View allAll Photos Tagged Hapless
So is this a headless crane searching for Ichabod fish??? Or something like that!! Okay!!! He REALLY does have a head and I doubt seriously that the fish is named Ichabod so they are not allowed to switch roles for this tale or should that be tail since the hapless fish will likely be headless is a moment! The legend of Sleepy Bayou....not!! I'm sure the fish will be seeing nothing but black very quickly!! Just a simply kerplunk shot from Horsepen Bayou where this particular Tri-colored Heron was searching the shoreline for any tasty treat that he could snatch from the water! I might add that I often miss these shots because these guys move so erratically and so quickly when they forage like this!
DSL_8333uls
A hapless polio victim struggles to crawl through her routine difficulties in jammu. Pix by jaipal singh
Hapless Grey Heron (Ardea Cinerea) with a broken wing.
Unfortunately most birds don't survive long once they can no longer fly....
United had a large fleet of Bristol FLFs, loosing some in the NBC-SBG vehicle exchange
of the early 1970s and gaining others from fellow NBC companies later in life. It maintained a strong training fleet into the early years of privatisation, with half a dozen Bristol FLFs smartly turned out in the reversed cream with red band livery that had been used on earlier generations of Lodekka trainers.
Given the continued use of this Tilling-style livery, it is surprising that it wasn't applied to the Scarborough sea-front buses in preference to the rather drab NBC green - although it would have been amusing watching intending passenger attempting to board any hapless trainer that strayed onto the seafront.
This fictional image is based on the ex-Thames Valley vehicle that has appeared in other liveries elsewhere in this Flickr collection. Initially published (by request) with red wings and upper red band, I have since returned the livery to the plainer style shown. Whilst United could have converted some FLFs to open-top, it would probably have made economic sense to buy or hire ready made open-toppers from elsewhere (updated 19-Jun-11).
STRICTLY COPYRIGHT: You may download a copy of any image for your personal use, but it would be an offence to remove the copyright information or to post it elsewhere without the express permission of the copyright owner.
He relaxed for about fifteen minutes after consuming the hapless goldfinch. High winds showing off his fine plumage.
(See other pics below)
Thanks for all comments and fave adds.
Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot...
On November 5 every year, the effigy of Guy Fawkes is still burned on bonfires across England in recognition of his part in the failed 'Gunpowder Plot' of 1605.
What makes me wonder is when Fawkes didn't devise or lead the plot to assassinate James I, why is he still singled out as one of British history's greatest villains more than 400 years after his death? Few people get as hapless as Fawkes to be taken to gallows; and few people get as lucky as Fawkes to be remembered through the ages gloriously.
Bonfire night and fireworks in Manchester, England - November 5, 2013.
This horse has been in the family ever since I can remember. He had the name Thunder before I new him. Over the years he played a number of roles for me. He was Trigger or Marshall or Silver for my cowboy days. When we were at the races he could be Sea Biscuit or sometimes the hapless, Feitlebaum. He could be my friend, Flicka or just my pet, Fury. My kids and grandkids have also ridden Thunder A.K.A Black Beauty and My Little Pony. In my old age, I think of him as "Wild Fire". It remains to be seen what names my great grandchildren might bestow on the mighty Thunder.
He has a horsehair mane and tail donated over the years. When I had him he did not have a leather saddle nor a blanket. Those came for my kids along with a fresh coat of paint. He is currently stabled in an alcove upstairs, patiently awaiting his next adventure.
All three photos posted this morning are from my archives. Our forecast is for snow today, so I thought I would post photos with colour.
Almost a year ago, on 24 February 2015, I called in at Fish Creek Park to see if anyone had been able to find the tiny (less than 6" in length) Northern Pygmy-owl(s). I was in luck and, although the light was bad, the little owls put on quite a performance. This included a few things that I had missed on other days, such as perched on a fence post and both owls very briefly sitting on a branch, side by side (got a couple of really bad shots from behind, but I did post one ages ago, just for the record). There were long periods of waiting in between the various bits of activity, so one needs a huge amount of patience : )
This photo was taken shortly before I left the park, after watching and waiting and hoping that this little female would eventually fly down and catch a Meadow Vole. Instead, she simply flew over to a fence post, which in itself was a real treat. I love the background colour from patches of dead leaves still hanging on the bushes.
"Northern Pygmy Owls are 'sit and wait' predators, that hunt mainly by vision, diving down onto prey on the ground and driving the talons into the prey's throat. They will also attack birds in shrubs, crashing into the hapless victims. Most prey is carried off in the feet to feeding sites. Birds are usually plucked before being consumed. They often eat only the brains of birds and the soft abdomen of insects. One of these little owls can carry prey weighing up to 3 times its own weight.
The Northern Pygmy Owl feeds on a wide range of small prey including small mammals, birds, and reptiles and amphibians. Voles make up the bulk of their diet, with birds comprising most of the rest (mainly songbirds, but as large as a California Quail). Other small mammals include shrews, mice, chipmunks, bats, moles, young rabbits, and weasels. Insects may be very important when they are most abundant. Other prey taken are toads, frogs and small lizards and snakes.
