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It appears the tree got off easy.
Day 28
28 Days Later after beginning this project.
April 8, 2020
15:43:43
COVID-19 Cases reporting April 9, 2020
Worldwide Confirmed: 1,447,412
Recovered: 344,467
Deaths: 91,783
Source:
World Health Organization
'IAM4188' on approach to runway 27 at RAF Fairford to appear on static display at RIAT 2023 - 13/07/23.
Speed River, Guelph, ON
Adult blue-tailed damselflies are easy to recognize since from above they appear to be black along their abdomen but with one bright blue segment near their tail end. The contrast between this ‘blue tail’ and the rest of its abdomen is well defined.
This is a very tiny creature with a length of just over an inch and an exceptionally narrow abdomen.
As the tides goes out, the colorful rocks appear and the crusty pilings stand tall. Photographed in Tacoma, WA.
These crusty old pilings are still standing at low tide and high. A long exposure technique gives the water a nice sheen finish.
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This dramatic image from January 2006 offers a peek inside a cavern of roiling dust and gas where thousands of stars are forming. The image, taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard the Hubble Space Telescope, represents the sharpest view ever taken of this region until this time, called the Orion Nebula. More than 3,000 stars of various sizes appear in this image. Some of them have never been seen in visible light. These stars reside in a dramatic dust-and-gas landscape of plateaus, mountains, and valleys that are reminiscent of the Grand Canyon.
The Orion Nebula is a picture book of star formation, from the massive, young stars that are shaping the nebula to the pillars of dense gas that may be the homes of budding stars. The bright central region is the home of the four heftiest stars in the nebula. The stars are called the Trapezium because they are arranged in a trapezoid pattern. Ultraviolet light unleashed by these stars is carving a cavity in the nebula and disrupting the growth of hundreds of smaller stars. Located near the Trapezium stars are stars still young enough to have disks of material encircling them. These disks are called protoplanetary disks or "proplyds" and are too small to see clearly in this image. The disks are the building blocks of solar systems.
Image Credit: NASA,ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astronomy #space #astrophysics #solarsystemandbeyond #gsfc #Goddard #GoddardSpaceFlightCenter #ESA #EuropeanSpaceAgency #nebula
Lifer. This butterfly appears every other year as it takes two years to mature from an egg. Most appear in the Sierra Nevada and north into the Siskiyou Range on even numbered years. It is big but a slow flyer. It's top side reminds me of butterscotch. I wasn't able to a decent shot of the top side but it can be seen at this link: butterfliesofamerica.com/oeneis_c_chryxus_live1.htm. Castle Lake, Klamath Mountains, Siskiyou County, CA.
The city of Turenum appears for the first time in the Tabula Peutingeriana, a 13th-century copy of an ancient Roman itinerary. The name, also spelled Tirenum, was that of the Greek hero Diomedes. The city was later occupied by the Lombards and the Byzantines. First certain news of an urban settlement in Trani, however, trace back only to the 9th century.
The most flourishing age of Trani was the 11th century, when it became an episcopal see in place of Canosa, destroyed by the Saracens. Its port, well placed for the Crusades, then developed greatly, becoming the most important on the Adriatic Sea. In the year 1063 Trani issued the Ordinamenta et consuetudo maris, which is "the oldest surviving maritime law code of the Latin West". There was also Jewish community in Trani, which was under the protection of the king until it was given to the Archbishop Samarus during the reign of Henry VI at the end of the 12th century. In that period many great families from the main Italian Maritime Republics (Amalfi, Pisa, Ragusa and Venice) established themselves in Trani. Trani, in turn, maintained a consul in Venice from 12th century. The presence of other consulates in many northern Europe centres, even in England and Netherlands, shows Trani's trading and political importance in the Middle Ages. Emperor Frederick II built a massive castle in Trani. Under his rule, in the early 13th century, the city reached its highest point of wealth and prosperity.
I'll be appearing on the next episode of The Two Hosers Photo Show, and they've given me the weekly photo challenge.... "the longest day" (in honour of the summer solstice). Wide open to interpretation, and this is what I've come up with.
