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Having fun photographing the frogs at the RBG pond! The water around the lilypads was so interesting.
Having failed the previous day on this turn,Retro liveried 37901 "Mirrlees Pioneer" finds itself DIT ,on 07/July/26,being hauled by Europhoenix 37423 Perseus" on a 5Z86 10.30 Great Yarmouth to Eastleigh T&RSMD,seen passing Grazeley with a ex generator car,6371 in tow.
Happy 2025!
I have the photography gods to thank for this one as it seems these fogbows or white rainbows are pretty rare - I’ve lived a fair while and never stumbled over one before :^)
It was a wondrous thing really - I was walking on the mountain road in thick fog when it suddenly began to rapidly lift. I knew this copse of trees was coming up ahead and imagined it might make an interesting photo if the trees could be seen through the fog. When I got there I was using the tools I have to help me see.and gosh if this thing didn’t immediately start to manifest right before me almost perfectly framing the copse! I honestly wondered if I was imagining it at first it was all so very vague to me, foggy eyes and foggy skies. It was only there for a couple of minutes and then it disappeared along with all the blue sky as dense fog suddenly appeared from nowhere again and it remained with me the two hours all the way home. Couple of minutes either way and I would have missed it for sure…..The sun was directly behind me and I took a few photos as I really wasn’t sure if I was capturing it all and couldn’t know properly until I got home and uploaded to the big screen. Fortunately this one just about caught it all :^)
I have taken several trips on foot down an abandoned road southeast of Ottawa. The road formerly was home to several small farms, orchards, and residential houses. It has long been overgrown, though some traces of the former residents remain - including flowering perennials planted many years ago, still growing in bunches along the roadway.
At the end of the road is a trail to a research station in a bog and swamp. The trail ends in a raised wooden platform, very narrow and about three feet off the swamp bottom. The platform leads out to the main bog area and, through a small gate, to the research station, where university staff and students conduct research on the amazing bog ecosystem.
Without going through the gate, it is possible to view the swamp area, which was my plan after hearing Snipe calling. I didn’t get very far along the platform when this male flew in to the Birch.
It is clear in the image that the tree was a well-used food source for the bird (and others). There are two kinds of holes: smaller round ones, and larger, more rectangular one. These latter are ‘sap wells’, and can be used by other birds and creatures (for example, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, who are drawn to the sap). The Sapsuckers have what is almost like a trapline: they go from tree to tree, searching out the sap, in a well-rehearsed pattern.
I happened to be beside the tree when it flew in, and it was not bothered by my presence in the least. This is not a great image for a few reasons (above and beyond my lack of expertise with a camera): I was too close, and had no where to go given the narrow and raised platform; it was just at sunrise, and I was in a stand of Birch and Maple just metres from the swamp edge, so there was not a lot of available light; and the bird’s position on the tree, just above my head by a few inches, was exaggerated by my inability to step away.
But what an amazing experience. I watched it feed, after trying to get a few images, for about five minutes. It occasionally registered my presence, but barely. I have no real images of this bird prior to this encounter, and I hope to get some better ones, but this was in many ways the epitome of opportunistic nature photography: an encounter unplanned in every way, during which I had a lot of fun getting close to some pretty amazing wildlife and happened to have a camera and did my best to secure a good image. Next time I hope to improve the image part of the outcome.
Snow elf: - Give me a secret that I can use to subdue the element of fire.
Thousand-faced tree: - But you already have power over water and earth, why do you need power over fire?
Snow elf: - I believe that I can use the element of fire to help the world.
Thousand-faced tree: -
What help can there be from fire, it destroys, burns forests, mutilates living beings.
Snow elf: - But fire can also warm and help in the processing of food, which also saves quite a few lives.
Thousand-faced tree: - You don't need to subdue the element of fire to keep warm against the fire and warm your food with it. It is enough to light it and use only a small part of its power, as people do.
Snow elf: - But you yourself say that the element of fire is uncontrollable, sometimes a small part of the fire under the power of human hands can set fires. If I could control this element, I could order him to retreat.