During winter, surplus prey is cached in a cavity, often in large quantities. Summer caches are usually much smaller.
Pellets are very small, averaging about 3cm long. They are formed only occasionally as these owls don't consume large amounts of fur, feathers, or bone. The pellets tend to fall apart shortly after ejection." From OwlPages.
A stunning male Golden-ringed Dragonfly (Cordulegaster boltonii) in my next door woods. These are one of our largest UK dragonflies and he had probably stopped to devour some hapless insect prey.
1&2 Brig o'Doon, 3&4 Burns Monument and 5.Auld Kirk Alloway.
The Auld Kirk Alloway and Brig o'Doon were chosen by Scottish Poet Robet Burns for the setting for his famous tale of the hapless Tam O'Shanter.
Who on his way home from the pub ,on his horse Meg ,encounters a Satanic ritual in the ruins of the old haunted Kirk.
Tam is saved from the devilish host of Witches and Warlocks by his horse, Meg. In a great effort, Meg leaps to safety of the Key-Stone of the brige, where the Witches cannot follow(as they cannot cross running water).
However, Nan, the swiftest witch grabs her tail as she leaps and poor Meg is left with just a stump...
Black-eared Cuckoo being fed by one of it's hapless 'parent' birds, the much smaller Redshank.
Cuckoos are well known as a brood parasite: females lay their eggs in the nests of smaller birds, and their hapless "hosts" raise only young cuckoos.
This photo was taken in the Australian Arid Lands Botanic Garden at Port Augusta, South Australia.
If there was ever any doubt whether or not there was actual life within those gray oval shapes we sometimes find hanging on leaves, here's the answer.
Parasitic Meteorus Wasp larvae prey upon caterpillars...like this hapless White-streaked Prominent, who's desiccated remains lie nearby.
The pupating wasp can be seen squirming within the cocoon.
That sound you hear in the background is the steady rain from an approaching front...so unfortunately, I had to cut this video short of an actual emergence.
Catoctin Mountains
Frederick County, Maryland
September 30, 2015
This web gleaming in the sun outside my kitchen window caught my eye and I had to drop everything and go shoot it before the sun moved. I see these webs often, but this is the cleanest shot, unobstructed by branches, leaves, or petioles. This is the web of a Bowl-and-doily Spider. They are common, and if you live in North America you've likely seen them. As I go around a curve down the road in the right season, tens of these are shining, backlit by the sun, constructed high in the dried umbels of Queen Anne's Lace.
These are one of the sheetweb species, the bowl considered to be the sheet. The vertical lines above the bowl aren't sticky and are there to knock flying insects down into the bowl. You can actually see the tiny spider there, clinging to the underside of the bowl in her typical resting position, waiting for this to happen. When prey gets knocked down, she'll run over to the hapless creature, bite it through the web, then pull it through to consume it. There are suggestions that the "doily" under the bowl is there as a protective barrier from below, but the purpose isn't certain.
The structure of this web is so easily recognizable that you don't need to see the spider to know who made it. But if you want to see the spider, it's in the next post.
24 Arachtober 2025
Bowl-and-doily Spider, Frontinella pyramitela
Tellico Plains, TN • 1 October 2025
…or thank heaven for autofocus!
Aeshna cyanea
She came into my conservatory which was a great mistake as it is a killing field for the spiders who emerged when they became aware of her smashing into their webs and gradually becoming tangled by gossamer. Eventually flying was too difficult and she settled. I have a glass and sheet of paper ever ready to rescue hapless bumble bees and butterflies, but I couldn't see how to catch her without damaging her. So I put my finger close to her and she climbed apparently willingly aboard so I could carry her outside. She wasn't in a hurry but was busy removing as much cobweb as she could, so I grabbed my camera with my spare hand and took a few snaps. In the end, I encouraged her to move to a fence where she stayed a further ten minutes before flying free - a special moment! I think the marks on her face might be bruises from bashing against the windows.
Spooky Postscript - 15.8.2022
Sitting in my garden, at the same spot I brought this dragonfly eleven days earlier to photograph and to allow her to recover, a Southern Hawker flew closely around then settled first on my bare shoulder and then on my bare leg curling her abdomen and touching me with her ovipositor. Could it have been she?
Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot...
On November 5 every year, the effigy of Guy Fawkes is still burned on bonfires across England in recognition of his part in the failed 'Gunpowder Plot' of 1605.
What makes me wonder is when Fawkes didn't devise or lead the plot to assassinate James I, why is he still singled out as one of British history's greatest villains more than 400 years after his death? Few people get as hapless as Fawkes to be taken to gallows; and few people get as lucky as Fawkes to be remembered through the ages gloriously.
Bonfire night and fireworks in Manchester, England - November 5, 2013.
