of days during our visit, and have a deep appreciation for the hard work and dedication that go into raising a cub to adulthood. In Kgalagadi cubs disperse when they are around 19 months. With a litter of three, this mom - at 11 years of age (she was born in March 2011) she is one of the oldest females in the park - has to kill daily to feed her cubs. Easy when there are lots of springbokkies in the riverbed, but they were few and far between during our visit.
The morning after this image was taken we followed mom and cubs for 16km before they found springbuck and she succeeded in making a kill.
Auob, Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, South Africa
Copyright © Gerda van Schalkwyk 2022 - All Rights Reserved
This is the way the Little Blue Heron should look after it makes the transformation from the all-white juvenile stager to the blue colors of adulthood. There’s sort of a dusty plum colors on the head and neck of this particular adult, but they come in different shades as well. The colors can be somewhat faded to an almost black gray. I know that they prefer to eat crayfish on the bayou but have no idea what other prey that take when they are foraging. This one was captured on Horsepen Bayou.
DSC_7371ula
The Great Horned Owl had been out hunting and returned with a coot for lunch. The circle of life continues !!! The hard part of photography for sure but we are happy that her baby will be fed and hopefully survive to adulthood. she only had one chick ! This image was taken back in 2007 and I had never edited it.
Wishing you a lovely afternoon and a very blessed one top !
Laylah & Tess often take the time to appreciate the finer things in life. There is probably a solid chance they have made more than one appearance on the rich kids of Instagram growing up. Adulthood has not changed them by much at all.
Little Grebe - Tachybaptus Ruficollis
Norfolk
The little grebe is a small water bird with a pointed bill. The adult is unmistakable in summer, predominantly dark above with its rich, rufous colour neck, cheeks and flanks, and bright yellow gape. The rufous is replaced by a dirty brownish grey in non-breeding and juvenile birds.
Juvenile birds have a yellow bill with a small black tip, and black and white streaks on the cheeks and sides of the neck as seen below. This yellow bill darkens as the juveniles age, eventually turning black in adulthood.
In winter, its size, buff plumage, with a darker back and cap, and “powder puff” rear end enable easy identification of this species. The little grebe's breeding call, given singly or in duet, is a trilled repeated weet-weet-weet or wee-wee-wee which sounds like a horse whinnying.
Distribution
This bird breeds in small colonies in heavily vegetated areas of freshwater lakes across Europe, much of Asia down to New Guinea, and most of Africa. Most birds move to more open or coastal waters in winter, but it is only migratory in those parts of its range where the waters freeze. Outside of breeding season, it moves into more open water, occasionally even appearing on the coast in small bays.
UK breeding:
5,300 pairs
UK wintering:
16,000 individuals
This is a genuine part of my life. So. Here goes.
Sam was where a lot of things had started. As far back as my memory can go reliably, before it gets fuzzy and mixed in with the dreamlike-haze of early childhood. The earliest manifestation of something I am fortunate to have found in adulthood - that feeling of a missing piece, a part of me that resided in someone else. Someone who saw the world exactly like I did, experienced it exactly like I did, and was my natural companion in all my odd haunts - from the roof deemed too risky for elementary school kids to access, to the narrow passage adjacent to the high school building where the older kids congregated to smoke or occasionally make out, and we sat on the fence above watching them.
My first choice for everything. Solid on the soccer field. Solid when playing cops and robbers or whatever. Solid when drawing a stick figure and confidently deciding a brown line around the head constituted hair. Solid when staring at the arcane world of math or getting excited with me about science. Solid about everything. Just solid.
I don’t think children naturally think along the lines of gender - he was just Sam. And in the way children think, Sam was simply mine. I had dibs. He carried a piece of me around, and I think perhaps I had a piece of him too all for myself. Even if we had other friends, a nice and big group in the way children do, he was my person.
Growing up does interesting things - not all of them good. Peer pressure does too.
At 11-12, the boys are already noticing girls. A girl told me she liked me and asked me what I thought of her - in that heavy-handed way that I seem to never have quite lost decades later, I told her that her eyes remind me of a pool in need of cleaning. She slapped me and walked off.
