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Group: 52 Weeks: The 2021 Edition
Weekly Theme: Week 8: Literature
Taken February 20, 2021
Title: Is this Literature?
This week’s challenge was really a challenge. How do you make a nice photo of Literature?
So I was thinking of how to do that and finally I did get some ideas. One of them was to make a photo of glasses on a book, with books in the background. When I took the photo the ones with the glasses nearby and hardly any background seemed to be the best, I could even read the text through the glasses. While I did not have a text which was nice I decided to make a text myself and fold that into the book. What I did. But I was wondering if my own text was literature. So it is up to everyone to decide if my text is literature or not…………
Glen Brittle is such a fabulous place to visit. For next time I will start at least an hour earlier to be able to find the optimum place to shoot from. Before this visit I had no idea where to go and when to be at a certain place. I now have some more knowledge and would start 1-2 hours earlier at the site to make sure I'd be in the right spot at the right time. This is a place I stopped at on my descent when the sun was already way up on the sky. Next time I would try to be here just at sun rise. For tomorrow I'll have a sunrise shot from a bit above this location.
When I first arrived in Iceland, it took a while to let the thoughts fully sink in that I was indeed, actually, in Iceland; the number one country I had dreamed of visiting for years. The first couple of days passed with that dreamy, hazy feeling, not quite believing life is real. On the third day (a month ago today as I write this), my team and I went to visit some waterfalls... We were at Skógafoss, where I set up my tripod and camera while staring in silent awe at the cascading water. I began to shed my layers of scarves, coat and sweaters in preparation to put on my red dress for this self-portrait... and then I patiently waited. Waited for the sun and clouds to line up correctly to light the waterfall just right. Waited for the surrounding tourists to finish taking their photos. Waited for the breeze to blow the mist away from my camera lens. After almost 45 minutes, I finally saw my chance. I slipped off my shoes and ran towards the falling sheets of water, camera clicking away behind me... and was suddenly engulfed in the freezing, falling mist as I spun around joyously at the bottom of the falls. It was that very moment, when my clothes were soaked through and my feet kept slipping between rocks and I felt absolutely frozen, that my mindset finally changed from "dreamy, hazy" to "Oh my frognoggin' firecrackers this is freaking real" before I had to run back to the safety of my coat and scarf. It was one of those moments where I felt most alive... My heart felt so big and yet the rest of me felt so small. I have greatest respect for these places in nature and I simply can't fathom how beautiful this world is. It blows my mind over and over again.
___________________________
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.... or is it? That was our one nice day. It's now after 1 PM and it's just 41 degrees with wind and rain. That's our normal this year ..... :((
Sailing is an escape, a love for the sea, an unexplainable emotion that breathes life into us. The freedom to be who we are, the strength to discover and face hidden aspects of our being, the adventure to explore new lands, integrity, a desire to live under the sun, discontentment with the security of a four walled house, to be free.
©dtorza
Cape Bridgewater is a locality in Victoria, Australia. It is located on the western shore of Bridgewater Bay, 21 kilometres south-west of Portland, and 383 kilometres from Melbourne. It lies within the Discovery Bay Coastal Park..
The area was settled in the 1860s and a Post Office opened in 1863 (closed 1968) though known as Bridgewater Lower for some years..
Both Cape Bridgewater and Bridgewater Bay were named by named after the Duke of Bridgewater (1756-1829), by Lieutenant James Grant sailing on the Lady Nelson on 4 December 1800..