I follow Cryptid a bit, until he led me to a small campfire with two other soldiers sitting around it. he led me over to the one on the north side of the fire, and introduced me. "This is Mackenzie, but we call him 'Klip.' I shook his hand, and told him my name. I told him a bit about myself, being overwatch and all. Then, out of the blue, the other soldier piped up, rather resentfully, "What are you, some damned super-soldier? The perfect sniper, eh?"
A haunted look must have come to my eyes; I could see it reflected in the gaze of the kid, Klip. "No, I'm not perfect, or even close," I responded. Klip softly asked me to continue. So, I did.
"I wasn't that much of an excellent shot, up through a few years ago. I was still fresh meat then, near the beginnings of the war. I was responsible for covering my unit in a rather ugly section of a city. Twenty-three men had their lives depending on me to keep them covered, and to give them warning of any attacks. I stopped looking for a brief moment, and by the time I looked back, the screams had begun. The Urags had been laying in wait, for a hapless unit of Earthlings to slaughter. Twenty three men, who died because of my carelessness. I should have seen the signs, should have warned them. Ever since then, I have dedicated myself to being the best sniper I could be. Many of my exploits are exaggerated, but I can run and gun along with the rest of them."
The group had gone quiet for my tale. There were several moments of tense silence, until the offending soldier whispered, "I'm sorry. I had no idea."
I took it in silence. It hurt, hurt badly that these soldiers can look upon their own allies with resentment, could judge without knowledge. I needed to get out of where I was, needed a change of scenery. So, through some cosmic flip of a coin, a coin scarred and malformed through eons of abuse, I decided to go out on a limb and ask these men whom I did not know, did not know other than the wind in their step and the fire of their guns, to hold my future in their response. "I could join your team, if you'd have me. Sniping isn't all I'm good at."
NPS
The Wright brothers used the Kill Devil Hills area toward the end of their first season on the Outer Banks in the autumn of 1900, following earlier experiments on Lookout Hill just south of the village of Kitty Hawk. Their first season consisted of only two days of work at the Kill Devil Hills site: October 19th, when they decided not to fly because of high winds, and October 20th, when they made several encouraging glider flights. They returned to the Kill Devil Hills site in 1901, this time pitching a tent about 1,000 feet east of the higher hill and building a rough shed to use as a workshop. They returned to the workshop for the 1902 season and, together with Kitty Hawk resident Dan Tate, rebuilt the dilapidated shed, adding an additional 10 feet to use as a quarters. In 1903, when they began their powered experiments, the Wrights made further improvements to the quarters and also built a second frame shed, measuring about 44 by 16 feet, to hold the Flyer and serve as a sheltered work area. Located a few feet west of the camp building, it is clearly indicated in the Wrights' photographs of that year.
The quarters building and the hangar rapidly deteriorated after the departure of the Wright brothers in December 1903. In the spring of 1908, when the Wrights returned to the site to test their modified 1905 Flyer, both buildings needed significant repairs. John Daniels, one of the Kitty Hawk lifesavers who witnessed their earlier flight efforts, warned Wilbur when he arrived at Elizabeth City about the ruined camp buildings and Wilbur purchased new materials for repairs. The sides of both buildings remained, but the roof of the old quarters was missing entirely and the interior was covered with sand. Wilbur hired two "semi-carpenters" to help make repairs and essentially to rebuild the structures. Largely similar to those in place in 1903, the new buildings still differed in minor ways and constituted new structures overall. Orville reused the buildings in 1911, though again with changes. Following the 1911 season, the brothers abandoned the site, and the effects of wind, sand, and weather completely destroyed the buildings. In 1928, when the National Aeronautics Association placed the first commemorative marker at the site of the first flight, little remained of the structures on which to base the location of the first flight takeoff (this was ultimately established by the surviving witnesses). Currently there are reconstructions of these building located in the approximate location based off of the Wrights’ photographs and the takeoff point. - NPS
1903-The First Flight
Since 1899, Wilbur and Orville Wright had been scientifically experimenting with the concepts of flight. They labored in relative obscurity, while the experiments of Samuel Langley of the Smithsonian were followed in the press and underwritten by the War Department. Yet Langley, as others before him, had failed to achieve powered flight. They relied on brute power to keep their theoretically stable machines aloft, sending along a hapless passenger and hoping for the best. It was the Wrights' genius and vision to see that humans would have to fly their machines, that the problems of flight could not be solved from the ground. In Wilbur's words, "It is possible to fly without motors, but not without knowledge and skill." With over a thousand glides from atop Big Kill Devil Hill, the Wrights made themselves the first true pilots. These flying skills were a crucial component of their invention. Before they ever attempted powered flight, the Wright brothers were masters of the air.