Sam understood I wasn’t trying to be mean. She asked me what I thought of her, and I was making an observation. I’ve learned to hide it better.
But at 13-4, expectations start to build. If everybody is doing something, you do too - if you don’t, what’s wrong with you? So the next time someone told me a girl liked me, I felt like the expectation was to do something about that. Send her a note, send her a Valentine’s gram, something. So I did.
Next thing I knew, and before I knew what the word even properly meant, I had a girlfriend. In the way 13-14 year olds do. She wanted to spend time together, she wanted to…hang out. Which consisted of sitting “somewhere nice” - not high on a fence, not on the roof, not under the bleachers or overlooking the passage haunted by the older kids. She wanted to spend breaks sitting on a bench under a tree looking pretty.
All I got for my trouble was a pigeon shitting on my favorite sweater. I thought that was a good enough excuse to stop hanging out and go looking for Sam again. He’s had a pigeon shit on his head at school before - he would find this funny. Because it’s Sam - he would get it.
Sam didn’t get it though. He was angry at me. Unjustifiably, almost violently, to where I don’t think I could live long enough to forget that look.
Years later, I knew a few things. Understood a few things.
When my phone rang at 3:30AM almost 20 years later, his coming out wasn’t a surprise. Nor was the negativity surrounding it, to where I was the only viable option all this time later.
I learned jealousy is ugly, and uglier still is the feeling of not being able to even say a word. Because it’s what I had experienced, when I found the adult iteration of that ideal. That feeling, to a kid, is a faceless, nameless monster.
But the ugliest is watching someone I’ve loved and cared for for a lifetime make a massive mistake, because he’s trying to make up for lost time rather than make the best of moving forward. The ugliest is the silence that followed, because I can’t condone it and I can’t lie to him. The ugliest is losing him again.
PS: The year I married my missing piece as an adult was the year Sam came out. We were both 30.
HaPPy New Year 2015. No. 8812.
Thank You dear Flickr friends for your inspiration.
My Admiration to Vincent Van Gogh.
"Vincent Willem van Gogh (Dutch: [ˈvɪnsɛnt ˈʋɪləm vɑn ˈɣɔx] 30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Post-Impressionist painter of Dutch origin whose work—notable for its rough beauty, emotional honesty, and bold color—had a far-reaching influence on 20th-century art. After years of painful anxiety and frequent bouts of mental illness, he died aged 37 from a gunshot wound, generally accepted to be self-inflicted (although no gun was ever found).
He began to draw as a child, and he continued to draw throughout the years that led up to his decision to become an artist. He did not begin painting until his late twenties, completing many of his best-known works during the last two years of his life. In just over a decade, he produced more than 2,100 artworks, consisting of 860 oil paintings and more than 1,300 watercolors, drawings, sketches, and prints. His work included self portraits, landscapes, still lifes, portraits as well as paintings of cypresses, wheat fields and sunflowers.
He spent his early adulthood working for a firm of art dealers, traveling between The Hague, London, and Paris, after which he taught for a time in England at Isleworth and Ramsgate. One of his early aspirations was to become a pastor, and from 1879 he worked as a missionary in a mining region in Belgium, where he began to sketch people from the local community. In 1885, he painted his first major work, entitled The Potato Eaters. His palette at the time consisted mainly of somber earth tones and showed no sign of the vivid coloration that distinguished his later work. In March 1886, he moved to Paris and discovered the French Impressionists. Later, he moved to the south of France and was influenced by the strong sunlight he found there. His work grew brighter in color, and he developed the unique and highly recognizable style that became fully realized during his stay in Arles in 1888. The extent to which his mental health affected his painting has been a subject of speculation since his death. Despite a widespread tendency to romanticize his ill health, modern critics see an artist deeply frustrated by the inactivity and incoherence brought about by his bouts of illness. According to art critic Robert Hughes, Van Gogh's late works show an artist at the height of his ability, completely in control and "longing for concision and grace".
