View allAll Photos Tagged Expecting
If you don't see me happy, you probably should know that's because I expect too much from you, and I want too much from you.
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And I am really sorry guys for that I haven't got a chance to visit you back!
The beaver has been extinct in the UK since the 16th century, however up and down the land there are now numerous reintroduction projects. Apart from the wish to see the introduction of a large mammal back into our countryside there are now strong arguments that the beaver through its dam creation will help transform many of our smaller rivers. It is expected that by building the dams the flow of water will reduce after heavy rain and therefore gradually release the run off rather than produce the deluge we often see. Of course dam creation creates ponds and floodplains which in turn will have a knock on effect on the environment. There is one such designated release area not too far from me but I have yet to see the star attractions.
This photo was taken on our recent American trip in Oregon close to the coast at Barview which is just north of Tillamook. I should have expected we might have struck lucky as Oregon is known as the "Beaver State".
I had spotted somewhere to photograph a heritage diesel service and whilst I waited the beaver appeared. Alas I only had my standard lens to hand. The diesel passed, I got my shot and returned to the car to grab my long lens. This time Shirley accompanied me and for once was pleased I had stopped for a railway photograph. Thankfully it was quite active and reappeared a couple more times. Clearly it was an industrious individual.
Southern Utah has an incredible diversity in geography, geology, and nature. So, when traveling on a road called Hells Backbone Ridge, it's entirely expected to see some harsh, rugged scenes, despite the fact that much of the road traverses the beautifully lush and verdant Dixie National Forest.
At, just about 8,900' of elevation the Hells Backbone Bridge straddles a steep canyon of the Box-Death Hollow Wilderness. By comparison to the forests along the slopes of Boulder Mountain, this area is exposed to the elements, which range from 100°F days like this, in early June to blistering cold, windy, unforgiving days in winter. The trees, therefore, are exceptionally hardy, growing in twisted shapes to withstand the extreme elements.
This specimen probably survived several decades before succumbing to a lightning strike, I suppose. There was no sign of the broader destruction one would equate with a greater forest fire nearby. Despite a violent end, it's clear that survival in this realm requires a level of resilience much different from most of the world. Hell's Backbone, indeed!
Select Fine Art prints of this and other images can be purchased at bit.ly/ProPeak
last Saturday I got a call from my cousin, telling me that I am going to be a godfather of their first child. I was thrilled. Later in the afternoon, I came by to her home. Took a photo as a remembrance of my 4th godchild... (no gender yet, the couple prefers it to be a surprise)
sorry guys been busy lately... i'll visit your streams soon..
The skies looked pretty innocent when I headed out to the local road end. When I got there the wind was howling and the skies were spitting rain. I had to touch up the photo a bit to remove some rain drops. The best photos seem to come when you least expect it.
IMG_4861a
After 10 days of gloomy weather I expected more of the same on the first day of my weekend, Fri 4.24, however it turned out to be a spectacular day. As luck would have it I had chores to do and wouldn’t be able to get out for any pictures until Saturday. Looking at the weather forecasts it appeared I might be in luck as my weather app was showing another day of clear skies. As it turns out that is exactly what happened. After waking up and finishing up my final chores and did some checking and discovered the south freight out of Fairbanks was running very late. The train was re-crewed at Hurricane, MP 281.4, and had departed at 0830. It was currently 0915 and my goal was to catch the train at MP 206.4 as they emerged from the woods with Denali standing tall in the background. I live in South Anchorage, roughly at MP 105, so I needed to go north 101 miles before the freight traveled the 76 miles south to arrive at the same destination. By the time I left my house it was 0920. It was a calculated risk but I was fairly confident I could beat the train here. I also knew the train had to traverse a few slow orders so that was in my favor. Luck was on my side, but just barely, I arrived at my desired location at 1100 and the train rolled past at 1105. Pretty good timing I say. As this was the only train on the system, I headed for home. Of course that was the same direction the train was heading so I was able to capture a few more shots along the way. This shot shows Denali and Hunter with the train. Earlier I posted a shot with just Denali and the train. I think I like this shot a bit better. At 20’308 tall Denali stands tall and dominates the background.in either view.