This image is photographed at The Wildflower Farm, a favourite location of mine to go shoot flower, insects and water droplets. Closed to the public, but they still let me poke around. One of the interesting things they have are these strange bicycle-based lawn mower contraptions. The front wheel is replaced with a grass-cutting blade apparatus, surely intended to make lawn mowing a faster task.... but it looks painfully labour intensive and time consuming.
Imagine cutting an entire field with a tool such as this? I think it would be the longest day of my life. Right behind this apple tree is a fledgling meadow, but the foreground grass is carefully manicured. I hope they aren't using these bikes to get the job done!
Oh, and this is a false-colour infrared image, shot with a modified camera. In infrared light, anything capable of photosynthesis typically glows brightly, giving a ghostly surreal look to the scene. The sky in this spectrum is often dark, and I was trying to frame the bright tree in the dark sky. This required me to set my tripod at nearly ground-level (thank you Gitzo for a removable center column) to find the right angle.
When shooting infrared, the camera will only capture the deepest reds in the visible spectrum, and also capture colours beyond our visual perception. These colours can be remapped into a range more natural to the way we see the world, usually done by swapping the red and blue colour channels as a starting point. I think I'll write a tutorial on my workflow in the near future. :)
My Portfolio: www.donkom.ca | Google+
The Racetrack is a playa--a dry lakebed--best known for its strange moving rocks. Located in a remote area of California's Death Valley National Park, the heavy stones appear to move across the dried lake bed known as Racetrack Playa, leaving a trail behind them in the cracked mud.
In years past, the apparent movement was blamed on everything from space aliens and magnetic fields to pranksters. But until recently no one had actually seen the rocks move, which only added to the mystery.
As noted on the National Park Service website, the mystery was finally solved in 2014 when in a paper published in the August 27, PLOS ONE, a team led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, paleobiologist Richard Norris reported on first-hand observations of the phenomenon. Because the stones can sit for a decade or more without moving, the researchers did not originally expect to see motion in person. Instead, they decided to monitor the rocks remotely by installing a high-resolution weather station capable of measuring gusts to 1 second intervals and fitting 15 rocks with custom-built, motion-activated GPS units. The experiment was set up in Winter 2011 with permission of the National Park Service. Then –in what Ralph Lorenz of the Applied Physics Laboratory at the Johns Hopkins University, one of the paper's authors, suspected would be "the most boring experiment ever" –they waited for something to happen.
But in December 2013, Norris and co-author James Norris (of Interwoof and Richard's cousin) arrived in Death Valley to discover that the playa was covered with a shallow pond no more than seven centimeters (three inches) deep. Shortly after, the rocks began moving.
Their observations show that moving the rocks requires a rare combination of events. First, the playa fills with water, which must be deep enough to allow formation of floating ice during cold winter nights but shallow enough to expose the rocks. As nighttime temperatures plummet, the pond freezes to form sheets of "windowpane" ice, which must be thin enough to move freely but thick enough to maintain strength. On sunny days, the ice begins to melt and break up into large floating panels, which light winds drive across the playa pool. The ice sheets shove rocks in front of them and the moving stones leave trails in the soft mud bed below the pool surface.
I don't know...I am still going with the space alien theory!
Every February there's an absolutely stunning phenomenon that occurs in Yosemite National Park: a waterfall appears as if it's on fire! Horsetail Falls, which runs from snowmelt off the eastern side of the giant rock known as "El Capitan", hasn't existed for the last 5 years due to the California drought. But this year, thanks to El Niño, it has returned! As the sun sets with its orange light, and if it's located in the right place in the sky, its light reflects off the granite walls and onto the waterfall, making it look as if it's on fire! I last photographed this in 2011 and I was very eager to capture it again.
The angle in which the sun can hit the waterfall is fairly limited, and knowing which angles will work, I'm able to write a computer program every year that predicts on which days and what times the waterfall will erupt. This year, the ideal days were on Sunday, Febraury 21 and Monday, February 22. I had seen a number of amazing photos taken earlier than this but with my busy schedule, I planned on making 2 trips to Yosemite to see the Fire Falls. On Sunday, Willie, Mike, Sammi and I drove to Yosemite, rustled with the massive crowds (thanks to Social Media, thousands of people flock to Yosemite to see this), and then left in disappointment as clouds rolled in at the last minute and blocked the sun from hitting the falls.
