This is St Peter's Church, which largely dates from the 13th century. Pevsner was almost in raptures about Its slender 210-foot spire, added in 1634, and talks about its ‘beautifully tall and elegant bell-openings’. Apparently the spire is ‘crocketed up the angles’ which I think refers to the protuberances up its sides, and it has ‘three tiers of lucarnes’, which seems to be another term for a dormer window.

It seems only a few years ago that narrowboats on the canals had beautifully decorated doors front and rear, and wonderful buckets and jugs on the tops of the boats featuring traditional canal boat art (see below). There were a number of specialist painters who worked on the canals, but all this has now largely disappeared. What a shame.

 

This is the Grand Union Canal at Stoke Bruerne in Northamptonshire. At this time of year there are few visitors and the narrowboats are mostly still in their marinas though you will find the occasional one temporarily tied up alongside the canal. The famous Canal Museum has limited opening hours at present, but will be open seven days a week from 1st April. This has some wonderful examples of canal art as well as telling the fascinating story of the development of our canals.

 

Monument Valley (Navajo: Tsé Biiʼ Ndzisgaii, meaning valley of the rocks) is a region of the Colorado Plateau characterized by a cluster of vast sandstone buttes, the largest reaching 1,000 ft (300 m) above the valley floor. It is located on the southern border of Utah with northern Arizona (around 36°59′N 110°6′W / 36.983°N 110.1°W / 36.983; -110.1), near the Four Corners area. The valley lies within the range of the Navajo Nation Reservation, and is accessible from U.S. Highway 163.

 

The area is part of the Colorado Plateau. The floor is largely Cutler Red siltstone or its sand deposited by the meandering rivers that carved the valley. The valley's vivid red color comes from iron oxide exposed in the weathered siltstone. The darker, blue-gray rocks in the valley get their color from manganese oxide.

 

The buttes are clearly stratified, with three principal layers. The lowest layer is Organ Rock shale, the middle de Chelly sandstone and the top layer is Moenkopi shale capped by Shinarump siltstone. The valley includes large stone structures including the famed Eye of the Sun.

 

Between 1948 and 1967, the southern extent of the Monument Upwarp was mined for uranium, which occurs in scattered areas of the Shinarump siltstone; vanadium and copper are associated with uranium in some deposits (see Uranium mining in Arizona).

 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The Church of England parish church of St Mary the Virgin is largely a 12th-century building, with 13th-century chancel, tower and transepts, a 14th-century octagonal baptismal font and some minor Victorian additions. The main north and south nave doors are unusual in having a matching pair of Norman arches. Also in the church is a late 12th-century Crusader chest.

 

"In the chancel is a triangular locker containing the heart-burial (1575) of William Holcott of Barcote Manor. He was a staunch Protestant who only just avoided being burnt at the stake by Mary Tudor. After the Reformation, he became a zealous lay preacher, often gracing the pulpit in his "velvet bonnet and damask gown...sometimes with a gold chain".

 

"Other monuments in the church include a number of 14th-century tomb recesses, an inscribed slab with a floriated cross to Dame Felice la Blonde and a number of monuments to the Yates of Buckland Manor, including the brass of John Yate (1578), and hatchments of the Throckmorton family. The Barcote Chapel has a decorative mosaic, made in 1890–92 in memory of Clara Jane, wife of William West, of Barcote Manor.

 

"The crossing tower had a ring of six bells until 1915, when they were increased to eight by the addition of a new treble and second bell. In 1636 Roger I Purdue of Bristol cast what are now the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh bells. In 1721 Abraham II Rudhall of Gloucester cast the tenor bell. Mears and Stainbank of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry cast the third bell in 1898 and the new treble and second bell in 1915, and recast the seventh bell in 1960. St Mary's has also a Sanctus bell that John Warner and Sons of Cripplegate cast in 1854.

 

"St Mary's church is a Grade I listed building. Its parish is part of the Benefice of Cherbury with Gainfield."

 

Extract from Wikipedia entry for Buckland en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckland,_Oxfordshire

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musbury_Tor

  

Musbury Tor is a flat topped hill overlooking Helmshore in Rossendale, Lancashire, England. It separates Alden Valley to its south and Musbury Valley to the north. It is a very popular walking spot and the views from the top are magnificent. It is on farmland and is mainly sheep pasture. It is one of the tallest hills (338m) in the Rossendale valley and can be seen from much of Helmshore. A panoramic view from the top is shown in Chris Aspin, Derek Pilkington and John Simpson's book of Helmshore[1].

  

Geology

 

The underlying solid geology of the Rossendale fells is largely formed by the Lower Coal Measure comprising bedded sandstones, shales and mudstones. Rocks of the Millstone Grit series outcrop above the valley of the River Irwell and cap the hills. Musbury Tor is a perfect example of peneplanation leaving an almost isolated flat-topped hill where the harder Millstone Grit protects the softer underlying shales, leaving the distinctive sharp topography of edges and ledges characteristic of the uplands above the Irwell Valley.[2]

The other small scale topographic variations such as the undulating hummocky landforms are generally due to the former workings and stone quarries

  

History

 

Musbury was a township in the hundred of Blackburn. It was divided into three portions - Musbury Park; Musden Head (to the south), and the Trippet of Ogden (in the north). It was once the centre of the Earl of Lincoln's deer park, which was fenced by 1304, and stretches of the ditch enclosures still remain in the Alden and Musbury valleys.[4]

In 1894 Musbury ceased to be a township, and was transferred from Tottington parish to the borough of Haslingden.

  

World War II and after

 

"...to scan the skies for paratroops, four Home Guardsmen armed with one old rifle and six rounds of ammunition climbed each evening to the top of the Tor", says Chris Aspin in his memoirs. The guards apparently sheltered in a tiny hut, but they often "stumbled into bogs and old quarry workings". Chris Aspin also mentions American GIs practicing paratroop drops, and field exercises with live ammunition, before D-Day, setting up tents and a cookhouse by Great House on the Tor.[5]

In 1949 the Great House Experimental Farm in Helmshore was established by the Ministry of Agriculture on the flat top and southern slopes of Musbury Tor. Important experiments, including many on high-level grain planting and animal husbandry, and the effects of acidity in rain, were carried out. Great House Experimental Farm was closed in 1982, broken up and sold off to private farmers and others.