Their glider experiments on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, though frustrating at times, had led them down the path of discovery. Through those experiments, they had solved the problem of sustained lift and more importantly they could now control an aircraft while in flight. The brothers felt they were now ready to truly fly. But first, the Wrights had to power their aircraft. Gasoline engine technology had recently advanced to where its use in airplanes was feasible. Unable to find a suitable lightweight commercial engine, the brothers designed their own. It was cruder and less powerful than Samuel Langley's, but the Wrights understood that relatively little power was needed with efficient lifting surfaces and propellers. Such propellers were not available, however. Scant relevant data could be derived from marine propeller theory. Using their air tunnel data, they designed the first efficient airplane propeller, one of their most original and purely scientific achievements.
Returning to their camp at the Kill Devil Hills, they mounted the engine on the new 40-foot, 605-pound Flyer with double tails and elevators. The engine drove two pusher propellers with chains, one crossed to make the props rotate in opposite directions to counteract a twisting tendency in flight. A balky engine and broken propeller shaft slowed them, until they were finally ready on December 14th. In order to decide who would fly first, the brother tossed a coin. Wilbur won the coin toss, but lost his chance to be the first to fly when he oversteered with the elevator after leaving the launching rail. The flyer, climbed too steeply, stalled, and dove into the sand. The first flight would have to wait on repairs.
December 17, 1903
Three days later, they were ready for the second attempt. The 27-mph wind was harder than they would have liked, since their predicted cruising speed was only 30-35 mph. The headwind would slow their groundspeed to a crawl, but they proceeded anyway. With a sheet, they signaled the volunteers from the nearby lifesaving station that they were about to try again. Now it was Orville's turn.
Remembering Wilbur's experience, he positioned himself and tested the controls. The stick that moved the horizontal elevator controlled climb and descent. The cradle that he swung with his hips warped the wings and swung the vertical tails, which in combination turned the machine. A lever controlled the gas flow and airspeed recorder. The controls were simple and few, but Orville knew it would take all his finesse to handle the new and heavier aircraft.
The first flight
At 10:35, he released the restraining wire. The flyer moved down the rail as Wilbur steadied the wings. Just as Orville left the ground, John Daniels from the lifesaving station snapped the shutter on a preset camera, capturing the historic image of the airborne aircraft with Wilbur running alongside. Again, the flyer was unruly, pitching up and down as Orville overcompensated with the controls. But he kept it aloft until it hit the sand about 120 feet from the rail. Into the 27-mph wind, the groundspeed had been 6.8 mph, for a total airspeed of 34 mph. The brothers took turns flying three more times that day, getting a feel for the controls and increasing their distance with each flight. Wilbur's second flight - the fourth and last of the day – was an impressive 852 feet in 59 seconds.
This was the real thing, transcending the powered hops and glides others had achieved. The Wright machine had flown. But it would not fly again; after the last flight it was caught by a gust of wind, rolled over, and damaged beyond easy repair. With their flying season over, the Wrights sent their father a matter-of-fact telegram reporting the modest numbers behind their epochal achievement.
Source: NPS
Here’s a series of characters pulled from the pulpy tropes of 1950s science fiction!
• Bort-Bort, a deadpan robot
• Lois Mills, a hapless All-American Girl
• Chip Fleming, a dashing adventurer
• Toscoob, a malevolent Martian
• Salno, an absentminded Venusian
Which one is your favorite?
Learn more about these characters and their design choices on my blog.
FIRE BURNING IN THE ROW OF SHOP HOUSES IN PULAI CHONDONG, KELANTAN, MALAYSIA
The incident happen on 19.2.2010 around 7.45 pm. The fire was destroyed 17 shops and 4 houses. 3 fire brigade from different location with 3 fire engines came to extinguish the fire burning but hapless, the fire widen outwards annihilate the shops and houses. Sympathize to all the victims.
Allah mengkehendaki kamu beroleh kemudahan dan Dia tidak mengkehendaki kamu menanggung kesusahan. (Surah Al-Baqarah: Ayat 185)
Ini adalah dugaan dariNya,bersabarlah..pasti ada hikmah disebaliknya.Salam dukacita untuk semua warga Pulai Chondong yang terlibat.
We watched this Great Egret stalk and capture this hapless lizard at the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix, AZ. The bird grabbed the lizard right out of the base of a cactus patch with impressive accuracy, and then swallowed it whole while it still wriggled! Kind of amazing, really.
Today's story and sketch by me #1416, is another story about two hapless pedestrians that were abducted from their home Planet, by a dimension portal, and dropped here on this Tropical Volcanic Planet we call Budahunga, In this case it wasn't a planet but a Moon in Dimension 8, the Moon is known as Ringly. It is inhabited by an alien race, of Zombie Clowns. No one knows for sure, but it is believed centuries ago a dimension portal opened on earth, and abducted a group of clowns that were riding an elephant. The inhabitants of Ringly having never seen an elephant, or five of the six clowns, that were abducted from Earth, by a time slash dimension portal. Of course though the five clowns and elephant, were truly something very special, and there entire culture began dressing like clowns. After many years the elephant, named Otis died and was subsequently gold plated, and stands at a prestigious spot in front of the CCS, Clown Clothing Store. As to what happened to Bruno, Clown number six, will have to be a very interesting story for another time, until then Tata the Rod Blog.