On Monday I had planned to take 8 of my SmugMug co-workers to see the waterfall and we left work at 6:30am to get to Yosemite in time. A few people hadn't ever visited Yosemite, so we left some time to explore a bit of the park. Knowing the crouds could get large, we immediately dropped off Willie and our tripods and then ventured off to explore the park. Having photographed this in 2011 from one of the two main locations (South Side Drive), I was determined to try a new angle this year: near the North Side Drive, El Capitan Picnic Grounds.
Clouds began to roll in during the afternoon and I began to get worried that our chance at the Fire Falls would be ruined, for a second straight day. Fortunately for us, the clouds (mostly) disappeared. Sure enough, by 5:15pm the rockface and waterfall started to turn orange. We all began snapping away like crazy. And then the light died! A cloud had gotten in the way! I wasn't ready to give up and sure enough, after 10 minutes, the sun dipped below the cloud deck and sure enough, the Fire Falls erupted again, this time with the sun in position to turn it a glowing red color!
While I photographed this with my D800, I also setup my old D700 with an 80-200mm lens and recorded 30 minutes of timelapse footage, taking 1 photo every second for 30 minutes. I combined 1,890 photos into this minute long clip, which you can see here. In it you can see how the light starts orange, fades to white, and then returns to red:
vimeo.com/leftquark/firefalls2016.
For information on when to see Horsetail Falls, how to shoot it, and what the best days will be, visit my blog at blog.aaronmphotography.com.
Nikon D800 w/Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3:
200mm, f/11, 1/40 sec, ISO 640
Viewed best nice and large
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Yellow China Orchid
These flowers appear after a fire and only flower for one or two years. This was the second year flower and was much paler yellow than the previous year when we first saw it here.
Photo: Jean
ਮ:੧॥
ਗਲਂੀਅਸੀਚੰਗੀਆਆਚਾਰੀਬੁਰੀਆਹ॥
ਮਨਹੁਕੁਸੁਧਾਕਾਲੀਆਬਾਹਰਿਚਿਟਵੀਆਹ॥
ਰੀਸਾਕਰਿਹਤਿਨਾੜੀਆਜੋਸੇਵਹਿਦਰੁਖੜੀਆਹ॥
ਨਾਲਿਖਸਮੈਰਤੀਆਮਾਣਹਿਸੁਖਿਰਲੀਆਹ॥
ਹੋਦੈਤਾਣਿਨਿਤਾਣੀਆਰਹਹਿਨਿਮਾਨਣੀਆਹ॥
ਨਾਨਕਜਨਮੁਸਕਾਰਥਾਜੇਤਿਨਕੈਸੰਗਿਮਿਲਾਹ॥੨॥
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂ ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂ ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂ _/\_
I went to Paris recently and found over 100+ photos while sifting through a flea market. The woman selling them appeared to have no connection to them whatsoever, which saddened me. All of the photos are black and white and from the 1950s. I wanted to do something to remember the original photographer (who remains unidentified) and all of the subjects and landscapes throughout time.)
If you are a Chicago native and you are interested in doing this project, please send me an email at kirstiecat@gmail.com with N'oublie Pas as the subject line. I am asking for people to come up with one sentence or more when they choose a photograph of how or why they connect with the photograph. There are over 100+ photographs to choose from and they vary between European landscapes and candids of family and friends. You will be able to keep the photograph you choose. Each portrait will be made into a multiple exposure photograph that you will also receive a high res version of. It is my opinion that this may make some French ghosts happy to know they are not forgotten.
For my part, my friend LIndsey Best took this photograph of me yesterday and I did the multiple exposure components last night. The photograph I am holding (upside down I might add) is one of a landscape with two small people off in the distance.
I often wake up wondering how I can make the world a better place. I try so hard to do this on a daily basis. And yet, I am overwhelmed quite honestly by the vastness of this place called The World and how small we are, even when we are together with someone we love. In some ways, this means that the terrible people don't really make all that much of an impact, either, I suppose.
At the same time, I often think that everything you do does have an effect, even if the mountains and the valleys disagree. When I behold the finite, aging Earth, I think of an old woman with gorgeous wrinkled skin. I want to care for her and all her children, too. I want to try to do my best even if I'm one person and it doesn't matter all that much.