Happy Friday! Here’s to all of us who made it through another week of faking adulthood. -Nanea Hoffman
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCNmfOTmYyA
Autumn is at our doors
Came early,
Spring friends
are lost like leaves.
Some of them in storm of war,
Some of them in peace,
Some of them in childhood,
Some of them in adulthood.
I miss those days,
With full hearted and happy,
Became sad walking alone
Walking without friends.
We have lived this life,
Worked, fought,
Its hard to find friend
Easy to loose.
Oh, so quickly dissapeared
Early happiness,
Often remembering
That first love.
What is memories.
My heart is sewed with sadness
On the way of youth
I lost one girl.
I miss meeting her
Her happy heart
Became sad in life
Without fondle.
We have lived this life
Worked, fought
Its hard to find girl
Easy to loose.
On a late-August hike through Point Mouielle on the edge of Lake Erie with Canada in view across the water, I found something like 36 Gallinules moving about the marsh and across the lily pads on a three hour hike. A lot of juveniles had fledged and were well on their way to adulthood.
I’m really rooting for these two chicks to make it to adulthood. Last year this couple lost all of their chicks, it was so sad, they are doting parents. Hopefully they will have better luck this year.
🇫🇷 Le requin-zèbre, Stegostoma tigrinum, vit sur les fonds sableux et coralliens peu profonds où il aime se poser durant la journée.
À la naissance, le requin-zèbre porte des rayures qui se transforment en taches rondes à l’âge adulte. Il chasse plutôt la nuit.
Le requin-zèbre est ovipare : la femelle pond chaque année une cinquantaine d’œufs, par séries de 2 à 4. Ils sont contenus dans une enveloppe brune cornée plus ou moins rectangulaire. L’incubation des œufs dure environ 6 mois, et les juvéniles qui en sortent mesurent une trentaine de centimètres.
Sa population se raréfie victime de la réputation des requins
🇬🇧 The zebra shark, Stegostoma tigrinum, lives on shallow sandy and coral bottoms where it likes to rest during the day.
At birth, the zebra shark has stripes that turn into round spots in adulthood. It hunts mainly at night.
The zebra shark is oviparous: the female lays around fifty eggs each year, in batches of 2 to 4. They are contained in a brown, horny, more or less rectangular casing. The eggs incubate for around 6 months, and the juveniles that emerge measure around 30 centimetres.
Its population is declining, victim of the reputation of sharks.
🇩🇪 Der Zebrahai (Stegostoma tigrinum) lebt auf sandigen und korallenreichen Meeresböden in geringer Tiefe, wo er sich tagsüber gerne aufhält.
Bei der Geburt hat der Zebrahai Streifen, die sich im Erwachsenenalter in runde Flecken verwandeln. Er jagt vor allem nachts.
Der Zebrahai ist ovipar: Das Weibchen legt jedes Jahr etwa fünfzig Eier in Gruppen von zwei bis vier Stück. Sie sind von einer mehr oder weniger rechteckigen, braunen, hornartigen Hülle umgeben. Die Inkubationszeit der Eier beträgt etwa sechs Monate, und die Jungtiere, die aus ihnen schlüpfen, sind etwa dreißig Zentimeter groß.
Seine Population nimmt ab, da er Opfer des schlechten Rufs der Haie
Clash album 'London Calling' (1979) is iconic, so even I was never a follower of this genre, it was not difficult for me to find where 'Spekchella' got his inspiration. What was interesting to read at Wikipedia pages that the themes of the album include social displacement, consumerism, unemployment, racial conflict, drug use, and the responsibilities of adulthood. Same issues we still have 40 years later and I dare to say will still have 40 years from now, including plenty other issues. Parkdale is part of Toronto near this unofficial mural exhibition. More than 40 8'x 4' plywood, which this artist have painted over the course of 4-5 months. That includes November, December, January, February!!