Cape Bridgewater is home to a colony of up to 650 Fur seals and has the highest coastal cliff in Victoria. These cliffs are suitable spot to observe Southern right whales in winter and spring. The cape itself also boasts a large blowhole and a feature known as the petrified forest, but now known to be hollow tubes of limestone, eroded as a result of millions of years of rainfall. Bridgewater Bay and the adjacent Cape form a partially submerged volcanic caldera. To the west is a large area with huge sand dunes. For these reasons the Cape and the nearby coastal area is classed by the government as the second most important coastline in Victoria, after the 'Twelve Apostles', along the Great Ocean Road
37424 is seen leading 2P20 12:36 Norwich-Great Yarmouth into Great Yarmouth with 37405 on the rear - 27/12/2016
More recent photos @ www.milepost39.co.uk/mp39.asp?do=latest
This is a profile shot of a Hong Kong orchid tree blossom against the water. The flower comes in various shades of red/purple and is found in many gardens all over the island. As the name suggests, the flower originates in Hong Kong, but grows quite well on Maui. The photo was taken in March 2016, with my trusty Olympus digital camera. Enjoy.
Here is one I worked on from earlier in the year but never got around to posting. I'm waiting for a couple of lenses I've ordered to arrive before going out to do any more shooting.
alternativeviewphotography.com/
alternative view photography blogspot
© 2007- 2011 John Salisbury All rights reserved
I saw this tree on our last back road outing and was struck by a couple of things. I noticed how the roots of the tree had grown, fitting themselves around the rocks in the ground to reach the nourishment they needed to grow the tree. But it grew on the riverbank and when the floods came, it washed all the life giving dirt away leaving only the rocks and the tree desperately clinging to the rocks...... The tenacity of life is amazingly incredible!
This is probably the most common hawk in North America. If you’ve got sharp eyes, you’ll see several individuals on almost any long car ride, anywhere. Red-tailed Hawks soar above open fields, slowly turning circles on their broad, rounded wings. Other times you’ll see them atop telephone poles, eyes fixed on the ground to catch the movements of a vole or a rabbit.
West Kelowna BC
Canada
This is an extreme close up of the final part of the wrought-iron, Fibonacci spiral ornamentation on an old gate in the grounds of Lauriston Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland.
I've photographed this before for Macro Mondays a few years ago. It's still there but looking even more corroded. I left the cobwebs in the image to give a sense of scale and to add to the wabi-sabi-chic look.
This is a single image taken with my Olympus OM-D-10 Mk II with a 75-300 mm lens at full zoom (600 mm equivalent) and a close-up filter to allow me to focus in so close at such high zoom levels.
HMM to everyone - stay safe and be happy.
There is a second railroad in the Pittston area that interchanges with the RBMN. In business since 1994 the Luzerne and Susquehanna operates 60 miles of assorted bits of cast of scraps of once important class 1 routes that once served the Scranton Wilkes-Barre area. The valley was placed with a nearly incomprehensible web of rails at one time that generated carloads and revenue to boggle the mind. But now so little remains and what does is but a shadow of itself. In fact the trackage beneath this unit that sits stationary, blue flagged, and tied down was once the LV's mainline into Wilkes-Barre.
LS 1751 itself is an EMD GP9 blt. Oct. 1959 ad Pennsylvania Railroad 7242. The venerable geep is now the property of RJ Corman Railroad group which bought the L&S in August 2020. One wonders if 1751 will survive and trade her somber LS black for brilliant Corman crimson. I guess we'll just have to wait and see...
Pittston, Pennsylvania
Sunday June 20, 2021
With all respect, No Awards, sweepers and post 1 comment
etc & self promoting signatures ......any comments, remarks or faves are more than welcome :)
Julia is out
Oskar, next week (I hope so)
maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sunlight%20Beach/159/194/2131
The tide is out and the bottom of Turnagain Arm looks much like the surface of the moon IMO. In the background is the snow bedecked Kenai Mountains. If you look closely you can see DP units cut in ahead of the empties.
this is the first page I've made for Dutchy!! My big puppy is 9 months old now, and she's huge! I need to take some photos of her and Hopey together when the heat subsides a bit :)
Autumn at Stourhead ... this is something I've wanted to photograph since I moved to Wiltshire. I got up early and travelled to deepest West Wiltshire, hoping that if I arrived for the opening of the gardens, it'd just be me and the trees ... no such luck! It was me and the trees and about a hundred other photographers, all wanting to capture those autumn colours.
Oh well. I still had fun!