Don't forget about the people you love every day. Don't forget about this fragile old thing we walk on.
Don't Forget. N'oublie Pas
Please also check out Lindsey Best's photostream!
www.flickr.com/photos/hazyskyline/
**All photos are copyrighted. Please don't use without permission**
It appears our summer yard crew flew south yesterday. We should still see some migrants, but I will miss the regulars. Safe travels little ones!
The latest of the Poppy sculptures appearing around various sites in the UK. This one by Paul Cummins and Tom Piper is at Carlisle Castle, Cumbria. Throughout the First World War Carlisle Castle was the Headquarters of the Border Regiment and housed a Military Hospital so it is a fitting venue for this poppy commemoration.
Flynn came on a snowdrop hunt with me this week! It always make me happy to find these first little flowers of the new year... I don't mind our winter weather too much (unless we have an unusually soggy one!) but the short, dark days are a drag. Once the snowdrops begin to bloom, it's a sign that brighter days will soon be here again!
Other than the day we went to the woods to hunt for flowers, Flynn's had a pretty quiet week. It's the first full week of him being on new meds, so we've been taking it steady, in case he feels funny. I won't stop fretting til he has blood work done & but as far as I can tell, Flynn seems to be tolerating these drugs better than the ones he tried at the end of last year - admittedly, he is currently only on a 1/2 dose, so I think that's helped limit side-effects! The first couple of days were rough - first night he was really agitated, the next, he seemed to be dizzy... but he now appears fairly normal, if a little tired at times (hard to say if that's the medication or his health problem). Anyway, we're just doing as much as Flynn wants really! Today, it's tipping down with rain, so we're having an indoorsy day...
This one appeared as a mixed flock of birds made their way through the forest. This one is showing a typical redstart behavior of fanning its tail.
An orangish band appeared after the sunset in Canberra.
*Note: More pics of Sky and Scenery in my Sky and Scenery Album.
Austria, Burgenland, Reiter's Stud-Farm, Lipizzan or Lipizzaner.
When you think of a Lipizzaner, the image of a white horse automatically appears. This is because Lipizzaner have a snow-white to silver coat colour, which they do not have from birth; about 91% of horses do not get the white colour until they are seven to ten years old.
Like all grey horses, Lipizzaner are born black & more rarely brown or mouse grey. In most foals, only white burin hair proves within the first few weeks that they will one day become white. This phenomenon is caused by a gene mutation that is thousands of years old, the so-called grey gene. One of a hundred Lipizzaner foals born in "Piber" still remains dark or even black.
The name Lipizzaner appeared for the first time in 1786, the "Karster", as it used to be called, takes its name from the "Lipica Stud", the original breeding facility in the former Habsburg monarchy.
The Lipizzaner horses have been one of the most famous horse breeds since the 16th century & they are also sensitive, spirited, courageous, intelligent, loyal & prefer to have just one person around taking care them.
The warm-blooded animals originally come from the Slovenian "Lipica" as robust karst horses. Here & above all in the "West Styrian-Austrian Federal Stud Piber", they are still bred to become first-class riding & competition horses. However, only a few stallions make it to the "Spanische Hofreitschule", the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, exclusively from the West Styrian-Austrian Federal Stud Piber.
Karl Reiter, owner of "Reiter's stud Farm" has within 35 years built up Europe’s largest & leading private Lipizzaner stud farm, he received numerous international & national awards for his successful breed.
The sales price for foals starts from 4.000 € & breeding horse with basic training from 15.000 Euro up in 2016.
👉 One World one Dream,
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The name appears to be derived from a belief that the dried plants repelled fleas or that the plants were poisonous to fleas.
Hoarfrost appeared on the trees here, surprisingly it stayed on for the whole day. Here a grain train heads south 1x2 style on the Marshall Sub near Clara City. Oh yeah, first shot of the year I guess, I'll take it.
There appears to be a good influx of painted ladies this year. It is 10 years since I have seen so many. This is one of a number that over the past couple of days have been basking on the tarmac of the lane.
Classic/Vintage sign along the Desert Cities Highway with classic car to match! Sign is neon and the "water" from the elephants trunk appears to "pour down" during night time hours.
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♡POSE♡
BREAK 214 ROCK SET
Contains 7 singles poses + guitar.