677. TMR Toronto P1460982; Taken 2021-Apr-29. Uploaded 2021-May-04. Lmx -ZS100.
A Very common bird in our region. The birds are plentiful in the countryside and they are quite agile - I am not sure apart from raptors if they have any predators. This bird landed right next to the road on the fence and didn't seem to care about our presence. I think it is a a juvenile, but the long pointing tail that indicates adulthood confuses me. The birds are always seen in groups and rarely alone. They are also predictable that they like Shrikes hunt from the same perch and come back to it.
In the right light, the bird's colors were amazing - bright and standing out. It was preening for a while, stretching and relaxing.
Thanks in advance for your views and feedback.
A pair of Sarus Crane (Antigone antigone) was teaching their chick the art of foraging with caution. The chick has brownish colour of head and neck while juvenile but soon it will be converted to red in adulthood. It was a joy to watch their every behavioural moves and frame them from such proximity. Anyway as usual I have to wait long silently before they started free moves. Pics was taken from Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary, Rajasthan, India.
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A few weeks ago I woke up to discover over night someone had stolen my late grandfather's (or as I call him Papaw) vintage bicycle. This crushed me, memories quickly flittered through of sunsets spent riding around with my papaw through the neighborhood as a child.
This was my safe space, before the angsty teenage years and the chaos of adulthood.
What felt like one of the very last pieces of my papaw, was lost to someone else.
The last couple weeks have been spent reminiscing and journalizing these memories.
This piece was a very cathartic in bringing so many things he loved together.
Spring is a time for new beginnings and transformations. And
as we shake off the cold of winter to bring in the cool Spring air. Take the time to journalize memories of past loved ones, give those you're blessed to have in your life a call. And for those of you with grandpa's, give them a bear hug for me!
A playful young bear at Kuterevo Orphan Bear Refuge; they're kept in giant enclosures until adulthood then released in the wild
Thanks for visiting
The striped dolphin has a similar size and shape to several other dolphins that inhabit the waters it does (see pantropical spotted dolphin, Atlantic spotted dolphin, Clymene dolphin). However, its colouring is very different and makes it relatively easy to notice at sea. The underside is blue, white, or pink.
One or two black bands circle the eyes, and then run across the back, to the flipper. These bands widen to the width of the flipper which are the same size. Two further black stripes run from behind the ear — one is short and ends just above the flipper. The other is longer and thickens along the flanks until it curves down under the belly just prior to the tail stock. Above these stripes, the dolphin's flanks are coloured light blue or grey.
All appendages are black, as well. At birth, individuals weigh about 10 kg (22 lb) and are up to a meter (3 feet) long. By adulthood, they have grown to 2.4 m (8 ft) (females) or 2.6 m (8.5 ft) (males) and weigh 150 kg (330 lb) (female) or 160 kg (352 lb) (male). Research suggested sexual maturity was reached at 12 years in Mediterranean females and in the Pacific at between seven and 9 years. Longevity is about 55–60 years. Gestation lasts about 12 months, with a three- or four-year gap between calving.
In common with other dolphins in its genus, the striped dolphin moves in large groups — usually up to thousands of individuals in number. Groups may be smaller in the Mediterranean and Atlantic. They may also mix with common dolphins. The striped dolphin is as capable as any dolphin at performing acrobatics — frequently breaching and jumping far above the surface of the water. Sometimes, it approaches boats in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, but this is dramatically less common in other areas, particularly in the Pacific, where it has been heavily exploited in the past. Striped dolphins are known as “streakers” throughout the eastern tropical Pacific due to their behavior of rapidly swimming away from vessels to avoid collisions[citation needed]
The striped dolphin feeds on small pelagic fish and squid.
This image was taken in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Portugal
“I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news”
― John Muir
Do you remember how everything was amazing when you were a child? When every little thing, every little trip was a discovery? When driving your bike on the top of a small hill on a Sunday afternoon feels like summiting the Everest? Yes. An astounding sense of wonder, we all had it. But do you also remember losing it? Not precisely. It slowly fades away as you grow up, “adventures” are replaced by the routine of adulthood. Don’t you sometimes catch yourself wishing you could get that back? I know you do.