Sony α7 II
Tokina 20-35mm lens
This is my good friend Colby.. who i've known ever since i created Lily. He's always been there for me.. even when i chickened out on meeting him RL O.o
Background is a free one from here on Flickr... i just don't have the link >.<
Super Moon is behind storm clouds.
There is something about standing defiantly in an open plain with a large aluminum tripod as a massive lightning storm approaches.
Explored!
This red disk-shaped phenomenon, is another member of the TLEs (Transient Luminous Events, happening in the middle and upper atmosphere, above thunderstorms) family and is called sprite halo. Under it, there is a group of, relatively small, sprites. Sprite halo is short-lived (some ms) and its color comes from the same physical process as in red sprites (de-excitation of 1st positive group of mol. nitrogen). Halos appear close to sprite tops (alt. ~80-85 km), over active thunderstorms, like sprites. Sprite halos are usually triggered by -CGs, in contrast to sprites which are related to +CGs (99%). There is also a faint stripe of high clouds in front of the halo. The yellow light is a distant ship.
The event happened over the thunderstorms south of Crete (on the east side of the Medicane on 28/10) as seen from S. Attica during the night of Oct. 28, 2021. Faint parent lightning flash at the bottom, behind a cloud layer, can be seen as well. I've used a Sigma 85 mm lens at f/1.4, for 1/4'' with 51.2k iso. More about the Greek Team chasing red sprites and TLEs in general: antisimvatikos.blogspot.com/2019/05/tles-greek-archive-of...
What is a red sprite? Info here: antisimvatikos.blogspot.com/2017/04/red-sprite.html
Photography and Licensing: doudoulakis.blogspot.com/
My books concerning natural phenomena / Τα βιβλία μου σχετικά με τα φυσικά φαινόμενα: www.facebook.com/TaFisikaFainomena/
Near to home a track where we often walk our dog, it`s peaceful and we rarely meet anyone else. On this morning it had been -5 overnight with a clear sky so there was a nice coating of frost everywhere, the ground was like concrete unlike this morning when it is back to being a bog.
Lake Shirakawa, submerged forests
白川湖水没林
This is the view from the road a little above. It really looks like a forest in the water, which is an interesting sight.
ちょっと上の道路から見た景色です。本当に水の中に林があるみたいで面白い景観です。
Iidecho, Yamagata pref, Japan
Here is another view of Loch Ossian taken on the afternoon of our arrival. It would have been very easy to stop and languish by these icy shores but the call of the snow clad hills was too much.
The snow covered lump that's seen disappearing towards the top right of the image would form much of our hike the following day. Needless to say the conditions were entirely different and we had little or no visibility.
in bonsai
there is a shaping wind in the hand
it flows from thoughts
from a vision
it flows for a lifetime
yet the bonsai is never complete...
when that lifetime ends
the bonsai may pass to another hand
perhaps the thoughts the vision
merge with that hand
perhaps they diverge
perhaps this continues
for several lifetimes
yet the bonsai is never complete...
it is complete only when
every molecule of the bonsai
has returned pollenlike to the ether...
eventually
a single molecule may reappear
it may reappear in a vision
it may reappear in a hand
it may reappear in a wind
* in Explore
----------------------------- JESUS ✝️ SAVES-------------------------------
SALVATION THROUGH FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST - ALONE!
12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."
❤️❤️ IT'S ALL JESUS AND NONE OF OURSELVES! ❤️❤️
16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the SALVATION of everyone WHO BELIEVES: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel a RIGHTEOUSNESS FROM GOD IS REVEALED, a righteousness that is by FAITH FROM FIRST TO LAST, just as it is written: "THE RIGHTEOUS WILL LIVE BY FAITH." (Romans 1:16-17)
16 KNOW that a man is NOT justified by observing the law, but by FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be JUSTIFIED BY FAITH in CHRIST and NOT by observing the law, BECAUSE BY OBSERVING THE LAW NO ONE WILL BE JUSTIFIED. (Galatians 2:16)
1. Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2. BY THIS GOSPEL YOU ARE SAVED, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
3. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4. that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5. and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. 6. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8. and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
9. For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them--yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11. Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed. (1 Corinthians 15:1-11)
7. Therefore Jesus said again, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. 8. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9. I am the gate; whoever enters through me WILL BE SAVED. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10. The thief comes only to STEAL and KILL and DESTROY; I have come that they may have LIFE, and have it to the FULL. (John 10:7-10)
1 Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. 2 For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. 3 Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. 4 Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.