 

We're Here! : Brown In The World

 

Want more interaction on flickr? Join We're Here!

 

El Albaicín o Albayzín es un barrio del este de la ciudad española de Granada, en la comunidad autónoma de Andalucía. Está situado a una altitud de 700 a 800 m sobre el nivel del mar.

El tipo tradicional de vivienda es el carmen, compuesto por una vivienda exenta rodeada por un alto muro que la separa de la calle y que incluye un pequeño huerto o jardín.

Fue característico de dicho barrio la canalización y distribución del agua potable a través de aljibes; en total se han podido constatar unos 28; de los cuales, una gran mayoría se conservan pero no siguen en uso debido a que sus canalizaciones se han roto con el paso del tiempo.

En 1994, el Albaicín fue declarado Patrimonio de la Humanidad por la Unesco como ampliación del conjunto monumental de la Alhambra y el Generalife.

 

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albaic%C3%ADn

 

The Albaicín, also known as Albayzín is a district of Granada, in the autonomous community of

Andalusia, Spain. It is centered around a hill on the north side of the Darro River which passes through the city. The neighbourhood is notable for its historic monuments and for largely retaining its medieval street plan dating back to the Nasrid period (13th to 15th centuries), although it nonetheless went through many physical and demographic changes after the end of the Reconquista in 1492.

It was declared a World Heritage Site in 1994, as an extension of the historic site of the nearby Alhambra

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albaic%C3%ADn

 

The jaguar (Panthera onca) is a big cat, a feline in the Panthera genus, and is the only Panthera species found in the Americas. The jaguar is the third-largest feline after the tiger and the lion, and the largest and most powerful feline in the Western Hemisphere. The jaguar's present range extends from Mexico across much of Central America and south to Paraguay and northern Argentina. Apart from a known and possibly breeding population in Arizona (southeast of Tucson), the cat has largely been extirpated from the United States since the early 1900s.

 

This spotted cat most closely resembles the leopard physically, although it is usually larger and of sturdier build and its behavioral and habitat characteristics are closer to those of the tiger. While dense rainforest is its preferred habitat, the jaguar will range across a variety of forested and open terrain. It is strongly associated with the presence of water and is notable, along with the tiger, as a feline that enjoys swimming. The jaguar is a largely solitary, stalk-and-ambush predator, and is opportunistic in prey selection. It is also an apex and keystone predator, playing an important role in stabilizing ecosystems and regulating the populations of prey species. The jaguar has an exceptionally powerful bite, even relative to the other big cats.[3] This allows it to pierce the shells of armoured reptiles[4] and to employ an unusual killing method: it bites directly through the skull of prey between the ears to deliver a fatal bite to the brain.[5]

 

The jaguar is a near threatened species and its numbers are declining. Threats include habitat loss and fragmentation. While international trade in jaguars or their parts is prohibited, the cat is still regularly killed by humans, particularly in conflicts with ranchers and farmers in South America. Although reduced, its range remains large; given its historical distribution, the jaguar has featured prominently in the mythology of numerous indigenous American cultures, including that of the Maya and Aztec.

 

Etymology

 

A jaguar at the Milwaukee County Zoological GardensThe word jaguar is pronounced /ˈdʒæɡwɑr/ or, in British English, /ˈdʒæɡjuː.ər/. It comes to English from one of the Tupi-Guarani languages, presumably the Amazonian trade language Tupinambá, via Portuguese jaguar.[6] The Tupian word, yaguara "beast", sometimes translated as "dog",[7][8] is used for any carnivorous mammal.[9] The specific word for jaguar is yaguareté, with the suffix -eté meaning "real" or "true".[6][9][10]

 

The first component of its taxonomic designation, Panthera, is Latin, from the Greek word for leopard, πάνθηρ, the type species for the genus. This has been said to derive from the παν- "all" and θήρ from θηρευτής "predator", meaning "predator of all" (animals), though this may be a folk etymology[11]—it may instead be ultimately of Sanskrit origin, from pundarikam, the Sanskrit word for "tiger".[12]

 

Onca is the Portuguese onça, with the cedilla dropped for typographical reasons, found in English as ounce for the Snow Leopard, Uncia uncia. It derives from the Latin lyncea lynx, with the letter L confused with the definite article (Italian lonza, Old French l'once).[13]

 

In many Central and South American countries, the cat is referred to as el tigre ("the tiger")

 

Taxonomy

The jaguar, Panthera onca, is the only extant New World member of the Panthera genus. DNA evidence shows that the lion, tiger, leopard, jaguar, snow leopard, and clouded leopard share a common ancestor and that this group is between six and ten million years old;[14] the fossil record points to the emergence of Panthera just two to 3.8 million years ago.[14][15] Phylogenetic studies generally have shown that the clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) is basal to this group.[14][16][17][18] The position of the remaining species varies between studies and is effectively unresolved.

 

Based on morphological evidence, British zoologist Reginald Pocock concluded that the jaguar is most closely related to the leopard.[18] However, DNA evidence is inconclusive and the position of the jaguar relative to the other species varies between studies.[14][16][17][18] Fossils of extinct Panthera species, such as the European Jaguar (Panthera gombaszoegensis) and the American Lion (Panthera atrox), show characteristics of both the lion and the jaguar.[18] Analysis of jaguar mitochondrial DNA has dated the species lineage to between 280,000 and 510,000 years ago, later than suggested by fossil records.[19Geographical variation

 

While numerous subspecies of the jaguar have been recognized, recent research suggests just three. Geographical barriers, such as the Amazon river, limit gene flow within the species.The last taxonomic delineation of the jaguar subspecies was performed by Pocock in 1939. Based on geographic origins and skull morphology, he recognized eight subspecies. However, he did not have access to sufficient specimens to critically evaluate all subspecies, and he expressed doubt about the status of several. Later consideration of his work suggested only three subspecies should be recognized.[20]

 