I do believe that this relentless thirst for the “awe” feeling is still inside us. More or less hidden behind our confort zone. Think about it, you’ll see. You had dreams when you were a child, you have dreams now, don’t give up on them. Do whatever it takes to fulfill them. People might say you’re unconscious, reckless, but there is a thin line between that and courage.
Explore.
Don’t live on the bet that you’ll have the freedom to do what you want to do later, because chances are you won’t.
So live.
It’s the power of imagination that makes us infinite.
A stare-down with a red-legged grasshopper (Melanoplus femurrubrum). One of our most common grasshoppers in Ontario, they have one generation per year. After mating, females lay eggs in the fall, within the top layer of soil. The eggs develop until the winter dormancy, and as soil temps rise in spring, they finish their development and the first instar nymphs dig their way out of the soil. They will molt 5 to 7 times before adulthood, and as fully functioning adult hoppers, the cycle begins again. In large numbers, they can be a major garden and crop pest.
Maria Theresia von Österreich und ihr Mann Kaiser Franz I. Stephan von Lothringen
Maria Theresa of Austria and her husband Emperor Francis I Stephen of Lorraine
Two pastel paintings by Jean Étienne Liotard (1762)
ALBERTINA
At the time these paintings were created, Maria Theresa had already given birth to 16 children. However, only ten of them reached adulthood. The first-born child died at the age of three, one child died during birth, and four children died of smallpox at a young age.
I was very glad Remy and I found this baby Box Turtle on our walk this morning. It was in the parking lot and I don't think it could have gotten out. I took it to my garden where I have an adult that loves the compost pile. I am hoping the little one makes it to adulthood.
Looking at freedom as a personal right: Freedom is the right to work out a personal credo. In a sense, freedom is the right to breathe... the right to enough oxygen for personal life... the right to be enlightened or ignorant. I just received Mary Oliver's new book from my dearest friend, Evelyn - Upstream. On the back jacket cover is a quote that I feel must be Oliver's personal credo:
"Sometimes the desire to be lost again, as long ago, comes over me like a vapor. With growth into adulthood, responsibilities claimed me, so many heavy coats. I didn't choose them, I don't fault them, but it took time to reject them. Now in the spring I kneel, I put my face into the packets of violets, the dampness, the freshness, the sense of ever-ness. Something is wrong. I know it, if I don't keep my attention on eternity. May I be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe, tiny but useful. May I stay forever in the stream. May I look down upon the windflower and the bull thistle and the coreopsis, with the greatest respect."
The Goose migration is in full swing. These three were part of a few hundred hundred that came to the marsh this morning after feeding in grain fields.
They are called "white-fronted" because of the white forehead seen on the adults.
The juvenile on the bottom lacks this feature as well as the belly bands it will acquire in adulthood.
Sturgeon County, Alberta.
Another California native so it should have surprised me to see three seven or eight foot bushes spread 15 feet across the back entrance to the Garden. But it did. I'm beginning to wonder if I wasted most of my adulthood not seeing... No. It's just that my seeing is highly seasonal, and flowers' season are at most a couple of months.
Dendromecon rigida, also called bush poppy or tree poppy, is a shrub or small tree of the Papaveraceae native to California. Dendromecon rigida occurs in Northern California in the foothills of the California Coast Ranges, Klamath Mountains, southwest Cascade Range, and western Sierra Nevada in the Montane and Interior chaparral and woodlands and other habitats.
It is found in the foothills of the Transverse Ranges and Peninsular Ranges and in other areas, in Interior and Montane chaparral and woodlands and other habitats, in Southern California and northern Baja California Peninsula.
The plants occur in these regions up to 1,800 metres (5,900 ft) in elevation. Plants grow on dry slopes and washes, and prefer areas that have just been burned.
And then, "burned" and 6,000 ft. elevation, it occurred to me that O had seen a field near Crescent Meadow in Sequoia NP filled well, not with trees, but with a spread of these flowers! At best they were bushes and gorgeous cousins of California's other poppies.