5 Moses describes in this way the righteousness that is by the law: "The man who does these things will live by them." 6 But the righteousness that is by faith says: "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?'" (that is, to bring Christ down) 7 "or 'Who will descend into the deep?'" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8 But what does it say? "The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart," that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: 9 That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. 11 As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame." 12 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile--the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13 for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." (Romans 10:1-13)
Jesus came to bring spiritual LIFE to the spiritually dead and set the captives FREE! FREE from RELIGION, ERROR and outright LIES, so WE might serve THE LIVING GOD! In SPIRIT and in TRUTH!
So you'll KNOW, and not think you're to bad for God to love. The Christian LIFE isn't about how good WE are, because NONE of us are! It's about how GOOD JESUS IS! Because JESUS LOVES US, so much he died in our place and took the punishment for all of our sins on himself. The wages of sin is DEATH, and Jesus took the death WE so richly deserved for us and died in our place. The good news is, there's no more punishment for sin left. WE, you and I were all born forgive as a result of the crucifixion of God himself on the cross that took away the sins of the whole world. All we have to do is believe it, and put your Faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. That my friends is REAL UNCONDITIONAL LOVE! YOU ARE LOVED. ❤️ ✝️ ❤️
For the best Biblical teaching in the last 2 centuries! Please listen to and down load these FREE audio files that were created with YOU in mind. It's ALL FREE, if you like it, please share it with others. ❤️
archive.org/details/PeopleToPeopleByBobGeorgeFREE-ARCHIVE...
CLICK ON THE LETTER "L" TO ENLARGE.
My THANK'S to all Flickr friends who fave and/or commented on my photos, I very much appreciate it! ❤️
© All Rights reserved no publication or copying without permission from the author.
It is a clove on a mirror, taken with my TG-6 using the in-camera focus stacking. I tried little piles of salt and a peppercorn but IMHO none were as photogenic as this clove.
Cloves are the aromatic flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae, Syzygium aromaticum. They are native to the Maluku Islands in Indonesia, and are commonly used as a spice. Cloves are available throughout the year owing to different harvest seasons in different countries. (Wikipedia)
This is the culmination of well over a year’s worth of work: I think I started this project a little after the UCS Republic Gunship was released. So it feels good to finally have this finished and show it off!
I strived to make an accurate, studless version of the ship which incorporated some of the discoloured panels like the UCS version. I used the reference material collected from Star Wars Episode 2, 3 and Battlefront II.
Over the course of this project, a few outstanding Gunships emerged in the LEGO Star Wars community, which was both inspiring and slightly disheartening as they set the bar for MOCs of this vehicle incredibly high! Bousker made an excellent Clone Wars version and you may see some similarities between mine and Jhae's. Though we came to the solution of using the grated cheese slopes independently, his design helped inform some of the internal structure and the bed of the troop compartment.
I also looked to atlasr's version for inspiration, which while digital and at a slightly larger scale than I was aiming for, is perhaps the most accurate LEGO version I’ve ever seen.
Massive thanks to all the dudes for their inspiration, encouragement, feedback, and numerous ideas which I stole, you know who you are!
Petra] is a historical and archaeological city in southern Jordan. Petra lies around Jabal Al-Madbah in a basin surrounded by mountains which form the eastern flank of the Arabah valley that runs from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. The area around Petra has been inhabited from as early as 7000 BC, and the Nabataeans might have settled in what would become the capital city of their kingdom, as early as the 4th century BC. However, archaeological work has only discovered evidence of Nabataean presence dating back to the second century BC, by which time Petra had become their capital. The Nabataeans were nomadic Arabs who invested in Petra's proximity to the trade routes by establishing it as a major regional trading hub.