Recent studies have also failed to find evidence for well defined subspecies, and are no longer recognized.[21] Larson (1997) studied the morphological variation in the jaguar and showed that there is clinal north–south variation, but also that the differentiation within the supposed subspecies is larger than that between them and thus does not warrant subspecies subdivision.[22] A genetic study by Eizirik and coworkers in 2001 confirmed the absence of a clear geographical subspecies structure, although they found that major geographical barriers such as the Amazon River limited the exchange of genes between the different populations.[19] A subsequent, more detailed, study confirmed the predicted population structure within the Colombian jaguars.[23]

 

Pocock's subspecies divisions are still regularly listed in general descriptions of the cat.[24] Seymour grouped these in three subspecies.[20]

 

Panthera onca onca: Venezuela through the Amazon, including

P. onca peruviana (Peruvian Jaguar): Coastal Peru

P. onca hernandesii (Mexican Jaguar): Western Mexico – including

P. onca centralis (Central American Jaguar): El Salvador to Colombia

P. onca arizonensis (Arizonan Jaguar): Southern Arizona to Sonora, Mexico

P. onca veraecrucis: Central Texas to Southeastern Mexico

P. onca goldmani (Goldman's Jaguar): Yucatán Peninsula to Belize and Guatemala

P. onca palustris (the largest subspecies, weighing more than 135 kg or 300 lb):[25] The Pantanal regions of Mato Grosso & Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, along the Paraguay River into Paraguay and northeastern Argentina.

 

Physical characteristics

The jaguar is a compact and well-muscled animal. There are significant variations in size and weight: weights are normally in the range of 56–96 kilograms (124–211 lb). Larger males have been recorded at 160 kilograms (350 lb)[26] (roughly matching a tigress or lioness), and smaller ones have extremely low weights of 36 kilograms (80 lb). Females are typically 10–20% smaller than males. The length of the cat varies from 1.62–1.83 metres (5.3–6 ft), and its tail may add a further 75 centimeters (30 in). It stands about 67–76 centimeters (27–30 in) tall at the shoulders.[27]

  

The head of the jaguar is robust and the jaw extremely powerful. The size of jaguars tends to increase the farther south they are located.

Jaguar skull and jawboneFurther variations in size have been observed across regions and habitats, with size tending to increase from the north to south. A study of the jaguar in the Chamela-Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve on the Mexican Pacific coast, showed ranges of just 30–50 kilograms (66–110 lb), about the size of the cougar.[28] By contrast, a study of the Jaguar in the Brazilian Pantanal region found average weights of 100 kilograms (220 lb) and weights of 300 lb or more are not uncommon in old males.[29] Forest jaguars are frequently darker and considerably smaller than those found in open areas (the Pantanal is an open wetland basin), possibly due to the smaller numbers of large herbivorous prey in forest areas.[30]

 

A short and stocky limb structure makes the jaguar adept at climbing, crawling and swimming.[27] The head is robust and the jaw extremely powerful. The jaguar has the strongest bite of all felids capable of biting down with 2000 lbs of force twice the strength of a lion, and the second strongest of all mammals after the spotted hyena; this strength is an adaptation that allows the jaguar to pierce turtle shells.[4] A comparative study of bite force adjusted for body size ranked it as the top felid, alongside the clouded leopard and ahead of the lion and tiger.[31] It has been reported that "an individual jaguar can drag a 360 kg (800 lb) bull 8 m (25 ft) in its jaws and pulverize the heaviest bones".[32] The jaguar hunts wild animals weighing up to 300 kilograms (660 lb) in dense jungle, and its short and sturdy physique is thus an adaptation to its prey and environment.

  

A melanistic jaguar. Melanism is the result of a dominant allele but remains relatively rare in jaguars.The base coat of the jaguar is generally a tawny yellow, but can range to reddish-brown and black. The cat is covered in rosettes for camouflage in its jungle habitat. The spots vary over individual coats and between individual Jaguars: rosettes may include one or several dots, and the shape of the dots varies. The spots on the head and neck are generally solid, as are those on the tail, where they may merge to form a band. The underbelly, throat and outer surface of the legs and lower flanks are white.[27]

 

A condition known as melanism occurs in the species. The melanistic form is less common than the spotted form (it occurs at about six percent of the population)[33] of jaguars and is the result of a dominant allele.[34] Jaguars with melanism appear entirely black, although their spots are still visible on close examination. Melanistic Jaguars are informally known as black panthers, but do not form a separate species. Rare albino individuals, sometimes called white panthers, also occur among jaguars, as with the other big cats.[30]

 

While the jaguar closely resembles the leopard, it is sturdier and heavier, and the two animals can be distinguished by their rosettes: the rosettes on a jaguar's coat are larger, fewer in number, usually darker, and have thicker lines and small spots in the middle that the leopard lacks. Jaguars also have rounder heads and shorter, stockier limbs compared to leopards.[35

  

[edit] Reproduction and life cycle

Jaguar females reach sexual maturity at about two years of age, and males at three or four. The cat is believed to mate throughout the year in the wild, although births may increase when prey is plentiful.[36] Research on captive male jaguars supports the year-round mating hypothesis, with no seasonal variation in semen traits and ejaculatory quality; low reproductive success has also been observed in captivity.[37] Female estrous is 6–17 days out of a full 37-day cycle, and females will advertise fertility with urinary scent marks and increased vocalization.[36] Both sexes will range more widely than usual during courtship.