(These items only appear after sitting in the pose.)
Here is some useful information:
All poses are read and modified for your convenience.
- Facial expressions for all poses were obtained with the corresponding head hud.
- Make sure you stop all the huds controlling your hands, otherwise they will replace the bento pose.
- Please be aware that some minor changes to your form may be required to adjust poses.
All poses with accessories were configured with other people's usability in mind. Therefore, all of them come with the objects configured to be rezzed at the time of use.
- No transfer
♡PURCHASE IN-WORLD♡
maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Vanilla%20Sky/178/54/3501
♡PURCHASE ON MARKETPLACE♡
marketplace.secondlife.com/en-US/stores/227049
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- www.facebook.com/breakstoresl
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"Time is like a river in which events take place, a tumultuous river. As soon as something appears it vanishes and in its place there is something else which is already disappearing..."
Thinking about time these last days...
The ultra-diffuse galaxy GAMA 526784 appears as a tenuous patch of light in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This wispy object resides in the constellation Hydra, roughly four billion light-years from Earth. Ultra-diffuse galaxies such as GAMA 526784 have a number of peculiarities. For example, their dark matter content can be either extremely low or extremely high — ultra-diffuse galaxies have been observed with an almost complete lack of dark matter, whereas others consist of almost nothing but dark matter. Another oddity of this class of galaxies is their anomalous abundance of bright globular clusters, something not observed in other types of galaxies.
Hubble captured GAMA 526784 with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), which was installed in 2002 by astronauts during Hubble Servicing Mission 3B. Since then, the instrument has played a pivotal role in some of Hubble’s most impressive scientific results, including capturing the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. The ACS has also photographed Pluto in advance of the New Horizon mission, observed gargantuan gravitational lenses and found fully formed galaxies in the early Universe.
This image comes from a set of Hubble observations designed to shed light on the properties of ultra-diffuse galaxies. Hubble’s keen vision allowed astronomers to study GAMA 526784 in high resolution at ultraviolet wavelengths, helping to gauge the sizes and ages of the compact star-forming regions studding the galaxy.
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. van der Burg; CC BY 4.0
Acknowledgement: L. Shatz
This was taken the other night during our sunset cocktail hour on the terrace. I didn't quite believe my eyes when this cloud formed, but thought it was worth a shot.
It appears to be very difficult to kill off the Pacers. Despite mass withdrawals at the end of last year a number of units look likely to be pressed back into service providing additional capacity whilst social distancing measures are required on public transport.
Although many people were glad to see the back of them this seems to be a sensible decision rather than increasing risk by having overcrowded trains or leaving people standing on the platforms.
Four units worked the 3Z01 ECS from Heaton, where they had been in warm storage, to Newton Heath.
142071 heads 065, 068 and 087 along the Tyne Valley line passing Blaydon signal box.
22nd June 2020.
The King in the North as he appears in Game of Thrones. The torso pattern, armor, belt, skirt, and top of the cape were sculpted out of procreate. The cape and wolf head are modified Brick Warriors. The sword is Brickarms. This was painted by me.
-Photo de reportage/documentaire
-Portrait anonyme
-Mise au point manuelle
-Monochrome avec application du filtre en post-production
-Documentary photography
-Anonymous portrait
-Manual focus
-Monochrome with filter applied in post-production
-Paris, Tuileries, marché de Noël 🎄
Paris, Tuileries, Christmas market 🎄
-De si belles expressions se dégagent de cette femme. Je me suis alors dit que c'était l'occasion de la prendre discrètement en photo.
Droit à l’image :
-Conformément à l’article 9 du Code civil français, toute personne figurant sur cette photo peut demander son retrait. Si vous ne vous reconnaissez pas ou ne souhaitez pas apparaître, contactez-moi en commentaire. Photo publiée à titre artistique uniquement.
-Under French law (Article 9, Civil Code), anyone appearing in this photo can request its removal. If you do not wish to appear, please contact me in the comments. Published for artistic purposes only.
Tous droits réservés ©️
Copyright Louis Ruellan 2025
All rights reserved ©️
Copyright Louis Ruellan 2025
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**** This frame was chosen on Sunday 18th June 2021 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #229. This is my 204th photograph to be selected.