The trading business gained the Nabataeans considerable revenue and Petra became the focus of their wealth. The Nabataeans were accustomed to living in the barren deserts, unlike their enemies, and were able to repel attacks by taking advantage of the area's mountainous terrain. They were particularly skillful in harvesting rainwater, agriculture and stone carving. Petra flourished in the 1st century AD, when its famous Al-Khazneh structure – believed to be the mausoleum of Nabataean king Aretas IV – was constructed, and its population peaked at an estimated 20,000 inhabitants. One of the seventh wonder of the world which is considered must visit place before death.
I know that I am a bit late to the party, but here is my take of the close encounter of Mars with the Pleiades open cluster.
I would have loved to shoot this as a deepscape from a dark sky location with some nice landscape in the foreground, but first I was clouded out and when it finally cleared, I had to fly the other day and was only able to shoot from my light polluted backyard.
Sometimes, you have to take what you can, even if it means to shoot a reflection nebula under a bortle 5 sky. Hope I will have better conditions in 17 years, when this encounter will happen again.
EXIF
Canon EOS 7D mkii
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8
Skywatcher AZ-GTI
Controlled with ASIair
120 x 30s + 60 x 15s @ ISO800 @ 200mm f/2.8
Unryu paper is also known as mulberry paper. Unryu is lightweight and translucent enough for light to shine through it highlighting the fibers that are embued in it. I fell back on the two origami creatures I know how to fold to highlight the fibers.
For February Alphabet Fun Month.
home alone 48...make of it what you will ;-)
This weeks message is "Go With the Flow"
A Taoist story tells of an old man who accidentally fell into the river rapids leading to a high and dangerous waterfall. Onlookers feared for his life. Miraculously, he came out alive and unharmed downstream at the bottom of the falls. People asked him how he managed to survive. "I accommodated myself to the water, not the water to me. Without thinking, I allowed myself to be shaped by it. Plunging into the swirl, I came out with the swirl. This is how I survived."
I had a different plan for this weeks photo, and it did not work out. I had this idea last night, and it also did not come out as planned. I became so frustrated with the details of the photo, and my inability to achieve the results I wanted, that i don't even remember what point i was trying to make. So, I begrudgingly accepted what I had and posted it. After sleeping on it the message became clear.
We cannot always control the events of our lives. even the little details tend to go awry. A zipper breaks, the road is closed, they are out of your flavor of ice cream, or you photo is not what you wanted. It is by accepting what comes our way, and going with it, that we will reach our destination.
So, I am not thrilled with the photo, but I get the message, and that is good.
Lesson 2
When all else fails, laugh at yourself!
This is on the grounds of Mughal Emperor Humayuns's tomb complex. As ever with India, it was bright but hazy. The haze gives quite a relaxing mood if you can find somewhere peaceful enough to take a moment.
"Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong."
— Ella Fitzgerald
Canon EOS 7D Mark II
EF600mm f/4L IS USM +1.4x III
The common starling (Sturnus vulgaris), also known as the European starling, or in the British Isles just the starling, is a medium-sized passerine bird in the starling family, Sturnidae. It is about 20 cm (8 in) long and has glossy black plumage with a metallic sheen, which is speckled with white at some times of year. The legs are pink and the bill is black in winter and yellow in summer; young birds have browner plumage than the adults. It is a noisy bird, especially in communal roosts and other gregarious situations, with an unmusical but varied song. Its gift for mimicry has been noted in literature including the Mabinogion and the works of Pliny the Elder and William Shakespeare.