  

Mother about to pick up a cub by the neckMating pairs separate after the act, and females provide all parenting. The gestation period lasts 93–105 days; females give birth to up to four cubs, and most commonly to two. The mother will not tolerate the presence of males after the birth of cubs, given a risk of infanticide; this behaviour is also found in the tiger.[38]

 

The young are born blind, gaining sight after two weeks. Cubs are weaned at three months but remain in the birth den for six months before leaving to accompany their mother on hunts.[39] They will continue in their mother's company for one to two years before leaving to establish a territory for themselves. Young males are at first nomadic, jostling with their older counterparts until they succeed in claiming a territory. Typical lifespan in the wild is estimated at around 12–15 years; in captivity, the jaguar lives up to 23 years, placing it among the longest-lived cats.[29]

  

Social activity

Like most cats, the jaguar is solitary outside mother-cub groups. Adults generally meet only to court and mate (though limited non-courting socialization has been observed anecdotally[38]) and carve out large territories for themselves. Female territories, which range from 25 to 40 square kilometers in size, may overlap, but the animals generally avoid one another. Male ranges cover roughly twice as much area, varying in size with the availability of game and space, and do not overlap.[38][40] The jaguar uses scrape marks, urine, and feces to mark its territory.[41]

 

Like the other big cats, the jaguar is capable of roaring (the male more powerfully) and does so to warn territorial and mating competitors away; intensive bouts of counter-calling between individuals have been observed in the wild.[42] Their roar often resembles a repetitive cough, and they may also vocalize mews and grunts.[29] Mating fights between males occur, but are rare, and aggression avoidance behaviour has been observed in the wild.[41] When it occurs, conflict is typically over territory: a male's range may encompass that of two or three females, and he will not tolerate intrusions by other adult males.[38]

 

The jaguar is often described as nocturnal, but is more specifically crepuscular (peak activity around dawn and dusk). Both sexes hunt, but males travel further each day than females, befitting their larger territories. The jaguar may hunt during the day if game is available and is a relatively energetic feline, spending as much as 50–60% of its time active.[30] The jaguar's elusive nature and the inaccessibility of much of its preferred habitat make it a difficult animal to sight, let alone study.

 

Hunting and diet

 

Illustration of a jaguar battling a boa constrictor

Illustration of a jaguar killing a tapirLike all cats, the jaguar is an obligate carnivore, feeding only on meat. It is an opportunistic hunter and its diet encompasses 87 species.[30] The jaguar prefers large prey and will take adult caiman, deer, capybara, tapirs, peccaries, dogs, foxes, and sometimes even anacondas . However, the cat will eat any small species that can be caught, including frogs, mice, birds, fish, sloths, monkeys, and turtles; a study conducted in Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary in Belize, for example, revealed that jaguars there had a diet that consisted primarily of armadillos and pacas.[41] Some jaguars will also take domestic livestock, including adult cattle and horses.[43]

  

The jaguar has an exceptionally powerful bite, even relative to the other big cats. It is an adaptation that allows it to pierce the shells of armoured reptiles.While the jaguar employs the deep-throat bite-and-suffocation technique typical among Panthera, it prefers a killing method unique amongst cats: it pierces directly through the temporal bones of the skull between the ears of prey (especially the Capybara) with its canine teeth, piercing the brain.[44] This may be an adaptation to "cracking open" turtle shells; following the late Pleistocene extinctions, armoured reptiles such as turtles would have formed an abundant prey base for the jaguar.[30][42] The skull bite is employed with mammals in particular; with reptiles such as caiman, the jaguar may leap on to the back of the prey and sever the cervical vertebrae, immobilizing the target. While capable of cracking turtle shells, the jaguar may simply reach into the shell and scoop out the flesh.[38] With prey such as smaller dogs, a paw swipe to the skull may be sufficient in killing it.

 

The jaguar is a stalk-and-ambush rather than a chase predator. The cat will walk slowly down forest paths, listening for and stalking prey before rushing or ambushing. The jaguar attacks from cover and usually from a target's blind spot with a quick pounce; the species' ambushing abilities are considered nearly peerless in the animal kingdom by both indigenous people and field researchers, and are probably a product of its role as an apex predator in several different environments. The ambush may include leaping into water after prey, as a jaguar is quite capable of carrying a large kill while swimming; its strength is such that carcasses as large as a heifer can be hauled up a tree to avoid flood levels.[38]

 

On killing prey, the jaguar will drag the carcass to a thicket or other secluded spot. It begins eating at the neck and chest, rather than the midsection. The heart and lungs are consumed, followed by the shoulders.[38] The daily food requirement of a 34 kilogram animal, at the extreme low end of the species' weight range, has been estimated at 1.4 kilograms.[45] For captive animals in the 50–60 kilogram range, more than 2 kilograms of meat daily is recommended.[46] In the wild, consumption is naturally more erratic; wild cats expend considerable energy in the capture and kill of prey, and may consume up to 25 kilograms of meat at one feeding, followed by periods of famine.[47] Unlike all other species in the Panthera genus, jaguars very rarely attack humans. Most of the scant cases where jaguars turn to taking a human show that the animal is either old with damaged teeth or is wounded.[48] Sometimes, if scared, jaguars in captivity may lash out at zookeepers.[49]

 

[edit] Ecology

[edit] Distribution and habitat

The jaguar has been attested in the fossil record for two million years[24] and it has been an American cat since crossing the Bering Land Bridge during the Pleistocene epoch; the immediate ancestor of modern animals is Panthera onca augusta, which was larger than the contemporary cat.[23] Its present range extends from Mexico, through Central America and into South America, including much of Amazonian Brazil.[50] The countries included in this range are Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica (particularly on the Osa Peninsula), Ecuador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, United States and Venezuela. The jaguar is now extinct in El Salvador and Uruguay.[2] It occurs in the 400 km² Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary in Belize, the 5,300 km² Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve in Mexico, the approximately 15,000 km² Manú National Park in Peru, the approximately 26,000 km² Xingu National Park in Brazil, and numerous other reserves throughout its range.

  

The jaguar can range across a variety of forested and open habitat, but is strongly associated with presence of water.The inclusion of the United States in the list is based on occasional sightings in the southwest, particularly in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. In the early 1900s, the jaguar's range extended as far north as the Grand Canyon, and as far west as Southern California.[45] The jaguar is a protected species in the United States under the Endangered Species Act, which has stopped the shooting of the animal for its pelt. In 2004, wildlife officials in Arizona photographed and documented jaguars in the southern part of the state. For any permanent population to thrive, protection from killing, an adequate prey base, and connectivity with Mexican populations are essential.[51] On February 25, 2009 a 118 lb Jaguar was caught, radio-collared and released in an area southwest of Tucson, Arizona; this is farther north than had previously been expected and represents a sign that there may be a permanent breeding population of Jaguars within southern Arizona. It was later confirmed that the animal is indeed the same male individual (known as 'Macho B') that was photographed in 2004 and is now the oldest known Jaguar in the wild (approximately 15 years old.)[52] On Monday March 2, 2009, Macho B, which is the only jaguar spotted in the U.S. in more than a decade, was recaptured and euthanized after he was found to be suffering from kidney failure.[53]