Thousand-faced tree: - And you think you can do that? To control the element that was created before the existence of the world itself?
Snow elf: - I hope so, because I can already control the elementals of water and earth.
Thousand-faced tree: - The nature of the elements of earth and water is completely different from that of fire. The earth and water themselves want to be controlled, they are very soft and malleable, while fire is a proud element. Even Prometheus couldn't hold him to the end.
Snow elf: - So, won't you give me the secret of fire?
Thousand-faced tree: - Well, I can give you this secret, but for a reason, the queen of spiders lives in a cave not far from here... Shelob is her name, if you remember, she brought quite a few troubles during the battle with Sauron, she dried up many of my fellow Ents... Bring me her head and I'll tell you everything I know about fire.
Snow elf: - Shelob? You must be joking, no one can defeat her, she's like a goddess among spiders...
Thousand-faced tree: -
You've heard my suggestion, if it doesn't suit you, you should forget about controlling the element of fire...
Snow elf: - You're putting me in a sad position, well, okay... Have it your way...
The whispers emanating in chorus from the tree subsided and the eyelids of his many faces closed.
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I really have lost focus in school. I'd rather have fun and take pictures rather than do essays every week. Can anyone really blame me though?
I wish I was the kind of person that RIGHT when I got an assignment, I did it. Unfortunately, I'm the opposite of that person. I do the assignment the night before it's due.
So, either tomorrow or Wednesday, I'm going to be showing you something I bought from The High Museum of Art from the Salvador Dali exhibit. :) It'll be a part of my picture. I'll also talk a little more on the exhibit, because it was AMAZING. :)
I hope all is well with everyone!
QOTD: (since I'm procrastinating)
What is your favorite TV show, and what is your favorite website to go to? :)
My favorite TV show: Family Guy. But also shows like America's Next Top Model, because it inspires me when I model AND take pictures :)
My favorite website: Flickr is pretty awesome :D Lately I've liked WIMP.com check it out! :D
<3
We have good opportunities to photograph this uncommon and beautiful Sparrow this season due to drier conditions in the local wetlands. These conditions favor the LeConte's and Nelson's Sparrows. They both nest in the Sedges which are now closer to the trail. I posted three shots of this LeConte's in different attitudes to help with identification. One of these shots shows it singing.
The sound it makes does not seem consistent with the effort it makes to produce it.
Click on the link below to hear the song.
www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Le_Contes_Sparrow/sounds
Big Lake Interpretive Trail. Parkland County. Alberta.
Member of the Flickr Bird Brigade
Activists for birds and wildlife
Having run around in Buxton 66763 is seen heading out of the tunnel alongside Tunstead limestone quarry, working the 6G89 15:52 Hindlow to Hams Hall, Sadly as another GBRF 66 had just dropped into the works, nothing was sat around in the works themselves.
The challenge of the day walking back to the car with no torch.
Have a HAPPY and a SAFE New Week, Everyone!
Thank you so much for stopping by and for the kind comments and favs. They are very much appreciated!
Have a super fantastic day, Photos are taken in southeastern Ct. with a Canon 5DMIV or 7MII and Canon 100 to 400II, or Sigma 24 to105 THANK YOU.
Still poking around in my Costa Rica file. This common tanager was enjoying some free fruit on the forest edge, behind a roadside coffee shop where the owners know what tourists want to go with their beverages.
Having a reunion with my 96 year old dearest artist friend in one of the most well known artists' colonies in the country ... a very emotional time!
I have chosen a ballpoint spring for this weeks #MacroMondays theme: #Spiral. I've put it on display on my phone (for being a mirror), put a burning candle with some yellow and red light effects behind. In this picture I also held my hand above the candle to create the orange foreground (nearly burned my hand in the long exposure of the picture :) )
I used a 70-300mm with 68mm macro extension tubes (are they called this way?).
Enjoy Macro Monday: HMM!
Not just in passing, a loose link between you - but truly clasped, with the pulses of your wrists beating together and your fingers mapping the knuckles and nails like a cartographer learning a country by heart?”