Nothing expected, free of anticipation some things just fit together. Pictures of the view from the window turned into exposures of the light available from inside and out and then my old worn and loved Tarot box went to centre stage and took a bow. Some how some thing happened all at once and together in unison.
The Tarot cards within the box are two versions of, “The Smith–Waite,” or, “Rider–Waite–Smith,” or, “Waite–Smith Deck.” Originally and for decades Artist Pamela Colman Smith was not mentioned in the name of the deck, but the publishing company Rider was often mentioned when it was sold as the, “Rider Waite Deck,” and Rider continued to be a part of the name for the book and cards long after Rider were not publishing them. This box is for, “The, Original Rider Waite,” is no longer in production. The other deck, along with, “The Original Smith–Waite,” still in the box, is, “The Universal Waite,” that should be titled, “The Universal Smith-Waite,” and is recoloured by Mary Hanson-Roberts.
Underneath the top coat of green paint the original lettering and the image of the Major Arcana card numbered XIV that of Temperance, particularly the folds in the Angel’s robes can be seen. The 30 years age of this box is nothing in long historic roots of Tarot. It carries memories for me holds two decks with two artists showing the figures of European Tarot in a form modernised and expanded with a newly devised pictorial Minor Arcana. In 1909 the publisher Rider released, “The Key to the Tarot,” and in 1910 a revised version was retitled as, “The Pictorial Key to the Tarot,” by A.E. Waite. The name, “Rider Waite,” was used to describe the 78 cards and the books and various booklets both to accompany the cards and also sold separately. To acknowledge the artist who recast several of the Major Arcana and made 56 original versions of the Minor Arcana the publishing phenomenon with over 100 million copies is often now referred to as, “The Smith-Waite Deck.”
© PHH Sykes 2023
phhsykes@gmail.com
“Today, more than 100 million copies of the Rider-Waite-Smith Deck are in circulation in over 20 countries, making it the most popular Tarot deck ever made. As we set forth to recover lost histories and systematic erasures of women’s intellect and labor, this exhibition provides an essential piece of the puzzle.”
Ray, Sharmistha, Hyperallergic, 23 March 2019, “Reviving a Forgotten Artist of the Occult.”.
hyperallergic.com/490918/pamela-colman-smith-pratt-instit...
Hyperallergic is a forum for serious, playful, and radical thinking about art in the world today.
The Boyz welcomes Yasmin!
I forgot to update my photoshoot of my boyz. Ill take more photos soon!
This Tuesday, ill be expecting 2 Boyz from Ebay. Excited! Their old but its good!
“A espera de um filho é a sensação mais sublime que podemos sentir, desde sua geração no ventre, um grande amor brota no coração dos seus pais, é o mais verdadeiro dos sentimentos, é algo instintivo e natural que transforma para sempre a vida de um casal, pois a partir desse momento, o seu filho se torna o seu céu, seu mundo, seu tudo ."
♥
#nossobaby #amormaior #ribecca
Thought I might have caught this clean pair in the Otira valley for a few shots, but here he is already at Jacksons.
29 November 2019, Train 841, DXC 5241-5379 crossing the Taramakau River at Jacksons, Midland-NZ
Expect to have hope rekindled. Expect your prayers to be answered in wondrous ways. The dry seasons in life do not last. The spring rains will come again.
Expecting the Saint Paul Turn to make their usual late morning arrival, turns out it was a DDG train first. They must have been told to wait at Hopkins until this train passed, so they were way later than usual getting to St Paul. At least the ACe was leading.
It has often been said about the weather in Iceland: just wait 5 minutes and it will change.
A small sailboat in Eyjafjörður, N-Iceland
I got up early today and drove to Lewiston, ME expecting to photograph hot air balloons but that never happened as rain was expected. Very briefly the sun shown through some clouds and this is the result. There are several large mills in Lewiston that have not been occupied since the 1950's or so. The one here has been repurposed to be used for businesses. The out of place apartment building was built about 20 years ago I was told by a former resident.