 

Completion of the United States–Mexico barrier as currently proposed will reduce the viability of any population currently residing in the United States, by reducing gene flow with Mexican populations, and prevent any further northward expansion for the species.[54]

 

The historic range of the species included much of the southern half of the United States, and in the south extended much farther to cover most of the South American continent. In total, its northern range has receded 1,000 kilometers southward and its southern range 2,000 km northward. Ice age fossils of the jaguar, dated between 40,000 and 11,500 years ago, have been discovered in the United States, including some at an important site as far north as Missouri. Fossil evidence shows jaguars of up to 190 kg (420 lb), much larger than the contemporary average for the animal.[55]

 

The habitat of the cat includes the rain forests of South and Central America, open, seasonally flooded wetlands, and dry grassland terrain. Of these habitats, the jaguar much prefers dense forest;[30] the cat has lost range most rapidly in regions of drier habitat, such as the Argentinian pampas, the arid grasslands of Mexico, and the southwestern United States.[2] The cat will range across tropical, subtropical, and dry deciduous forests (including, historically, oak forests in the United States). The jaguar is strongly associated with water and it often prefers to live by rivers, swamps, and in dense rainforest with thick cover for stalking prey. Jaguars have been found at elevations as high as 3,800 m, but they typically avoid montane forest and are not found in the high plateau of central Mexico or in the Andes.[30]

 

Substantial evidence exists that there is also a colony of non-native melanistic leopards or jaguars inhabiting the rainforests around Sydney, Australia. A local report compiled statements from over 450 individuals recounting their stories of sighting large black cats in the area and confidential NSW Government documents regarding the matter proved wildlife authorities were so concerned about the big cats and the danger to humans, they commissioned an expert to catch it. The three-day hunt later failed, but ecologist Johannes J. Bauer warned: "Difficult as it seems to accept, the most likely explanation is the presence of a large, feline predator. In this area, [it is] most likely a leopard, less likely a jaguar."[56]

Ecological role

The adult jaguar is an apex predator, meaning that it exists at the top of its food chain and is not preyed on in the wild. The jaguar has also been termed a keystone species, as it is assumed, through controlling the population levels of prey such as herbivorous and granivorous mammals, apex felids maintain the structural integrity of forest systems.[28][57] However, accurately determining what effect species like the jaguar have on ecosystems is difficult, because data must be compared from regions where the species is absent as well as its current habitats, while controlling for the effects of human activity. It is accepted that mid-sized prey species undergo population increases in the absence of the keystone predators and it has been hypothesized that this has cascading negative effects.[58] However, field work has shown this may be natural variability and that the population increases may not be sustained. Thus, the keystone predator hypothesis is not favoured by all scientists.[59]

 

The jaguar also has an effect on other predators. The jaguar and the cougar, the next largest feline of the Americas, are often sympatric (related species sharing overlapping territory) and have often been studied in conjunction. Where sympatric with the jaguar, the cougar is smaller than normal and is smaller than the local jaguars. The jaguar tends to take larger prey and the cougar smaller, reducing the latter's size.[60] This situation may be advantageous to the cougar. Its broader prey niche, including its ability to take smaller prey, may give it an advantage over the jaguar in human-altered landscapes;[28] while both are classified as near-threatened species, the cougar has a significantly larger current distribution.

 

[edit] Conservation status

 

Jaguar populations are rapidly declining. The animal is considered Near Threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources,[2] meaning it may be threatened with extinction in the near future. The loss of parts of its range, including its virtual elimination from its historic northern areas and the increasing fragmentation of the remaining range, have contributed to this status. The 1960s saw particularly significant declines, with more than 15,000 jaguar skins brought out of the Brazilian Amazon yearly; the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) of 1973 brought about a sharp decline in the pelt trade.[61] Detailed work performed under the auspices of the Wildlife Conservation Society reveal that the animal has lost 37% of its historic range, with its status unknown in an additional 18%. More encouragingly, the probability of long-term survival was considered high in 70% of its remaining range, particularly in the Amazon basin and the adjoining Gran Chaco and Pantanal.[50]

 

The major risks to the jaguar include deforestation across its habitat, increasing competition for food with human beings,[2] poaching, hurricanes in northern parts of its range, and the behaviour of ranchers who will often kill the cat where it preys on livestock. When adapted to the prey, the jaguar has been shown to take cattle as a large portion of its diet; while land clearance for grazing is a problem for the species, the jaguar population may have increased when cattle were first introduced to South America as the animals took advantage of the new prey base. This willingness to take livestock has induced ranch owners to hire full-time jaguar hunters, and the cat is often shot on sight.[29]

  

The Pantanal, Brazil, seen here in flood condition, is a critical jaguar range area.The jaguar is regulated as an Appendix I species under CITES: all international trade in jaguars or their parts is prohibited. All hunting of jaguars is prohibited in Argentina, Belize, Colombia, French Guiana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname, the United States (where it is listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act), Uruguay and Venezuela. Hunting of jaguars is restricted to "problem animals" in Brazil, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru, while trophy hunting is still permitted in Bolivia. The species has no legal protection in Ecuador or Guyana.[24]

 

Current conservation efforts often focus on educating ranch owners and promoting ecotourism.[62] The jaguar is generally defined as an umbrella species — a species whose home range and habitat requirements are sufficiently broad that, if protected, numerous other species of smaller range will also be protected.[63] Umbrella species serve as "mobile links" at the landscape scale, in the jaguar's case through predation. Conservation organizations may thus focus on providing viable, connected habitat for the jaguar, with the knowledge that other species will also benefit.[62]

 