The common starling has about a dozen subspecies breeding in open habitats across its native range in temperate Europe and western Asia, and it has been introduced to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, United States, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, the Falkland Islands, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, South Africa and Fiji. This bird is resident in southern and western Europe and southwestern Asia, while northeastern populations migrate south and west in winter within the breeding range and also further south to Iberia and North Africa. The common starling builds an untidy nest in a natural or artificial cavity in which four or five glossy, pale blue eggs are laid. These take two weeks to hatch and the young remain in the nest for another three weeks. There are normally one or two breeding attempts each year. This species is omnivorous, taking a wide range of invertebrates, as well as seeds and fruit. It is hunted by various mammals and birds of prey, and is host to a range of external and internal parasites.
Large flocks typical of this species can be beneficial to agriculture by controlling invertebrate pests; however, starlings can also be pests themselves when they feed on fruit and sprouting crops. Common starlings may also be a nuisance through the noise and mess caused by their large urban roosts. Introduced populations in particular have been subjected to a range of controls, including culling, but these have had limited success except in preventing the colonisation of Western Australia. The species has declined in numbers in parts of northern and western Europe since the 1980s due to fewer grassland invertebrates being available as food for growing chicks. Despite this, its huge global population is not thought to be declining significantly, so the common starling is classified as being of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The common starling is 19–23 cm (7.5–9.1 in) long, with a wingspan of 31–44 cm (12–17 in) and a weight of 58–101 g (2.0–3.6 oz). Among standard measurements, the wing chord is 11.8 to 13.8 cm (4.6 to 5.4 in), the tail is 5.8 to 6.8 cm (2.3 to 2.7 in), the culmen is 2.5 to 3.2 cm (0.98 to 1.26 in) and the tarsus is 2.7 to 3.2 cm The plumage is iridescent black, glossed purple or green, and spangled with white, especially in winter. The underparts of adult male common starlings are less spotted than those of adult females at a given time of year. The throat feathers of males are long and loose and are used in display while those of females are smaller and more pointed. The legs are stout and pinkish- or greyish-red. The bill is narrow and conical with a sharp tip; in the winter it is brownish-black but in summer, females have lemon yellow beaks while males have yellow bills with blue-grey bases. Moulting occurs once a year- in late summer after the breeding season has finished; the fresh feathers are prominently tipped white (breast feathers) or buff (wing and back feathers), which gives the bird a speckled appearance. The reduction in the spotting in the breeding season is achieved through the white feather tips largely wearing off. Juveniles are grey-brown and by their first winter resemble adults though often retaining some brown juvenile feathering, especially on the head. They can usually be sexed by the colour of the irises, rich brown in males, mouse-brown or grey in females. Estimating the contrast between an iris and the central always-dark pupil is 97% accurate in determining sex, rising to 98% if the length of the throat feathers is also considered. The common starling is mid-sized by both starling standards and passerine standards. It is readily distinguished from other mid-sized passerines, such as thrushes, icterids or small corvids, by its relatively short tail, sharp, blade-like bill, round-bellied shape and strong, sizeable (and rufous-coloured) legs. In flight, its strongly pointed wings and dark colouration are distinctive, while on the ground its strange, somewhat waddling gait is also characteristic. The colouring and build usually distinguish this bird from other starlings, although the closely related spotless starling may be physically distinguished by the lack of iridescent spots in adult breeding plumage.
Like most terrestrial starlings the common starling moves by walking or running, rather than hopping. Their flight is quite strong and direct; their triangular-shaped wings beat very rapidly, and periodically the birds glide for a short way without losing much height before resuming powered flight. When in a flock, the birds take off almost simultaneously, wheel and turn in unison, form a compact mass or trail off into a wispy stream, bunch up again and land in a coordinated fashion. Common starling on migration can fly at 60–80 km/h (37–50 mph) and cover up to 1,000–1,500 km (620–930 mi).
Several terrestrial starlings, including those in the genus Sturnus, have adaptations of the skull and muscles that help with feeding by probing. This adaptation is most strongly developed in the common starling (along with the spotless and white-cheeked starlings), where the protractor muscles responsible for opening the jaw are enlarged and the skull is narrow, allowing the eye to be moved forward to peer down the length of the bill. This technique involves inserting the bill into the ground and opening it as a way of searching for hidden food items. Common starlings have the physical traits that enable them to use this feeding technique, which has undoubtedly helped the species spread far and wide.