Delighted to discover a natives nursery within an hour of my house, I went to go check it out back in July. I do live out in the woods and so have come across many wonderful local plants, but was nevertheless curious as to what they would have. I found a wonderful selection of plants, some of which I see plenty of where I'm at and out and around, but others that I haven't seen, and some that I was unsuccessful at transplanting, so it was nice to be able to buy one already growing well.
I was doubly delighted when I came upon this pretty spider not far into my exploration there, munching on a hapless pollinator. This was only the 7th Green Lynx I've seen, and I was glad I had my camera in the car, which then stayed with me for the rest of my nursery exploration. This is the only one I've found in TN, but I'm glad to know they're here and hope to run across more. The bees do not agree with me.
24 Arachtober 2024
Green Lynx Spider, Peucetia viridans
Overhill Gardens nursery, Vonore, TN • 27 July 2024
This photograph was taken on a rainy day in March 1931, not the kind of day to be messing about trying to replace the wheel of your car especially on the pavement outside Buckingham Palace. The motorist is well supervised by an Inspector and Police Constable from Cannon Row Police Station and several members of the public who, no doubt, are offering words of advice to the hapless motorist. Can anyone identify the car?
A Lilac-breasted roller just taking off from his perpetual perch, a spiny Acacia tree. Rollers were everywhere on the side roads at Etosha NP, Namibia. They like to perch up high in smaller trees so they have a good view of their surroundings --- hoping to catch a hapless insect on the fly (er...no pun intended)
Thanks for viewing and comments are welcome and appreciated.
© Dennis Zaebst All Rights Reserved.
Yawning is infectious. The hapless monk who was the subject of my last two posts, caused one of his brothers standing next to him to yawn too. Funnily enough, looking at the picture makes me yawn as well.
A hapless alien drone.
Just another random fig I've had lying around that I've wanted to post somehow. Luckily the inspiration is really coming for new stuff while I've gotten these together!
Another of my Green Heron friends foraging along the edge of the bayou. Whether it’s dangling from a limb or diving into the water or snagging some hapless suspect out of the grasses, the Green Heron will do whatever it takes to capture it’s next meal. Never a dull moment when these little green characters are on the prowl. Photo taken on Horsepen Bayou.
DSL_2767uls
Today's sequence of pictures show the rather gruesome but fascinating sight of a paradise flying snake consuming a gecko. Firstly the hapless lizard was constricted, then swallowed whole until the snake then slithered off across the beach to find a shady spot out of the way to consume its meal.
Paradise tree snake or paradise flying snake, Chrysopelea paradisi, is a species of snake found in southeastern Asia. It can, like all species of its genus Chrysopelea, glide by stretching the body into a flattened strip using its ribs. It is mostly found in moist forests and can cover a horizontal distance of 10 meters or more in a glide from the top of a tree. Slow motion photography shows an undulation of the snake's body in flight while the head remains relatively stable, suggesting controlled flight. They are mildly venomous with rear fangs and also can constrict their prey, which consists of mostly lizards and bats.
A receding tide still has enough power to send a hapless photographer scrambling for the high ground...
Tripod-mounted & polarised & using a Kood .9 ND grad & triggered by two-second delay which couldn't have made much difference in the stiff breeze.
2020-09-06, Day 2
A deep carpet of red- and golden-tinged dwarf birch and willows lines both sides of the milky blue, glacial waters of Dinwoody Creek as it flows under Ink Wells Bridge, Fitzpatrick Wilderness, Wind River Range, Wyoming.
After saying 'Dinwoody' enough times, I gradually morphed the word into 'Dim Woody', and my hiking partner and I then began to develop the tale of Old Dim Woody whose spirit still roams these parts. Without screens or responsibilities, and with enough time on our hands doing nothing but walking through beautiful country, the mind rapidly unspools into wanton ridiculousness. It seemed likely that Old Dim Woody was a tad fond of his sipping whiskey, and when his spirits were high and besotted, he was prone to bouts of poor decision making. Things only got worse when a neighbor's mare kicked him in the pate one night when the rye was particularly enchanting and he mistook her for a spittoon.
One September after this unfortunate event, an autumn snow-storm blew in when Old Dim Woody was camped at Ink Wells. Sometime during the night his pony became infected with a bit of madness and threatened to break its hobble. The hapless man tried to calm his hoofed companion but to no avail: Dim Woody was never too meticulous about maintenance, and the hobble leather was old and rotted. The pony broke free and headed over the bridge and upstream through the forest at an impressive speed for one with such stubby legs. In fact, its diminutive stature may have helped it avoid some of the boughs already pressed low by the accumulating snow as it heedlessly fled upward toward the headwaters. Pondering the situation for perhaps too-brief a time, Old Dim Woody slapped his battered hat onto his dented head, invigorated his mind with another dram of rye, pushed through the flap of his tent, and began to follow the already-filling tracks of his erstwhile steed.