Given the inaccessibility of much of the species' range—particularly the central Amazon—estimating jaguar numbers is difficult. Researchers typically focus on particular bioregions, and thus species-wide analysis is scant. In 1991, 600–1,000 (the highest total) were estimated to be living in Belize. A year earlier, 125–180 jaguars were estimated to be living in Mexico's 4,000 square kilometer (2400 mi²) Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, with another 350 in the state of Chiapas. The adjoining Maya Biosphere Reserve in Guatemala, with an area measuring 15,000 square kilometers (9,000 mi²), may have 465–550 animals.[64] Work employing GPS–telemetry in 2003 and 2004 found densities of only six to seven jaguars per 100 square kilometers in the critical Pantanal region, compared with 10 to 11 using traditional methods; this suggests that widely used sampling methods may inflate the actual numbers of cats.[65]

 

On 7 January 2008 United States Fish and Wildlife Service Director H. Dale Hall approved a decision by the George W. Bush Administration to abandon jaguar recovery as a federal goal under the Endangered Species Act. Some critics of the decision said that the jaguar is being sacrificed for the government's new border fence, which is to be built along many of the cat's typical crossings between the United States and Mexico.[66]

 

In the past, conservation of jaguars sometimes occurred through the protection of jaguar "hotspots". These hotspots were described as Jaguar Conservation Units, and were large areas populated by about 50 jaguars. However, some researchers recently determined that, in order to maintain a robust sharing of the jaguar gene pool necessary for maintaining the species, it is important that the jaguars be interconnected. To effect this, a new project, the Paseo del Jaguar, as been established to connect the jaguar hotspots.[67]

Fonte-Wikipedia.

      

Information from: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Cod

 

Cape Cod

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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This article is about the area of Massachusetts. For other uses, see Cape Cod (disambiguation).

For other uses, see Cod (disambiguation).

 

Coordinates: 41°41′20″N 70°17′49″W / 41.68889°N 70.29694°W / 41.68889; -70.29694

Map of Massachusetts, with Cape Cod (Barnstable County) indicated in red

Dunes on Sandy Neck are part of the Cape's barrier beach which helps to prevent erosion

 

Cape Cod, often referred to locally as simply the Cape, is an island and a cape in the easternmost portion of the state of Massachusetts, in the Northeastern United States. It is coextensive with Barnstable County. Several small islands right off Cape Cod, including Monomoy Island, Monomoscoy Island, Popponesset Island, and Seconsett Island, are also in Barnstable County, being part of municipalities with land on the Cape. The Cape's small-town character and large beachfront attract heavy tourism during the summer months.

 

Cape Cod was formed as the terminal moraine of a glacier, resulting in a peninsula in the Atlantic Ocean. In 1914, the Cape Cod Canal was cut through the base or isthmus of the peninsula, forming an island. The Cape Cod Commission refers to the resultant landmass as an island; as does the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in regards to disaster preparedness.[1] It is still identified as a peninsula by geographers, who do not change landform designations based on man-made canal construction.[citation needed]

 

Unofficially, it is one of the biggest barrier islands in the world, shielding much of the Massachusetts coastline from North Atlantic storm waves. This protection helps to erode the Cape shoreline at the expense of cliffs, while protecting towns from Fairhaven to Marshfield.

 

Road vehicles from the mainland cross over the Cape Cod Canal via the Sagamore Bridge and the Bourne Bridge. The two bridges are parallel, with the Bourne Bridge located slightly farther southwest. In addition, the Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge carries railway freight as well as tourist passenger services.

Contents

[hide]

 

* 1 Geography and political divisions

o 1.1 "Upper" and "Lower"

* 2 Geology

* 3 Climate

* 4 Native population

* 5 History

* 6 Lighthouses of Cape Cod

* 7 Transportation

o 7.1 Bus

o 7.2 Rail

o 7.3 Taxi

* 8 Tourism

* 9 Sport fishing

* 10 Sports

* 11 Education

* 12 Islands off Cape Cod

* 13 See also

* 14 References

o 14.1 Notes

o 14.2 Sources

o 14.3 Further reading

* 15 External links

 

[edit] Geography and political divisions

Towns of Barnstable County

historical map of 1890

 

The highest elevation on Cape Cod is 306 feet (93 m), at the top of Pine Hill, in the Bourne portion of the Massachusetts Military Reservation. The lowest point is sea level.

 

The body of water located between Cape Cod and the mainland, bordered to the north by Massachusetts Bay, is Cape Cod Bay; west of Cape Cod is Buzzards Bay. The Cape Cod Canal, completed in 1916, connects Buzzards Bay to Cape Cod Bay; it shortened the trade route between New York and Boston by 62 miles.[2] To the south of Cape Cod lie Nantucket Sound; Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, both large islands, and the mostly privately owned Elizabeth Islands.

 

Cape Cod incorporates all of Barnstable County, which comprises 15 towns: Bourne, Sandwich, Falmouth, and Mashpee, Barnstable, Yarmouth, Dennis, Harwich, Brewster, Chatham, Orleans, Eastham, Wellfleet, Truro, and Provincetown. Two of the county's fifteen towns (Bourne and Sandwich) include land on the mainland side of the Cape Cod Canal. The towns of Plymouth and Wareham, in adjacent Plymouth County, are sometimes considered to be part of Cape Cod but are not located on the island.

 

In the 17th century the designation Cape Cod applied only to the tip of the peninsula, essentially present-day Provincetown. Over the ensuing decades, the name came to mean all the land east of the Manomet and Scussett rivers - essentially the line of the 20th century Cape Cod Canal. Now, the complete towns of Bourne and Sandwich are widely considered to incorporate the full perimeter of Cape Cod, even though small parts of these towns are located on the west side of the canal. The canal divides the largest part of the peninsula from the mainland and the resultant landmass is sometimes referred to as an island.[3][4] Additionally some "Cape Codders" – residents of "The Cape" – refer to all land on the mainland side of the canal as "off-Cape."