― Jodi Picoult
...seen an orange haired Chill?
Now you cannot say NO! ^0^
Astrith - Pullip Chill. (Not my dollie ;D)
I have never played golf, but the weather is so bad I needed something to make my day.
A golfer will play occasionally for company, to avoid yard work, and to hide from the wife. A golfer plays ... A golfist, on the other hand, goes to worship in the greeny cathedral of his passion. He labors for ... "Golf is good for you"!
Song of inspiration : www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz58Hw9hldw
The painting is Photoshop CC 2015, lots of cloud and smoke brushes from www.brusheezy.com/
The golfer is from www.kisspng.com/
and the pieces for the construction are from www.pixelsquid.com/
Have struggled with processing most of my images from Scotland, it's so far out of my comfort zone of what I usually shoot, coupled with getting too carried away shooting and not getting my compostions right. Oh well, all good lessons for next time
We have had freezing weather here the last few days so our heated birdbath is a popular stop. Greg had just finished filling it up when It was swarmed before he even made it back to the house. This was after he called me and I rushed to get my camera . . . many of them had already left! Taken through the dining room window. Have had our feeders down for 3 weeks due to the Salmonella concern (though we did not have any sick birds here) but I pulled them back out for this extra cold spell.
Having gone on a camping trip to the Coromandel Peninsula I set the alarm to wake me up at 3am (which is when the moon finally went below the horizon and gave me some clean skies) and walked down to the beach to take some star shots.
I had this set of 12 I took and up until now I had completely forgotten to stitch and edit them, not sure how I missed them but they stitched well and I'm quite pleased with the end result!
Each shot is shot at:
f/3.2
25s
14mm
3200 ISO
Stitched in Microsoft ICE, edited in LR.
I've also just created a Facebook page so if anyone wants to be the first to like it then be my guest!
This nicely plump Bumblebee was so into its sunflower breakfast that it paid me no mind while I intruded on its morning routine.
" And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease . . . . "
John Keats "To Autumn"
While many people have heard of the Malmedy massacre, it is not as well known that there were many other massacres of American prisoners by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. This is the Hotel du Moulin, and the memorial is to the right. Ligneuville is a town just south of Baugnez, where the Malmedy massacre took place. Malmedy and Baugnez are behind me up the road.
Please read the following story written by John Toland, who wrote a fantastic book on the Battle of the Bulge.
Written by John TOLAND
Saturday, 29 April 2006
The Brave Innkeeper of "The Bulge"
This article was printed in the Coronet Magazine in December 1959.
By using wit, courage and the choicest Cognac, Peter Rupp saved 14 Americans from certain murder by the Nazis.
On Sunday, the 17th December 1944 the day after the Battle of the Bulge erupted, war came roaring into the tiny Belgian town of Ligneuville. Hotel owner Peter Rupp, who had been an active member of the anti-Nazi underground, knew that the dangerous game he’d played during the years of German occupation was not over.
From a kitchen window of his Hotel du Moulin, Rupp could see the American stragglers being rounded up. Then he noticed a German Sergeant pistol in hand, marching eight prisoners into the yard. The sergeant shoved one of the prisoners out of line, and stepping close drew his pistol, Rupp gasped and started for the back door. From the back yard a shot sounded, another followed, Rupp shouted at a German Sergeant that American prisoners were being murdered, but the non-commissioned officer paid no attention. Despairing of getting help from the Germans, Rupp stated for the back door again. He had lost count of the shots, but they were continuing at brief intervals. The terrible thing was that no one cared. When he finally got to the door and stepped in the back yard. The German sergeant with the automatic pistol was advancing on a single still standing American. The American, who was not more that 18 or 19 years old twisted away and started to run, but the German seized him and forcing the barrel of his weapon into the youngster’s open mouth, he pulled the trigger. The last of the eight Americans fell stiffly among his comrades, who were already frozen in the grotesque postures of death.
