Dinghy Sailing
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You can just see the pilot as he concentrates to bring this Cessna Citation Longitude in to land at Houston’s West Side Airport. This is a business jet produced by Cessna, part of the Cessna Citation family. The Model 700 made its first flight on October 8, 2016.
Ticino
My best photos are here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/ticino-best-photos-of-southern-...
More TICINO/TESSIN Wildlife Photos (all taken in my garden in Monteggio/Ti, Switzerland): it.lacerta-bilineata.com/ramarro-occidentale-lacerta-bili... (the website exists in ESPAÑOL, FRANÇAIS, ITALIANO, ENGLISH, DEUTSCH)
My latest ANIMAL VIDEO (warning, it's a bit shocking): www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T2-Xszz7FI
ABOUT THE PHOTO:
The photo above was taken this past May and shows parts of my garden and the surrounding hills just as the sun was setting after a heavy thunderstorm, which is when the light and the colors are at their most intense, most magical; it was one of those rare moments that usually only last for a few minutes (sometimes not even that), and you have to be quick to capture them.
The reason I like the photo quite a bit is that it shows a side of my country that is far less known to the people abroad than our snowy mountains and green meadows with friendly cows or the glitz of St. Moritz, Zermatt and Zurich: it shows you "my" tropical Switzerland 😊.
And the thing is, the spot in Ticino where I'm fortunate enough to own a vacation home - a tiny, 400-year old stone building only 70 meters from the Italian border - doesn't just look like it lies in the tropics: it actually sort of does, at least during the summer months.
With temperatures frequently in the mid 30s (Celsius) and a level of humidity that is high enough to make you break out in a sweat the second you leave the house, the micro-climate is not that dissimilar from what you might find in a rain forest.
The air can grow so heavy that people unaccustomed to it might feel like they have a hard time breathing (when friends of mine who originally are from Brazil visited me for a couple of days during a particularly hot period, even they struggled and told me they felt as if they were inhaling steam).
On the plus-side, this tropical micro-climate allows the people in our village to grow lemons, peaches, figs and kiwi fruits in addition to the more traditional apricots, grapes apples and cherries, and even palm trees like the one in this photo are a very common sight throughout the region.
Luckily our houses are traditionally built in a way to keep out the heat even during the hottest months, so the few remaining permanent residents of the village (around 40 people most of whom are over the age of sixty), find soothing cool as soon as they enter the thick stone walls of their homes.
The village itself is built on a rock that is surrounded by dense chestnut forest on all sides that stretches on until the horizon, only interrupted every now and then by a village, a vineyard or a small stream in a valley with a few fields.
So it's hardly a surprise that this tiny tropical paradise is a place where a great variety of beautiful insects, snakes and colorful lizards (that most people probably wouldn't immediately associate with typical Swiss fauna either) feel very much at home, and I feel incredibly blessed that I need only step outside and enter my garden to capture it with my camera 😊.
In case people are interested I might upload a photo that shows a bit more of our village one day, but for now I'll continue to stick with my beloved "creepy crawlies" (as some of my friends here jokingly refer to them) and continue to concentrate on nature, wildlife and landscape photos. 😉
I hope you like the photo and wish you all a wonderful weekend! Many greetings from Switzerland, and as always: let me know what you think in the comments 🙏 😊 ❤!
P.S. This is probably going to be my last upload in 2022, so HAPPY HOLIDAYS everyone!! 🎄💕🎉😃!!
Nei giorni di nebbia puoi smettere per un attimo di guardare, puoi respirare, ed ascoltare… chiudi gli occhi e concentrati sulle tue sensazioni, perchè anche un giorno di nebbia non è per caso.
(Stephen Littleword)
On foggy days you can stop watching for a moment, you can breathe, and listen ... close your eyes and concentrate on your feelings, because even a foggy day is not by chance.
(Stephen Littleword)
I spent some time today witnessing one of the most remarkable waterfowl sights in the whole world. Somewhere between 10,000 - 15,000 tundra swans are staging right here in the Upper Mississippi River before heading east to Chesapeake Bay for the winter. I took video footage on my smartphone to add some sound, which is sensational, but then I wasn't smart enough to get it on Flickr. Sorry.
Little Egret (Egretta garzetta)
Seen in the Werribee River Park at Werribee South in March last year.
I was concentrating so hard in trying to isolate a few of the very vivid yellow rapeseed stalks that I did not see the fly and the fact that a lot of unseen micro activity was happening around the flowers of the rapeseed. They certainly bring striking colour to the countryside.
White-faced Heron (Egretta novaehollandiae)
I'm not sure what this one was concentrating on. From 20
It is very hard to concentrate on Eaglefest with all these distractions, just because I'm not looking for other species a variety keep popping up in front of me...crazy in such a good way... not complaining :))
So many times I see these small woodpeckers and I try to remember which is the Downy Woodpecker and which is the Hairy Woodpecker. They are so similar at first glance. So I bought a really good bird book to help me identify the birds that will be returning to our area soon. The book is beautiful to browse through and it has me excited for the new birding season. I found out that this guy is the Downy Woodpecker. I will concentrate on trying to spot the two main differences to tell them apart. This guy has a shorter beak than the Hairy. Plus, the Downy has these black spots on the white tail feathers which you can just tell on the one image.
This brings me to my next goal in photography. I just deleted about 500 images from my photo stream this week. I will get rid of more. My work has changed and it has even improved over the years I have been on Flickr so there are images I do not need to keep online anymore. There are many I can even improve with better editing techniques I have learned and then I can replace those old images with newly edited images. My bird album is one of the first albums I will reorganize, I do not want to just collect bird images. I want to try for better bird images. I admire all the wildlife photographers on Flickr. I am not as dedicated to capturing all the amazing images they take. This is a simple practice for me to get to know my camera better and to try to keep improving while learning more about the world around me. Happy Wing Wednesday!
The 173,000 heliostats of the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility concentrate sunlight onto three towers containing boilers to generate steam for electricity in California near the Nevada border.
They are active during the day and at night. They are most often seen basking on rocks, stumps, or brush. During the day, they hunt among plants at the water's edge, looking for small fish, frogs, worms, leeches, crayfish, salamanders, small birds and mammals. At night, they concentrate on minnows and other small fish sleeping in shallow water.
Northern Water snake (Nerodia sipedon) spotted at Wildwood Nature Preserve, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Gasteruptiid Wasp (family Gasteruptiidae (subfamily Gasteruptiinae)) female
Usually these Wasps will fly off if I get within five feet of them. This Lady, however, was so engrossed she allowed me to get in very close for a number of shots. I chose this one for today for the Eyes of March Two group.
Happy Eyes of March!
Rework of an old shot from 2011.
The sea was extremely rough and the skipper of the catamaran had his hands full at times.
Knysna
Western Cape Province
South Africa
Met this squirrel today. Unfortunately I had only 50.0 mm lens... It was impossible to get closer.
PS. One more photo in the comments!!!