For my friend NatuurfotoRien/Rien in Holland, who loves corvids.
I had this odd notion that when I retire I would carve a totem pole, and so over the years, I learned more and more about northwest coast art, culture, and carving. One of the pieces I studied was this - a huge cedar sculpture carved by the great sculptor, Bill Reid, to whom the telling of this ancient story is credited.
Bill Reid was a Haida indian (Haida is their word for “human”). The Haida tribe lives in the Queen Charlotte Islands off the coast of northern Canada (below Alaska), in a special place they call Haida Gwaii. Bill is widely credited for reviving the arts of the northwest coast - he was an amazing sculptor. I am disappointed I will never meet him.
The northwest coast tribes have many gods - all animals. Raven is the Haida equivalent of “fox”. Tricky, playful, smart, inquisitive - these are all qualities of Raven, whose play and trickery created the stars in the sky, the sun, the ocean and man.
The man-size (literally) sculpture is inside the University of British Columbia museum in Vancouver, Canada. When it was installed, Bill had the children of Haida Gwaii come to the installation - each with bottles of sand from the beach at Haida Gwaii, so Raven, could be installed in his native soil.
Here is his telling of their genesis myth - one of the most sacred stories in Haida culture:
The Story of the Raven Creating Man by Bill Reid
The great flood which had covered the earth for so long had receded, and even the thin strip of sand now called Rose Spit, stretching north from Naikun village lay dry. The Raven had flown there to gorge himself on the delicacies left by the receding water, so for once he wasn't hungry. But his other appetites - lust, curiosity and the unquenchable itch to meddle and provoke things, to play tricks on the world and its creatures - these remained unsatisfied.
He had recently stolen the light from the old man who kept it hidden in a box in his house in the middle of the darkness, and had scattered it throughout the sky. The new light spattered the night with stars and waxed and wane in the shape of the moon. And it dazzled the day with a single bright shining which lit up the long beach that curved from the spit beneath Raven's feet westward as far as Tao Hill. Pretty as it was, it looked lifeless and so to the Raven quite boring. He gave a great sigh, crossed his wings behind his back and walked along the sand, his shiny head cocked, his sharp eyes and ears alert for any unusual sight or sound. Then taking to the air, he called petulantly out to the empty sky. To his delight, he heard an answering cry - or to describe it more closely, a muffled squeak.
At first he saw nothing, but as he scanned the beach again, a white flash caught his eye, and when he landed he found at his feet, buried in the sand, a gigantic clamshell. When he looked more closely still, he saw that the shell was full of little creatures cowering in terror of his enormous shadow.
Well, here was something to break the monotony of his day. But nothing was going to happen as long as the tiny things stayed in the shell, and they certainly weren't coming out in their present terrified state. So the Raven leaned his great head close to the shell, and with the smooth trickster's tongue that had got him into and out of so many misadventures during his troubled and troublesome existence, he coaxed and cajoled and coerced the little creatures to come out and play in his wonderful, shiny new world. As you know the Raven speaks in two voices, one harsh and strident, and the other, which he used now, a seductive bell-like croon which seems to come from the depths of the sea, or out of the cave where the winds are born. It is an irresistible sound, one of the loveliest sounds in the world. So it wasn't long before one and then another of the little shell-dwellers timidly emerged. Some of them immediately scurried back when they saw the immensity of the sea and the sky, and the overwhelming blackness of the Raven. But eventually curiosity overcame caution and all of them had crept or scrambled out. Very strange creatures they were: two-legged like the Raven, but there the resemblance ended. They had no glossy feathers, no thrusting beak. Their skin was pale, and they were naked except for the long black hair on their round, flat-featured heads. Instead of strong wings, they had thin stick-like appendages that waved, and fluttered constantly. They were the original Haidas, the first humans.
For a long time the Raven amused himself with his new playthings, watching them as they explored their much expanded-world. Sometimes they helped one another in their new discoveries. Just as often, they squabbled over some novelty they found on the beach. And the Raven taught them some clever tricks, at which they proved remarkably adept. But the Raven's attention span was brief, and he grew tired of his small companions. For one thing, they were all males. He had looked up and down the beach for female creatures, hoping to make the game more interesting, but females were nowhere to be found. He was about to shove the now tired, demanding and quite annoying little creatures back into their shell and forget about them when suddenly - as happens so often with the Raven - he had an idea.