 

For most of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, Cape Cod was considered to consist of three sections:

 

* The Upper Cape is the part of Cape Cod closest to the mainland, comprising the towns of Bourne, Sandwich, Falmouth, and Mashpee. Falmouth is the home of the famous Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and several other research organizations, and is also the most-used ferry connection to Martha's Vineyard. Falmouth is composed of several separate villages, including East Falmouth, Falmouth Village, Hatchville, North Falmouth, Teaticket, Waquoit, West Falmouth, and Woods Hole, as well as several smaller hamlets that are incorporated into their larger neighbors (e.g., Davisville, Falmouth Heights, Quissett, Sippewissett, and others).[5]

 

* The Mid-Cape includes the towns of Barnstable, Yarmouth and Dennis. The Mid-Cape area features many beautiful beaches, including warm-water beaches along Nantucket Sound, e.g., Kalmus Beach in Hyannis, which gets its name from one of the inventors of Technicolor, Herbert Kalmus. This popular windsurfing destination was bequeathed to the town of Barnstable by Dr. Kalmus on condition that it not be developed, possibly one of the first instances of open-space preservation in the US. The Mid-Cape is also the commercial and industrial center of the region. There are seven villages in Barnstable, including Barnstable Village, Centerville, Cotuit, Hyannis, Marstons Mills, Osterville, and West Barnstable, as well as several smaller hamlets that are incorporated into their larger neighbors (e.g., Craigville, Cummaquid, Hyannisport, Santuit, Wianno, and others).[6] There are three villages in Yarmouth: South Yarmouth, West Yarmouth and Yarmouthport. There are five villages in Dennis including, Dennis Village(North Dennis), East Dennis, West Dennis, South Dennis and Dennisport.[7]

 

* The Lower Cape traditionally included all of the rest of the Cape,or the towns of Harwich, Brewster, Chatham, Orleans, Eastham, Wellfleet, Truro, and Provincetown. This area includes the Cape Cod National Seashore, a national park comprising much of the outer Cape, including the entire east-facing coast, and is home to some of the most popular beaches in America, such as Coast Guard Beach and Nauset Light Beach in Eastham. Stephen Leatherman, aka "Dr. Beach", named Coast Guard Beach the 5th best beach in America for 2007.[8]

 

[edit] "Upper" and "Lower"

 

The terms "Upper" and "Lower" as applied to the Cape have nothing to do with north and south. Instead, they derive from maritime convention at the time when the principal means of transportation involved watercraft, and the prevailing westerly winds meant that a boat with sails traveling northeast in Cape Cod Bay would have the wind at its back and thus be going downwind, while a craft sailing southwest would be going against the wind, or upwind.[9] Similarly, on nearby Martha's Vineyard, "Up Island" still is the western section and "Down Island" is to the east, and in Maine, "Down East" is similarly defined by the winds and currents.

 

Over time, the reasons for the traditional nomenclature became unfamiliar and their meaning obscure. Late in the 1900s, new arrivals began calling towns from Eastham to Provincetown the "Outer Cape", yet another geographic descriptor which is still in use, as is the "Inner Cape."

[edit] Geology

Cape Cod and Cape Cod Bay from space.[10]

 

East of America, there stands in the open Atlantic the last fragment of an ancient and vanished land. Worn by the breakers and the rains, and disintegrated by the wind, it still stands bold.

“

”

Henry Beston, The Outermost House

 

Cape Cod forms a continuous archipelagic region with a thin line of islands stretching toward New York, historically known by naturalists as the Outer Lands. This continuity is due to the fact that the islands and Cape are all terminal glacial moraines laid down some 16,000 to 20,000 years ago.

 

Most of Cape Cod's geological history involves the advance and retreat of the Laurentide ice sheet in the late Pleistocene geological era and the subsequent changes in sea level. Using radiocarbon dating techniques, researchers have determined that around 23,000 years ago, the ice sheet reached its maximum southward advance over North America, and then started to retreat. Many "kettle ponds" — clear, cold lakes — were formed and remain on Cape Cod as a result of the receding glacier. By about 18,000 years ago, the ice sheet had retreated past Cape Cod. By roughly 15,000 years ago, it had retreated past southern New England. When so much of Earth's water was locked up in massive ice sheets, the sea level was lower. Truro's bayside beaches used to be a petrified forest, before it became a beach.

 

As the ice began to melt, the sea began to rise. Initially, sea level rose quickly, about 15 meters (50 ft) per 1,000 years, but then the rate declined. On Cape Cod, sea level rose roughly 3 meters (11 ft) per millennium between 6,000 and 2,000 years ago. After that, it continued to rise at about 1 meter (3 ft) per millennium. By 6,000 years ago, the sea level was high enough to start eroding the glacial deposits that the vanished continental ice sheet had left on Cape Cod. The water transported the eroded deposits north and south along the outer Cape's shoreline. Those reworked sediments that moved north went to the tip of Cape Cod.

 

Provincetown Spit, at the northern end of the Cape, consists largely of marine deposits, transported from farther up the shore. Sediments that moved south created the islands and shoals of Monomoy. So while other parts of the Cape have dwindled from the action of the waves, these parts of the Cape have grown.

Cape Cod National Seashore

 

This process continues today. Due to their position jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean, the Cape and islands are subject to massive coastal erosion. Geologists say that, due to erosion, the Cape will be completely submerged by the sea in thousands of years.[11] This erosion causes the washout of beaches and the destruction of the barrier islands; for example, the ocean broke through the barrier island at Chatham during Hurricane Bob in 1991, allowing waves and storm surges to hit the coast with no obstruction. Consequently, the sediment and sand from the beaches is being washed away and deposited elsewhere. While this destroys land in some places, it creates land elsewhere, most noticeably in marshes where sediment is deposited by waters running through them.

[edit] Climate

 

Although Cape Cod's weather[12] is typically more moderate than inland locations, there have been occasions where Cape Cod has dealt with the brunt of extreme weather situations (such as the Blizzard of 1954 and Hurricane of 1938). Because of the influence of the Atlantic Ocean, temperatures are typically a few degrees cooler in the summer and a few degrees warmer in the winter. A common misconception is that the climate is influenced largely by the warm Gulf Stream current, however that current turns eastward off the coast of Virginia and the waters off the Cape are more influenced by the cold Canadian Labrador Current. As a result, the ocean temperature rarely gets above 65 °F (18 °C), except along the shallow west coast of the Upper Cape.