I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 39.441+ Million people who have visited, favorited and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****
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Photograph taken at an altitude of Fifty one metres at 15:54pm on an beautiful summer afternoon on Saturday 17th July 2021, off Woolacombe Road and Broad Walk in a garden in Blackheath, South East London.
Here we see an adult female Eastern Grey Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis), munching on some kitchen scraps.
The Grey (or Gray) squirrel, you either love 'em or you hate 'em. Cute and fluffy little funsters or destructive critters who ruin trees, kill bird chicks and trees and damage our homes... oh and it's their fault we lost our native Red squirrels as well!
OK
I get it and I see both sides of the story of course. For my part, I am a nature, wildlife and landscape photographer who prefers the company of animals and natural beauty to fellow humans who are systematically plundering Mother Earth's resources and killing off her beautiful creatures at an alarming rate! I believe there is a natural order of things, creatures kill other creatures to survive, they adapt to situations and when mankind encroaches on their territory to make a fast buck, those animals sometimes adapt to survive and the order changes. That is the balance of nature which is ever changing and affected by us..... the dumbest of the great apes.
Some species are driven out by others, some may be destined to become extinct, the fittest will survive, and sometime a species will need intervention and help from mankind in order to survive... usually as a direct consequence of mankind's own actions in destroying the animal kingdom's natural habitat of course.
I adore these little fellas and at almost sixty years old, I never grew up knowing red squirrels at all. I've seen reds in Scotland and black squirrels in Stanley Park on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada, but in my beloved home country of England I have always known and loved the cute little Greys. They visit my garden and give me hours, days, weeks of happiness and wonderful photographic opportunities, and I see them in Parks and forests all around me, so it's time to offer up an insight into the Grey squirrel, much loved, much hated... a sort of Marmite rodent if you will.
WHAT EXACTLY IS A SQUIRREL?
The word 'Squirrel', was first recorded in 1327 and hails from the Anglo-Norman word 'Esquirel', from old French 'Escurel', which was a reflex for the Latin word 'Sciurus'.The Eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) is also known as the Eastern Grey squirrel or simply grey squirrel depending on the region of the world it is found. It is a tree squirrel, of the squirrel family Sciuridae including over one hundred arboreal species native to all continents of the world other than Antarctica and Oceania. Tree squirrels live mostly in trees, apart from the flying squirrel. The best known genus is Sciurus, containing most of the bushy tailed squirrels which are found in Europe, North America, temperate Asia as well as central and south America.
The scientific classification for the Eastern Grey is:
KINGDOM: ANIMALIA PHYLUM: CHORDATA CLASS: MAMMALIA ORDER: RODENTIA FAMILY: SCIURIDAE GENUS: SCIURUS SUBGENUS: SCIURUS SPECIES: SCIURUS CAROLINENSIS
They were first noted by German naturalist, botanist, entomologist, herpetologist, and malacologist - Johann Friedrich Gmelin in 1788.
A mammal and rodent, predominantly herbivorous they are none the less an omnivore with a life span of between two and ten years. They can grow to 70cm in length and weigh up to 8kg. There are more than two hundred and sixty species of worldwide squirrel, the smallest being the African pygmy squirrel at just 10cm in length, whereas the Indian giant squirrel is three feet long! The oldest fossil of a squirrel, Hesperopetes, dates back to the late Eocene epoch period Chadronian period of 40-35 million years ago. The tree squirrels rotate their ankles by 180 degrees, so that the hind paws pointy backwards gripping tree bark which enables them to descend a tree headfirst.
Originally native to Eastern and Midwestern United States of America, they were first introduced into the United Kingdom in 1876 in Henbury Park, Macclesfield in Cheshire when Victorian banker Thomas V. Brocklehurst released a pair of Greys that he brought back from a business trip to America after their attraction as pets had waned. Victorians had a penchant for collecting exotic animals and birds of the world, but trends came and went and subsequently animals were simply discarded into the wilderness. There are early records of greys released near Denbighshire in north Wales from private collections. Later introduced to several regions in the UK, they quickly settled and spread, colonizing an area of three hundred miles in a quarter of a century between Argyll and Stirlingshire in Scotland.