He picked up the men, and in spite of their struggles and cries of fright he put them on his broad back, where they hid themselves among his feathers. Then the Raven spread his wings and flew to North Island. the tide was low, and the rocks, as he had expected, were covered with those large but soft-lipped molluscs known as red chitons. The Raven shook himself gently, and the men slid down his back to the sand. The he flew to the rock and with his strong beak pried a chiton from its surface.
Now, if any of you have ever examined the underside of a chiton, you may begin to understand what the Raven had in his libidinous, devious mind. He threw back his head and flung the chiton at the nearest of the men. His aim was as unerring as only a great magician's can be, and the chiton found its mark in the delicate groin of the startled, shell-born creature. There the chiton attached itself firmly. Then as sudden as spray hitting the rocks from a breaking wave, a shower of chitons broke over the wide-eyed humans, as each of the open-mouthed shellfish flew inexorably to its target.
Nothing quite like this had ever happened to the men. They had never dreamed of such a thing during their long stay in the clamshell. They were astounded, embarrassed, confused by a rush of new emotions and sensations. They shuffled and squirmed, uncertain whether it was pleasure or pain they were experiencing. They threw themselves down on the beach, where a great storm seemed to break over them, followed just as suddenly by a profound calm. One by one the chitons dropped off. The men staggered to their feet and headed slowly down the beach, followed by the raucous laughter of the Raven, echoing all the way to the great island to the north which we now call Prince of Wales.
That first troop of male humans soon disappeared behind the nearest headland, passing out of the games of the Raven and the story of humankind. Whether they found their way back to the shell, or lived out their lives elsewhere, or perished in the strange environment in which they found themselves, nobody remembers, and perhaps nobody cares. They had played their roles and gone their way.
Meanwhile the chitons had made their way back to the rock, where they attached themselves as before. But they too had been changed. As high tide followed low and the great storms of winter gave way to the softer rains and warm sun of spring, the chitons grew and grew, many times larger than their kind had ever been before. Their jointed shells seemed about to fly apart from the enormous pressure within them. And one day a huge wave swept over the rock, tore them from their footholds and carried them back to the beach. As the water receded and the warm sun dried the sand, a great stirring began among the chitons. From each emerged a brown skinned, black-haired human. This time there were both males and females among them, and the Raven could begin his greatest game: the one that still goes on.
They were no timid shell-dwellers these, but children of the wild coast, born between the sea and land, challenging the strength of the stormy North Pacific and wresting from it rich livelihood. Their descendants built on its beaches the strong, beautiful homes of the Haidas and embellished them with the powerful heraldic carvings that told of the legendary beginnings of great families, all the heros and heroines and the gallant beasts and monsters who shaped their world and their destinies. For many generations they grew and flourished, built and created, fought and destroyed, living according to the changing seasons and the unchanging rituals of their rich and complex lives.
It's nearly over now. Most of the villages are abandoned, and those which have not entirely vanished lie in ruins. The people who remain are changed. The sea has lost much of its richness, and great areas of land itself lie in waste. Perhaps it's time the Raven started looking for another clamshell.
(Charadrius cucullatus)
Two Tree Point - Bruny Island -Tasmania
Austrália
This was the first species I saw and photographed in Tasmania. I expected to find it, but I was pretty sure it’d be harder to spot.
Our trip from Brisbane to Hobart wasn’t exactly smooth. A few weeks after buying the tickets, I got the lovely message: “Your upcoming flight with Rex has been cancelled as a result of Rex’s Voluntary Administration.”
But hey, at least they offered a free ticket with Virgin Australia. So generous, right?
But, after VA totally "forgot" about me for more than 2 months, I finally managed to get a ticket. The catch? Instead of landing in Hobart around noon, as planned, our new arrival time was 5:10 PM.