Scientific name: Mimosa Bimucronata
Popular Name: Maricá
Features: tree or shrub arborescent that can reach up to 15 m high and 40 cm in diameter in adulthood. The flowers are white (or bege) gathered in inflorescences and the fruits in red-brick coloring.
Places of occurrence: Naturally occurs in the states of Bahia, Alagoas, Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Paraná, Rio de Janeiro, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul.
The species of native trees such as Maricá are very indicated for actions of reforestation, environmental preservation, urban afforestation, landscapes or domestic plantations. Reforestation, for example, corresponds to the implantation of forests in areas that have already been degraded, whether for time, by man or nature.
The Common Crane, scientific name Grus Grus is a large species that is recognised for its long legs and neck. It has dark ruffled tail feathers and is mainly slate grey in colour especially on its back and rump.
Both the lores and forehead are black whilst its crown is red with a white stripe extending from the eyes, down the neck towards the upper back. Their eyes are red and they have three toes.
There's not a huge differences in the appearance of male and female Common Cranes. They look fairly similar with the exception that males are usually heavier and slightly larger than females. Male common cranes are also known to be a little more territorial than females.
Juvenile Common Cranes have a chestnut coloured head, but they do not have a bare patch until they reach adulthood. They have dull coloured feathers with yellow tips, a grey throat, legs, and eyes. Moreover, young common cranes are yet to develop their bulky tails.
Common Crane adult (Grus grus)_w_5210
Spain
I nearly ran over this snapping turtle this morning with my bike as it crossed onto the cycling path. It must have been laying eggs on the other side of the path. I whipped out my camera and took a few shots before it tumbled down into the river over boulders and logs! I guess that's why it has a huge shell. Snappers lay between 20 and 40 eggs. Once the eggs are laid, the turtles cover them up with sand and head back to their pond or lake. (Snapping turtles are not known for their mothering instincts.) In an average year, 80 percent or more of snapping turtle nests are destroyed by predators. That's why the turtles lay so many eggs. It increases the odds that at least a few babies will make it to adulthood.
A lonely water droplet resting upon a lotus leaf.
Since childhood, I've always been fascinated at how water seems to glide so effortlessly and elegantly on the leaves of a lotus plant. Only in my adulthood did I learn the science behind the magic and even then, I'm still joyed every time I witness this gift of nature.
Taken after a light rain with my phone + a DIY lens.
The White Camargue horse is an ancient breed indigenous to the Camargue area. They live in semi-feral conditions in the marshy land of the region and are born with a hair coat that is black or dark brown in colour, but as they grow to adulthood, their hair coat becomes ever more intermingled with white hairs until it is completely white.
Since I’ve been busy with Holiday “Make Work” (that is activities that really don't produce anything but inner happiness, such as putting up Holiday Lights and Decorations) I had to dig through my archives to find this photo :-)
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The Beswick Wren:
Bewick’s Wren are noisy hyperactive little birds with bold white eyebrows. These master vocalists belt out a string of short whistles, warbles, burrs, and trills to attract mates and defend their territory, or scold visitors with raspy calls.
Bewick’s Wrens are still fairly common in much of western North America, but they have virtually disappeared from the East. The severe declines of Bewick's Wren in the eastern United States coincides with range expansion in the House Wren. It is suspected that the House Wren, which frequently removes eggs from nests in cavities, was directly responsible for the decline.
Courting Bewick’s Wrens normally form monogamous pairs. While they’re setting up house and even after the female has begun incubating eggs, the male and female often forage together. This may help the male prevent his partner from mating with another bird.
A young male Bewick’s Wren learns to sing from neighboring adult males while he is coming of age in his parents’ territory. The songs he develops differ from his father’s, with a note changed here, a syllable there. The melodious signature he acquires between the ages of about 30 and 60 days will be his for life.
A Bewick’s Wren’s life starts off perilously. House Wrens may eject eggs from its nest; both eggs and nestlings can become lunch for rat snakes and milk snakes, and domestic cats go after nestlings. Adulthood isn’t safe either: mature birds can fall prey to roadrunners, rattlesnakes, or hawks.