Horrified, Rupp clung weakly to the doorjamb. Then the Nazi sergeant, his executions completed spun stiffly on his heel and marched briskly from the yard. This winter marks the 15th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, greatest and bloodiest ever fought by Americans. At 5 A.M. on December 16, 1944, Adolph Hitler launched his final great offensive, as 250.000 Germans spearheaded by 1.000 tanks and assault guns, smashed deep into the Ardennes, defended only by battle exhausted or green U.S. troops.
Before it was over, the Americans suffered 80.000 casualties, and Peter Rupp the 69-year-old innkeeper who’d been outraged by the needless slaughter of eight captured Americans, became one of the battle’s most unique and unsung heroes. His only weapons had been his wits, his courage and several cases of very good cognac.
Twenty-five miles behind the “Ghost Front,” the people of Ligneuville felt safe and secure on the Saturday evening of December 16. They had no idea the greatest offensive on the Western Front had been aimed in their direction all day. Neither did the men of the American 49th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Brigade, bivouacked in the village.
The next morning as Rupp, his wife Balbina, their daughter Maria and her two children headed for church, a line of American tanks and trucks roared down the hill from Malmedy, six miles to the north. An hour later, as he and his family slowly filed home, the last armored vehicle passed, the clouds of dust settled, the gas fume dissipated. It was quiet again. Too quiet, thought, Rupp. His suspicions were confirmed when he heard a faint, distant rumble. It sound like thunder, but Rupp knew it was the storm of battle.
Panic in the village mounted as the 450 antiaircraft men hastily pulled out. Only a few Americans were left. These soldiers had arrived late the night before, driving the supply trucks of Combat Command B of the Ninth Armored Division.
Suddenly, a bulldozer roared down the hill from Baugnez at twice its safe speed. “German tanks!” shouted the driver to Captain Seymour Green who stood near the Hotel du Moulin. “Get the outfit ready to move”, Green called to first Sergeant Page Shenk, of Luray, Virginia. But as the first of Green’s service trucks started rolling southward out of the village, a powerful tank spearhead of the First SS Panzer Division, Hitler’s “Own,” roared down upon Ligneuville from the north. Its leader, Lieutenant-Colonel Jochen Peiper, who had sliced 25 miles into Belgium that morning, ordered his armored cars to wipe out the Americans.
The lone Sherman tank beside the Hotel du Moulin held the Germans back for a while, then an 88 scored a direct hit on the single American defender, and Peiper’s men raced through the town, destroying the last laggard trucks in Green’s column.
Soon the rest of Peiper’s Battle Group poured down the hill from Malmedy, a town whose name would soon he a synonym for massacre. Only moments before, almost 100 captured Americans standing helplessly in a field had been murdered by these young Nazi zealots. Incensed by the unexpected delay caused by the Sherman, the SS men impatiently dismounted from their tanks and armored cars and burst into the Hotel du Moulin. Once again the inn had changed flags.
Rupp’s tiny wife, Balbina, betrayed no outward emotion. She, being a Swiss, had little fear of the Germans. Their daughter, Maria, had even less fear, since 1930, she had been married to a German. Rupp himself was the bland host, an innkeeper learns to be an internationalist. But unknown to his neighbors, unknown even to his family, he was actually an ardent member of the secret Belgian White Army. During the first Nazi occupation the Hotel du Moulin had been a station in the Underground Railroad. Using the nom de guerre of “Monsieur Kramer” he hid Allied fliers in a vacant room and kept them until it was safe for them to pass on the next station. In all, 22 American, British, and French fliers owed their lives to “Monsieur Kramer”.
Since Rupp was an exceptionally generous host to these secret guests, his narrowest escape during the occupation had come the day the budget-minded Balbina threatened to call in the Gestapo to solve the mystery of constantly disappearing food. It took all of Rupp’s persuasion to call of the investigation without revealing he was the thief.
Rupp was still unsuspected when the American armies, sweeping across France in the fall of’44 liberated Ligneuville. Now the war had come back to the Hotel du Moulin and eight murdered American prisoners lay in the back yard. Rupp could not let such an atrocity go unchallenged. There were other American prisoners, and they, too, would be in danger.