The tracks wound ever higher and the temperature was cold. Not quite cold enough to tingle and freeze the nose hairs upon the inhale, but cold enough that his toes became numb once the snow that kept knocking into the tops of his boots eventually overwhelmed the capacity of his feet to produce heat. The pony's tracks were faint but continually bore upward, past timberline and toward the giant cirque of peaks that held the glacier that fed the creek. If he stopped for too long, he shivered, sometimes violently. It was difficult to move through the rocks once the snow hid the deep cracks between them. He discovered that the coefficient of static friction between his boots and the icy boulders was perilously low. Once, his foot became tightly wedged between two large, immovable stones and it took him several increasingly panicky minutes to extricate it. The sky was filled with snow and then a surprise clap of thunder sobered him up as waves of kettle-drum sound crashed amongst the ice-clad peaks. The lightning followed immediately and was so bright it lit up the atmosphere. It was like being deep underwater beneath a violent falls under the dazzling sun, bright snow bubbles everywhere and impossible to tell which way was up.
Nobody knows exactly what happened to Old Dim Woody on that fateful night. His empty tent was discovered by some trappers seeking late-season beaver a month or so later. There were fresh pony tracks over the bridge and horse dung inside the tent. The small cache of oats that Old Dim Woody kept in a can near the wood-stove had been raided. They say the moaning wind of the first winter storm is the sound of Dim Woody howling amongst the rocks, looking for tracks and pining for another dram.
These two photos are made by Saskia and I cleaned them up and stiched them..
The Elephant Seals are breeding around Cayucos. It is the most vicious abuse of male power that I could encapsulate in my any statement about Feminine Energy being balanced on this planet once again. As well, am I aware, about the process of nature.
The BIG lumbering, bulbous males are aroused so they find a hapless female, who they thunk and bounce over to and assault if possible.The horror of it all, is that the babies with the mothers or nearby get crushed to death.And there are flattened little bodies squished around and seagulls are ripping into their still warm flesh..
Men are pigs.I am one.So I can say this with total conviction.YET?? We can be lovely as well. right? Saskia?Hello?Say something???
...but I'm getting bigger and bigger every week. These beautiful spiders eat a lot of garden pests as well as a few bees and butterflies. I find her each week in her little corner of the garden waiting patiently for her next hapless victim.
The infamous 4 ghosts from Pac-Man claim another hapless victim.
Posted by Second Life Resident Torley Olmstead. Visit Baku.
Recently my wife, youngest granddaughter and I traveled up to the village of Bayfield in far northern Wisconsin to catch the shuttle boat out to Michigan Island, one of the Apostle Islands. There are two lighthouses on the island, the "old" light (the oldest light in the Apostle Islands) and the "new" light. We enjoyed a nice intimate tour with the volunteer lighthouse keepers and Ranger Fred as we were the only tourists there.
From the National Park Service website: In 1856, a Milwaukee contractor's crew came to the Apostle Islands with instructions to build a lighthouse. Plans originally called for the lighthouse to be built on Long Island, to guide ships to the port of LaPointe, on Madeline Island. However, for reasons that are not completely clear, a Lighthouse Service official ordered a last-minute change of plans, and the lighthouse was built on Michigan Island, instead. Made of rough stone, its exterior walls stuccoed and whitewashed, the new lighthouse combined a small, one-and-a-half-story keeper's dwelling with a low, conical light tower. The light on Michigan Island entered service in the spring of 1857, but was closed after only one year of operation. Evidence suggests that higher authorities in the Lighthouse Service repudiated the rash decision of their field representative, and ordered the hapless contractors to go back and erect a new lighthouse at the planned Long Island location. For more than a decade, the Michigan Island tower sat vacant, and in the harsh Lake Superior climate, it quickly began to deteriorate. In 1869, however, authorities decided that a lighthouse on Michigan Island might actually be useful, so $6000 was appropriated to repair the building and relight the light. The refurbished light was equipped with a three-and-a-half order Fresnel lens.
A cool way to view mine or anyone else's photostream is on fluidr.
Murdúchann for a female and Murdúchu for a male.
County Kerry lies on the Atlantic coast of Ireland and has strong links to the Merrow folk. Stories date back centuries
Merrow penchant for capturing the souls of hapless sailors was spoken of in the nineteenth century Thomas Keightley book of folk tales
Thunnus bay here : maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Thunnus%20Bay/162/93/8
Carrie Fisher had been scheduled to appear at Emerald City Comic Con this year, so I decided to make a Leia tribute for our Brick Nation display. See it there!
We've already seen LEGO tributes showing a demure Princess Leia shoving a floppy disk into some poor hapless droid, but I wanted to reimagine a moment from the original trilogy that really captured Fisher's feisty character!
Character design inspired by Vitreolum.
Overall concept inspired by Sideshow Collectibles.
It is not unusual to see Belted Kingfishers on my regular lake paddles, they often seemingly acting as guides by flying in intervals just ahead of me from branch to overhanging branch. But over the years I've learned not to even bother to pick up my camera since they always depart just as I approach, their familiar bell-like call filling the air.