Introductions of the Greys between 1902 and 1929 (the year of the last recorded introduction), included: Regent’s Park in London, Berkshire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Oxfordshire, Devon, Warwickshire, Nottinghamshire, Suffolk and Hampshire. Grey Squirrels spread into Gloucestershire and eastern Wiltshire with animals coming directly from the United States or from Woburn. One hundred greys were released in Richmond Park in Surrey in 1902, Ninety one into Regent’s Park between 1905 and 1907 and a further ten New Jersey imported greys were introduced into Woburn Park in Bedfordshire.
Predators include hawks, weasels, raccoons, bobcats, foxes, domestic and feral cats, snakes, owls, and dogs, African harrier-hawks in Africa and... oh yes, Mankind pretty much everywhere who despise, mistreat, cull or eat it .
FACTS, MYTHS AND THAT POXY PARAPOX!
The massive decline in native red squirrels blamed upon the spread of the invasive greys has always been perhaps a little harsh as reds were already in a steep decline due to loss of habitat and disease and thus the greys simply took over the areas where the reds were dwindling. It's also a fact that reds were also seen as a plague, branded as pests who killed birds and damaged trees and the culling of reds almost brought them to the brink of extinction. Licenses to kill reds could still be obtained up until the seventies!
Reds suffered at the hands of mankind thanks to a combination of agricultural deforestation also linked with war and fuel needs which caused extinction in Southern Scotland and Ireland by the early eighteenth century, way before greys had been introduced. Harsh winters killed off the less hardy red population in the early nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Greys are more adept at finding food and adapting to locations and environments, but also carry the squirrel poxvirus (SQPV) which although not particularly harmful to them, is a serious infection for the reds.
Parapox in red squirrels causes swollen lesions around the mouth, eyes, ears and nose also the front paws and sometimes genitals and skin ulcers and kills a red within fifteen days. There is no definitive correlation between the spread of the virus and the spread of the Greys, it actually arrived in several areas before the greys began to colonize there. An epidemic virus was observed in Red squirrels from at least 1900 with isolation attempts failing, and the first case of Parapox in the UK was in 1980 in the county of Norfolk. Greys cannot transmit the virus to reds via saliva or faeces, but reds can between each other from bodily secretions and at animal feeders in gardens. The transmission from greys to reds is though to come from parasites. Eight to ten per cent of reds survive the virus, and there is some evidence that reds are slowly building an evolved resistance.
Greys are seen as pests to forest land, stripping bark from trees during May and June, and are also capable of destroying household bins, water pipes, causing roof damage not to mention taking eggs and killing young chicks of ground nesting and songbird populations. They also take from bird feeders and there is a whole industry for creating squirrel proof feeders these days.
THE CULLING OF GREY SQUIRRELS
Grey squirrels have limited legal protection and can be legally controlled all year round by a variety of methods including shooting and trapping. Methods of trapping and killing include Drey poking and shooting, Tunnel trapping using spring traps set in accordance with BASC’s trapping pest mammals code of practice. They can also be shot using a shotgun or powerful air rifle or up until September 30th 2014 poisoned by Warfarin (Now outlawed).
Whilst professional trapping and extermination is hopefully done as humanely as possible, there have been cases, many of them where cost savings have been gained by battering the squirrels to death! Grey squirrels are trapped in ghastly metal contraptions for hours and hours, wearing themselves out frantically trying to escape by gnawing at the metals bars. They bite the floor and scratch at them with their claws and do not get a moments peace or rest through absolute fear. Once the traps are retrieved, each squirrel, terrified will be thrown into a sack and smacked on the head countless times with a blunt instrument. When a mother is slaughtered, her babies who are totally dependent on her, will die a slow death of thirst and starvation.
There is an argument for the control of Greys on many grounds but also a counter argument that Culling does not work, and has not on countless times where, once a population of greys have been culled, the nearest group will move back in and claim the land. The university of Bristol concluded that there was little evidence that culling greys to save red squirrels was effective, and that perhaps finding a way of boosting red squirrel immunity to the poxvirus or planting areas of yew trees where reds are known to thrive and spending money on research into positive moves might be a better option.