The oldest recorded Bewick's Wren was at least 8 years old when it was recaptured and rereleased during banding operations in California in 1986. It was banded in the same state in 1978.
(The Cornell Lab of Ornithology)
(Nikon Z6, 500 mm + TC 1.4, 1/1000 @ f/6.3, ISO 3200, processed to taste)
Male Marsh harrier looking for lunch! This time of year looking for duckling chicks or similar., to pass to the female Marsh Harrier to then take back to their nest to feed their own chicks. Nature makes sure there are enough duckling survivors to ensure the next generation of ducks., whilst allowing enough food for the young Marsh harriers to make it to adulthood. All very satisfactory unless you happen to be the duckling lunch!
I usually associate the Brimstone butterfly (Gonepteryx rhamni) with Spring, but it has been lovely to see so many on the wing this summer!
There is a view that the word 'butter-fly' originates from the yellow colour of male Brimstones. The wings of the female are very pale green, almost white, males have yellow-green underwings and yellow upperwings. The wing shape and vein pattern of both males and females perfectly matches a leaf when roosting overnight or hibernating within foliage.
Adults hibernate through cold weather, so may be seen flying on warm days throughout the year, although they are most common in the spring. Sightings peak in April and May as hibernating adults emerge, and in early August when their offspring reach adulthood. Usually seen in ones or twos, Brimstones are never very common, but are widespread.
They can be found in damp woodlands along sunny woodland rides and mature hedgerows and in large gardens across most of England, Wales and Ireland.
The foodplants of the larvae are buckthorn and alder buckthorn. Both shrubs are found in wet woodland, while buckthorn also occurs on dry chalk and limestone soils.
These beautiful creatures have always fascinated me and I love observing the journey of the young eagles to adulthood. They are dark almost black as young chicks and then gradually change to their adult plumage but that takes about four or five years . As you can see this juvenile has almost acquired is white head like his parents. So beautiful and such a thrill to have seen him.
Wishing you a wonderful and blessed Saturday !!!!!!
Normally the Little Blue Heron is a dark blue-gray color but their young are white and have a calico appearance when they are transitioning their plumage to adulthood.
Cottontail rabbits are among the 20 lagomorph species in the genus Sylvilagus, found in the Americas.[1] Most Sylvilagus species have stub tails with white undersides that show when they retreat, giving them their characteristic name. However, this feature is not present in all cottontails nor is it unique to the genus.
The genus is widely distributed across North America, Central America and northern and central South America, though most species are confined to particular regions. Most (though not all) species live in nests called forms, and all have altricial young. An adult female averages three litters per year, which can occur in any season; occurrence, and litter size depend on several factors including time of the year, weather, and location. The average litter size is four but can range from as few as two to as many as eight, most of whom do not go on to survive to adulthood.
Cottontail rabbits show a greater resistance to myxomatosis than European rabbits.[
Juvenile.
The bright yellow plastron that is retained into adulthood is a defining character of this species.
One of 3 closely related species that are listed as vulnerable to endangered. This species is endangered!
Manning River, New South Wales, Australia
Going to the garden early morning, my first stop was for the Sprekelia, looking for my little friend the Green Mantis but the first thing I saw was this whitish shape clinging to a leaf. Looking more closely with my glasses on, I found out that it was the exuvia left by the Mantis after she molted and found her on another leaf nearby,
A Mantis requires 7–9 molts to reach adulthood. The molting process is difficult for the mantis and sometimes results in death if it cannot emerge completely out of its old exoskeleton or if its habitat is too dry. Mantises tend to stop eating a day prior and for 1 day after molting.
Eppington Plantation was built in 1768 by Francis Eppes VI, brother-in-law to Thomas Jefferson. Eppes and Jefferson also were close friends and, after Jefferson’s wife Martha died in 1782, the newly widowed Jefferson entrusted his two daughters, Maria and Lucy, to the Eppes family while he served as minister to France. Sadly, Lucy died of whooping cough shortly thereafter and was buried on the property. Maria grew to adulthood, married the eldest Eppes son and remained on the property until her death in 1804.