Yesterday was a glorious autumn day, brisk and sunny with the lake loudly calling and finding me more than responsive. While cruising along, I heard a splash close behind me and spotted this guy/gal/thing emerge from its dive, fish in beak. It landed on this branch close enough for me to observe his dining methodology which included slapping the small, hapless fish back and forth on the branch. I was surprised in that I don't think I've seen them this late in the year before, and over the years, I think I've only seen two actually dive into the water. Also surprising was the fact that it didn't take off on my approach, actually allowing me time to get my camera. You can see from the two shots, he hasn't moved but the slight change in perspective is from my canoe drifting toward him. You can also barely see (imagination helps) the fish.
Hardly great photos by any stretch, they document an event I never expected to capture, and one of those few times I wished for a better camera.
Jack was busy on Horsepen Bayou while I lingered near Bay Area Park attempting to make something out of the clouds that hung over the bayou. I caught up with him near the mouth of Horsepen Bayou and the entrance to Alligator Alley. My guess is that it is one of the young Brown Pelicans clamped firmly in that massive jaw. Am surprised that he didn’t just gobble down. He was not at all happy with my presence and so I left him to dine in peace. I know that he did not swallow it and was attempting to bury it at the mouth of Alligator Alley. That is my thinking because I made a pass through Alligator Alley and looped back around and returned to the area and he was near the bank still clutching the hapless bird. Life is tough and nature plays no favorites in the grand scheme of things.
I guess that it’s a pelican strictly from the patterns in the feathers that I see in the piece just in front of his nose. There is a piece of a reed that he’s pushing as well but has nothing to do with the bird.
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I really had not planned on visiting St. Mary at all on this past trip to Glacier National Park. The whole east side of the park had fallen off my radar once I had read online that the road to Many Glacier was closed for construction. If you had asked me even the night before, I would have shrugged with mild disinterest and said I figured I would spend most of my time there west of the Continental Divide. I had been over Logan's Pass before but my dim memories of the east side of Glacier hadn't held much that enticed me to explore over there on this trip (closed off Many Glacier notwithstanding). But here we were, driving up and over the pass and heading down the Going To The Sun road on a definite eastbound trajectory. We had slept in that morning, having driven all day the day before and opting for a lazy start. By the time we reach Logan's Pass the parking was was a never-ending circle of slow cars full of hapless visitors all hoping they drew the 1-in-a-100 chance of catching that departing hiker's spot. I wasn't much interested in joining that shuffle, seeing as how I had been in a car all day just one day prior. So we crested and headed down figuring maybe one of the pullouts would give us a place to park and hike back up to the pass. The first pullout was full, so was the second, and the third. Even visiting in the shoulder season was proving to be pretty crowded and I was not even able to imagine what the park must have been like during the summer. After being initially stymied though I figured since we had driven all the way up this far, we might as well keep going. While I did not remember much to entice me on, the vague lack of memories was more than enough reason to go explore. And - spoiler alert - it turned into an incredibly beautiful drive through the eastern stretches of Glacier. The color on the east side was somehow differently vibrant than that on the rugged west side and I soon discovered that all the beautiful clouds were hanging out around St. Mary as well. We stopped here, right at the eastern entrance and gave up several minutes of our lives wandering through this forest combining the yellow of the leaves with that blue sky.
I guess the point I would add, not quite a moral but somewhere in that general direction, is that a certain mental flexibility can come in handy with expectations. I usually only make vague plans just for this reason. Vague plans mean vague expectations and vague expectations are easier to reroute around when obstacles occur. Rather than banging my head on the wall that was the full parking at Logan's Pass, despite my desire to get out on the trails up there, I let the innate gravity of the day pull me off in a different direction. Not that this is advice meant to help guarantee you will end up somewhere like this. It isn't really about where you end up, but - yes, you guessed it - how you get there. And maybe more importantly, how much you enjoy the getting there. That parking lot looked like a kettle of frustration waiting to happen. Then again, getting there too late also could have been. But a leisurely drive down from the Continental Divide toward unknown landscapes and distantly glimpsed destinations? That was well worth the drive.
Hasselblad 500C
Kodak Portra 800
The hapless Needham's Skimmer Dragonfly was lunch for the Pondhawk before it even knew what hit it...
The name Wryneck has been in use since at least 1585 and was the standard name in all the early bird books. Wry means twisted (as in a wry smile, and going awry) from the bird's habit of contorting its neck when threatened. A friend once told me that he went to rescue a bird with a broken neck that had flown into a window. When he arrived it was a stunned, but otherwise healthy Wryneck twisting its neck like a snake and fooling its finder into thinking its neck was broken. By the time he arrived it had recovered and he released it unharmed. Its scientific name is Jynx torquilla, and torquilla comes from the Latin word for twisted, from its serpentine head movements. Jynx is an old Greek word for Wryneck, but named because of an ancient superstition that it could be used as a magical charm to bring back a strayed lover. This was because the Wryneck could twist and turn, so the idea was it could be used magically to turn something back. To achieve this the hapless bird was tied to a string and whirled around the head, or attached to a wheel and turned. Nowadays we use the word jinx to describe something (or someone) who brings bad luck, or as something said when two people say the same word simultaneously. And before we leave jinx, do you remember Mr Jinx, the cat in the Hannah-Barbera Pixie and Dixie cartoons, and also the name of Robert de Niro's cat in Meet the Parents.