In Ireland, the re-introduction of the Pine marten, a species made extinct originally by the very same land owners who also wish to do the same to the grey squirrel, has seen the rapid demise of the grey and the re-introduction of the native reds. Red squirrels are smaller and more nimble than their grey counterparts, and as such can get to the very ends of tree branches where neither the pine martins, nor more importantly the heavier greys can, thus surviving and thriving. As a result in Ireland, the grey squirrel population has crashed in approximately 9,000 km2 of its former range and the reds has become common once more after a thirty year absence... oh and Pine Martens are protected again!
In Scotland, Pine Martens exist in areas where Red squirrels thrive, and greys do not. So perhaps there is a lesson here, as in England where there are no pine martens, the greys are prolific breeders. So there is an argument against the barbarity of shooting and poisoning greys, and if, as so many believe, the greys MUST be controlled, how about a more humane and natural method that nature intended.. with re-introduction of predators. Just a thought!
So a few facts and figures on the greys and to wrap up, from a purely personal perspective I love these little guys, as I do almost every creature in nature other than those eight legged beasties that shall not be named and for which I have a deep and powerful phobia that borders on paranoia!
I could no more harm an animal deliberately than eat a McDonald's McRib (Once saw how they are made and let me just say... eeeuuuuuwwwww!!).
They are small, cute, cuddly, furry, they photograph beautifully, have great personality and make me smile. They trust me enough to take food from my hand in parks, and I can't bare the though of ugly, hairy land owners sticking a shotgun in their face and blowing them away! I appreciate they can be a pest, a problem, a menace, that their PR managers might have a bit of a problem winning you over when they flay small chicks alive on your lawn or decimate the songbird population by stealing their eggs.... and perhaps there is a need to keep the population under control and try and re-establish the red population.....
Yep I get that....
I just hope we can solve the problem more humanely to create a peaceful coexistence of the reds and greys in different areas. A man can dream can't he.
Paul Williams June 18th 2021
©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams).
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Nikon D850 Focal length: 600mm Shutter speed: 1/400s Aperture: f/8.0 iso400 Hand held with Tamron VC Vibration control set to ON (Position 1) 14 Bit uncompressed RAW NEF file size L (8256 x 5504 pixels) FX (36 x 24) Focus mode: AF-C AF-Area mode: 3D-tracking AF-C Priority Selection: Release. Nikon Back button focusing enabled 3D Tracking watch area: Normal 55 Tracking points Exposure mode: Manual exposure mode Metering mode: Matrix metering White balance on: Auto1 (4860k) Colour space: RGB Picture control: Neutral (Sharpening +2)
Tamron SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD G2. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee SW150 95mm screw in adapter ring. Lee SW150 circular polariser glass filter.Lee SW150 Filters field pouch. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960.Two Nikon EN-EL15a batteries (Priority to battery in Battery grip). Black Rapid Curve Breathe strap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag.
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Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.018 (18/02/20) LF 1.00
HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit Version 1.4.1 (18/02/2020). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit Version 1.6.2 (18/02/2020). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 2.4.5 (18/02/2020). Nikon Transfer 2 Version 2.13.5. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.
UPS cargo flights stopped appearing in our parts with the fleet renewal that now allows them to make non-stop Transeurasian flights. This one was rare exclusion when a freshly delivered 747-8 had to land in ALA because of the technical issues. These were resolved in couple days and seen here, the plane is accelerating for take-off to depart back home.
[UPS 🇺🇸] Boeing 747-8F # N625UP
Almaty Airport (ALA), KZ 🇰🇿
this photo appears on the inside imogen heap's album cover. the album speak for yourself was released today (july 18th) plug plug. buy it here: immi's site amazon its also available on iTunes but if you get it form there you don't benefit from all the wonderful cover art! immi (her flickr member page) found me on flickr after finding this image of saint pauls and millennium bridge also on the same day i took this shot i also took this photo of immi that is my most popular photo and one of my personal favs as well its the one of the girl on the bike with the red coat. this one of the very few digital images i have in my flickr stream don't worry i have not been converted, after getting impressed with the canon EOS 300D i got me a EOS 1 film body (click here for my EOS1 pics) < much prefer the film version!
we did the shot on a very cold February night from about 6pm till 1am it was so cold so much so that i purchased a par of lowerpro photography gloves after very handed , if you live some where cold get a pair!