In Iberia, the western Mediterranean and northwest Africa, the common starling may be confused with the closely related spotless starling, the plumage of which, as its name implies, has a more uniform colour. At close range it can be seen that the latter has longer throat feathers, a fact particularly noticeable when it sings.
The common starling is a noisy bird. Its song consists of a wide variety of both melodic and mechanical-sounding noises as part of a ritual succession of sounds. The male is the main songster and engages in bouts of song lasting for a minute or more. Each of these typically includes four varieties of song type, which follow each other in a regular order without pause. The bout starts with a series of pure-tone whistles and these are followed by the main part of the song, a number of variable sequences that often incorporate snatches of song mimicked from other species of bird and various naturally occurring or man-made noises. The structure and simplicity of the sound mimicked is of greater importance than the frequency with which it occurs. Each sound clip is repeated several times before the bird moves on to the next. After this variable section comes a number of types of repeated clicks followed by a final burst of high-frequency song, again formed of several types. Each bird has its own repertoire with more proficient birds having a range of up to 35 variable song types and as many as 14 types of clicks.
Made with a macro filter on the 50mm. Don't like it much, ordered a extension tube, let's see if it makes it a bit better.
"There is a CP 8111 somewhere in Topeka that just got GTBs" is what a text I received in the morning read. A few hours later, I was driving over Kansas Ave. when I saw a headlight pulling out of the yard. A few minutes later, said headlight turned out to be that of the aforementioned 8111!
Sure enough, it was paired up with the KCS 4852, and it was one of the "chicken trains" that have been running to/from the Cargill elevator via UP Haulage Rights for years. Now, following the merger, these have transferred over to the CPKC, as evidenced by the consist here.
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I would be most grateful if you would refrain from inserting images, and/or group invites; thank you!
Oxburgh Hall is a moated country house in Oxborough, Norfolk, England, today in the hands of the National Trust. Built around 1482 by Sir Edmund Bedingfeld, Oxburgh has always been a family home, not a fortress. The manor of Oxborough came to the Bedingfeld family by marriage before 1446, and the house has been continuously inhabited by them since their construction of it in 1482, the date of Edward Bedingfeld's licence to crenellate. A fine example of a late medieval, inward-facing great house, Oxburgh stands within a square moat about 75 metres on each side, and was originally enclosed; the hall range facing the gatehouse was pulled down in 1772 for Sir Richard Bedingfeld, providing a more open U-shaped house, with the open end of the U facing south. The entrance, reached by a three-arched bridge on the north side, is dramatised by a grand fortified gatehouse, evoking the owner's power and prestige, though as fortification its value is largely symbolic; it is flanked by tall polygonal towers rising in seven tiers, with symmetrical wings extending either side that reveal nothing on the exterior of their differing internal arrangements. About 1835 the open end of the U was filled in with a picturesque, by no means archaeologically correct range that recreated the central courtyard. Other Victorian additions include the Flemish-style stepped gables, the massive southeast tower, the oriel windows overhanging the moat (illustration, left) and terracotta chimneys. Four towers were added to the walled kitchen garden. The hall is well known for its priest hole. Due to the Catholic faith of the Bedingfeld family, a Catholic priest may have had to hide within the small disguised room in the event of a raid. The room is reached via a trapdoor, which when closed blends in with the tiled floor. Unlike many similar priest holes, the one at Oxburgh is open to visitors. The hall is also notable for the Oxburgh Hangings, needlework hangings by Mary, Queen of Scots and Bess of Hardwick. Mary worked on these while imprisoned in England, in the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury. The estate has a number of woodland walks, including a 'Woodland Explorer' trail. Oxburgh Hall is a popular location for film and television series, including brief appearances in the Dad's Army episode "Museum Piece", and later in You Rang, M'Lord?. It was the major setting for the 1994 television dramatisation of Love on a Branch Line, a novel by John Hadfield. It is a Grade I listed building, the highest-level designation.