Problem: the last ferry to Bruny Island leaves at 7 PM. In theory, we could make it, but only if there were no delays and everything—waiting for luggage, picking up the car—went perfectly smooth.
We thought about changing our Bruny Island dates, but accommodation prices had tripled since I’d booked. So, we decided to take our chances.
Oh, and by the way, when we were at O'Reilly's, someone casually mentioned that 40 minutes was enough to get from the airport to the ferry. Spoiler: it's not.
The flight landed on time, but the luggage took forever. So, I went to pick up the rental car while Nita waited for the bags. Conveniently, when we walked past the rental desk earlier, it was empty. Now? Both employees were busy with customers who seemed in no rush to finish their endless questions and conversations.
With the clock reminding me of my ever-shrinking buffer, I started to stress out. Finally, one employee became available—but, of course, she had to make an urgent phone call. That’s when I stepped in and explained my situation. Thankfully, she was kind enough to prioritize my reservation.
Once we got the car, Google Maps told me the ETA to the ferry was 6:43 PM. Okay, doable—assuming nothing went wrong. Sticking to the speed limit (thanks to cruise control), I resisted the temptation to put the pedal to the metal.
Crossing the Hobart Bridge was... an experience. I was in the center lane, with traffic coming toward me on the other side, separated by absolutely nothing. All I could think about was how one distracted driver in the two lanes on my left could send me flying into oncoming traffic. But hey, all went well.
Honestly, Aussie drivers seem incredibly careful and disciplined—they don’t stray an inch from their lanes. I can only imagine the nightmare it must be for them to drive where I am used to drive!
We got to the ferry exactly at 6:43 PM, as predicted. My wife, who has an intense fear of being stopped at Australian airports for carrying food (fruit is a big no-no), decided this was a great time for me to grab something to eat and drink at the café near the dock. Problem: it closes at 4 PM.
Alright, no worries—we'll just grab something on the island.
When we disembarked, there was a sign that should’ve made us pause: "Next service station: Adventure Bay (40 km)". No big deal, though—that’s exactly where we were headed, and we had plenty of fuel.
The drive was lovely, but not a single café or supermarket was open along the way. We stopped briefly to admire the stunning view at The Neck, then continued on. Once we reached Adventure Bay, we quickly found our accommodation. Feeling optimistic, we decided to head to the service station to grab some food.
But… surprise! No supermarket, no gas station, no café was open. The café/restaurant looked like it might be, but as soon as I tried to open the door, they switched off the lights.
The result? We were going to bed hungry. All we had were two yogurts from the fridge in our accommodation and, thankfully, some coffee. Not exactly the feast we were hoping for!
It was 8 PM, I was starving, and there was still some daylight left. Way too early to head to bed. So, I grabbed my camera and went down to the beach right in front of us. And… to my absolute delight, there it was—a Hooded Plover! The light was fading fast, but who cares? Who knows when I’d spot another one of these again?
Not long after, I saw a second one as well a pair of Pacific Gulls and a Pied Oystercatcher (all lifers for me). Suddenly, hunger? Gone. Completely cured.
Now, full disclosure: I ended up deleting all those photos. But at the time, it felt like an elixir for my empty stomach.
This shot? I took it the next day. Turns out, I’d see these birds every single day. They were super tame and gave us plenty of chances for some great photos.
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All my photos are now organized into sets by the country where they were taken, by taxonomic order, by family, by species (often with just one photo for the rarer ones), and by the date they were taken.
So, you may find:
- All the photos for this trip Austrália (2024) (309)
- All the photos for this order CHARADRIIFORMES (1170)
- All the photos for this family Charadriidae (Caradriídeos) (182)
- All the photos for this species Charadrius cucullatus (5)
- All the photos taken this day 2024/11/21 (23)
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Leaves a lot to ignore.
Dance of the Clairvoyants, P.J.
These lyrics are a good reminder that when we only strive to seek things that are perfect we miss out on so much. Snowflakes are rarely the perfect beauties that we see as Christmas ornaments. But they have so much to offer in their "imperfect" beauty. This heavily rimed plate is quite stunning despite, and maybe even because of, its imperfections.