And back to this Wryneck, which put on a great show at Spurn last Sunday. Here it is posing in a Hawthorn bush.
In 1937, financier Edward Ball took his idea of quiet elegance and placed it gently in the most serene place he’d found on his international travels, Wakulla Springs. He imported marble and tile, hired artisans in iron and stone, and introduced to the world a most unique retreat.
To explore the history of this grand hotel is to take a voyage back in time to Florida’s “land boom”—those glorious days when people and money flowed into the Sunshine State, braving swamps and mud slides with an eye to the future. It started during the 1920s, when Ball was touring Florida’s panhandle looking for land to purchase to grow pulpwood. He found love at first sight at Wakulla Springs. “I knew then that the area had to be preserved,” Ball said, “but I didn’t know exactly how at the time.”
In 1931 Ball bought the Springs and Lodge site from the Christy brothers, who had a small restaurant where the present boat dock stands. He personally handled all facets of the design and construction of Wakulla Springs Lodge, outlining the floor plan, choosing the architects and materials, and insisting on meticulous attention to every detail. Construction of the two-story hotel began in 1935.
The original roof was of wood with steel superstructure. It was replaced after a fire, started unfortunately by a hapless trainee during the Lodge’s use as a military training facility during World War II. The new roof was reinforced with slate and metal on steel to render it totally fireproof.
Ball’s eye to quality and durability can also be seen through his lavish use of Tennessee marble throughout the Lodge on floors, baseboards, thresholds, counters, stairwells, desk tops and table tops in the gift shop, lobby, and veranda. The marble is fitted so meticulously no grout can be seen.
The world’s longest known marble bar, at 70 feet 3 inches, is in the Soda Fountain/Gift Shop. This marble is “face matched.” Eight pieces were cut from one block of marble. This process is known as quarter-sawing: a block of marble is cut in half, cut in half again, and each quarter is again cut in half to get eight panels, thereby producing a matching grain pattern.
The use of “heart” cypress can also be seen throughout the Lodge. Heart cypress is the very interior of the tree. All of the cypress logs used in the Lodge were obtained locally as “dead heads”—cypress that had fallen into water and been immersed for 50 years or longer, making it impervious to rot. The Great Lobby itself heads the list with use of this wood. Although this room is great in size, the height of the ceiling is about 16 feet, a huge expanse of hand-hewn cypress panels is still visible. The expansive transverse “beams” are actually steel girders faced with cypress planks.
The lobby ceiling gets the most attention for its decorative painting of local wildlife scenes. Close examination shows it to be a combination of European folk art, intricate Arabic scroll work, and Native American influences.
Two special features grace the rim of the lobby. The marble and iron staircase and the original elevator are both Art Deco masterpieces. The interior of the elevator walls are walnut, with quarter sewn, face matched grain and marquetry panels—an inlay using varied colored woods. This is the only known surviving period Art Deco elevator still in use.
The staircase’s three landings are massive marble panels with face-matched grain that were cut from one block. The risers and treads also are matched panel of marble and granite. The wrought iron railing was made on site and illustrates wildlife from the river. The limpkins and herons in the balustrade are true to life in outline and size.
True to Ball’s word to preserve the area and to create a serene and peaceful retreat, the Lodge at Wakulla Springs is an example of precise craftsmanship and offers visitors a timeless glimpse into Florida’s pristine and elegant past.
Credit for the data above is given to the following websites:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wakulla_Springs
thelodgeatwakullasprings.com/history-2/
© All Rights Reserved - you may not use this image in any form without my prior permission.
Round the back of Heals in Tottenham Court Road, a pack of feral Biffas get ready to pounce on their hapless prey. Soon all that remained of the courier and his bike was an oil stain and a somewhat battered mobile phone.
"I heard of the discovery of the American hemisphere, and wept with Safie over the hapless fate of its original inhabitants."
Mary Shelley - 1818
Hey everyone! It was much too beautiful a Spring afternoon to go straight home after work, so I hiked a bit at the local Pitcher Plant bog...we are blessed to have one nearby, and it is amazing to watch the Pitcher Plants develop for a new season! These are the first stage buds of the Pitcher Plant flower...the flowers contain the seeds and assure propagation by attracting bees, and in the weeks ahead, the actual vase-shaped Pitcher Plants will break ground and grow tall, attracting hapless insects that fall into the vase-like structure to be digested for nutrients. The next shot shows a flower already in bloom...