While Rupp tried to protest the butchery, 14 more American prisoners were herded into the lobby; behind them was the same stocky SS sergeant who had killed the others. Rupp dropped his role of “Good German” and, reckless of his own safety ran up to the sergeant.
“Murderer!” he shouted. “You killed eight of them! I saw you put the pistol in their mouths”.
The sergeant punched Rupp in the jaw, knocking out two teeth.
“I know you mean to shoot these men, too” panted Rupp. “But you can’t! They’re prisoners”.
A staff officer approached. “Shoot them all,” he said angrily. “And shoot this noisy Belgian swine first!”
“Leave them alone, Sergeant.” A combat officer, wearing SS insignia, came out of the command post. He looked with distaste at the other officer. Then he said in a hard voice, “Sergeant, put these men in that room and treat them as you’d want the Amis to treat you.”
The 14 Americans were crowded into a room on the main floor. Their leader, Captain Green, found the temper of the Germans hard to gauge. Some treated him diffidently some casually others seemed ready to shoot at the first opportunity.
In the kitchen, Peter Rupp was worrying about “his 14 Sammies.” The Germans were in a dangerous mood if one thing went awry, the murdering might start again; it was a delicate situation requiring all the tact, diplomacy and firmness Rupp had learned as an innkeeper. Then an idea occurred to him. He had hundreds of bottles of the finest cognac and champagne in a secret wine cellar. He’d use them to keep the Boche happy. He crept down into the cellar, filledc his arms, with bottles and returned to the kitchen.
“Maria”, he told his daughter, “Give the guard a good cognac so I can talk to the prisoners.”
Without question she left the room. A moment later, Rupp went to the prisoner’s room and was admitted. He held out two bottles.
“Just a minute”, Green said suspiciously. “Are you Belgian or German?”
“Belgian, of course!”
A GI hid the bottles.
“Thanks for the cognac”, Green said, “but we’re hungry”.
Rupp left the room and returned with eight plates on a tray. On his way back with six more meals an angry SS officer stopped him.
“What’s the idea?”
“Well, you’re not feeding them, so I have to”.
Rupp’s wife Balbina had entered the hotel in time to hear the last exchange and like her native Switzerland, she was small in independent. “See here” she said, looking at the officer “I’m from the Swiss Red Cross I have orders to look after all prisoners, and they get that food!”
Rupp, his face beaming, hurried in to the prisoners while his wife continued haranguing the SS officer. The meals delivered, he then stood guard in the lobby surreptitiously handing out bottle after bottle of cognac to Germans, regardless of rank.
The atmosphere grew cordial then jovial. Midnight finally passed. But there was still no sleep at the Hotel du Moulin. The command post was in a constant turmoil as reinforcements from the east kept pouring into the village. Then a courier returned from Peiper’s spearhead now five miles deeper into Belgium. The news was electrifying at dawn a strike would be made all the way to the Meuse River. Excitement rose. As the perfect host, Peter Rupp made a trip after trip to the secret wine cellar the Germans drank toasts to the Fuehrer ate heartily, sang songs of the Homeland and completely forgot about the prisoners.
At 5 A.M. Balbina walked into the hotel. Now there was quit except for snores and the faint chatter of a radio in the command post. Peter Rupp stood in front of the prisoners’ door, a benevolent guard his head nodding from exhaustion “Now its your turn to look after the Americans” he told his wife. “I’m going to sleep a bit.”
The crisis had passed, his 14 Americans would live.
Several day later, on December 20, Captain Green and the others were moved to Germany and prison camp. Peter Rupp’s responsibility was over.Ligneuville soon became the center of battle again as Americans commanded by Field Marshall Montgomery, began to counter attack from the north and General Patton’s Third-Army drove up from the south. During an over powering artillery barrage, Rupp was seriously wounded. By January 20 the triumphant Americans had arrived and the innkeeper was taken to an Army Hospital in St Hubert.