 

The Cape's climate is also notorious for a delayed spring season, being surrounded by an ocean which is still cold from the winter; however, it is also known for an exceptionally mild fall season (Indian summer), thanks to the ocean remaining warm from the summer. The highest temperature ever recorded on Cape Cod was 104 °F (40 °C) in Provincetown[13], and the lowest temperature ever was −12 °F (−24.4 °C) in Barnstable.[14]

 

The water surrounding Cape Cod moderates winter temperatures enough to extend the USDA hardiness zone 7a to its northernmost limit in eastern North America.[15] Even though zone 7a (annual low = 0–5 degrees Fahrenheit) signifies no sub-zero temperatures annually, there have been several instances of temperatures reaching a few degrees below zero across the Cape (although it is rare, usually 1–5 times a year, typically depending on locale, sometimes not at all). Consequently, many plant species typically found in more southerly latitudes grow there, including Camellias, Ilex opaca, Magnolia grandiflora and Albizia julibrissin.

 

Precipitation on Cape Cod and the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket is the lowest in the New England region, averaging slightly less than 40 inches (1,000 mm) a year (most parts of New England average 42–46 inches). This is due to storm systems which move across western areas, building up in mountainous regions, and dissipating before reaching the coast where the land has leveled out. The region does not experience a greater number of sunny days however, as the number of cloudy days is the same as inland locales, in addition to increased fog. Snowfall is annual, but a lot less common than the rest of Massachusetts. On average, 30 inches of snow, which is a foot less than Boston, falls in an average winter. Snow is usually light, and comes in squalls on cold days. Storms that bring blizzard conditions and snow emergencies to the mainland, bring devastating ice storms or just heavy rains more frequently than large snow storms.

[hide]Climate data for Cape Cod

Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year

Average high °C (°F) 2.06

(35.7) 2.5

(36.5) 6.22

(43.2) 11.72

(53.1) 16.94

(62.5) 23.5

(74.3) 26.39

(79.5) 26.67

(80.0) 25.06

(77.1) 18.39

(65.1) 12.56

(54.6) 5.44

(41.8) 26.67

(80.0)

Average low °C (°F) -5.33

(22.4) -5

(23.0) -1.33

(29.6) 2.72

(36.9) 8.72

(47.7) 14.61

(58.3) 19.22

(66.6) 20.28

(68.5) 15.56

(60.0) 9.94

(49.9) 3.94

(39.1) -2.22

(28.0) -5.33

(22.4)

Precipitation mm (inches) 98

(3.86) 75.4

(2.97) 95

(3.74) 92.5

(3.64) 83.6

(3.29) 76.7

(3.02) 62.2

(2.45) 65

(2.56) 74.7

(2.94) 84.8

(3.34) 90.7

(3.57) 92.7

(3.65) 990.9

(39.01)

Source: World Meteorological Organisation (United Nations) [16]

[edit] Native population

 

Cape Cod has been the home of the Wampanoag tribe of Native American people for many centuries. They survived off the sea and were accomplished farmers. They understood the principles of sustainable forest management, and were known to light controlled fires to keep the underbrush in check. They helped the Pilgrims, who arrived in the fall of 1620, survive at their new Plymouth Colony. At the time, the dominant group was the Kakopee, known for their abilities at fishing. They were the first Native Americans to use large casting nets. Early colonial settlers recorded that the Kakopee numbered nearly 7,000.

 

Shortly after the Pilgrims arrived, the chief of the Kakopee, Mogauhok, attempted to make a treaty limiting colonial settlements. The effort failed after he succumbed to smallpox in 1625. Infectious diseases such as smallpox, measles and influenza caused the deaths of many other Kakopee and Wampanoag. They had no natural immunity to Eurasian diseases by then endemic among the English and other Europeans. Today, the only reminder of the Kakopee is a small public recreation area in Barnstable named for them. A historic marker notes the burial site of Mogauhok near Truro, although the location is conjecture.

 

While contractors were digging test wells in the eastern Massachusetts Military Reservation area, they discovered an archeological find.[citation needed] Excavation revealed the remains of a Kakopee village in Forestdale, a location in Sandwich. Researchers found a totem with a painted image of Mogauhok, portrayed in his chief's cape and brooch. The totem was discovered on property on Grand Oak Road. It is the first evidence other than colonial accounts of his role as an important Kakopee leader.

 

The Indians lost their lands through continued purchase and expropriation by the English colonists. The documentary Natives of the Narrowland (1993), narrated by actress Julie Harris, shows the history of the Wampanoag people through Cape Cod archaeological sites.

 

In 1974, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council was formed to articulate the concerns of those with Native American ancestry. They petitioned the federal government in 1975 and again in 1990 for official recognition of the Mashpee Wampanoag as a tribe. In May 2007, the Wampanoag tribe was finally federally recognized as a tribe.[17]

[edit] History

Cranberry picking in 1906

 

Cape Cod was a landmark for early explorers. It may have been the "Promontory of Vinland" mentioned by the Norse voyagers (985-1025). Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524 approached it from the south. He named Martha's Vineyard Claudia, after the mother of the King of France.[18] The next year the explorer Esteban Gómez called it Cape St. James.

 

In 1602 Bartholomew Gosnold named it Cape Cod, the surviving term and the ninth oldest English place-name in the U.S.[19] Samuel de Champlain charted its sand-silted harbors in 1606 and Henry Hudson landed there in 1609. Captain John Smith noted it on his map of 1614 and at last the Pilgrims entered the "Cape Harbor" and – contrary to the popular myth of Plymouth Rock – made their first landing near present-day Provincetown on November 11, 1620. Nearby, in what is now Eastham, they had their first encounter with Native Americans.

 

Cape Cod was among the first places settled by the English in North America. Aside from Barnstable (1639), Sandwich (1637) and Yarmouth (1639), the Cape's fifteen towns developed slowly. The final town to be established on the Cape was Bourne in 1884.[20] Provincetown was a group of huts until the 18th century. A channel from Massachusetts Bay to Buzzards Bay is shown on Southack's map of 1717. The present Cape Cod Canal was slowly developed from 1870 to 1914. The Federal government purchased it in 1928.

 

Thanks to early colonial settlement and intensive land use, by the time Henry Thoreau saw Cape Cod during his four visits over 1849 to 1857[21], its vegetation was depauperate and trees were scarce. As the settlers heated by fires, and it took 10 to 20 cords (40 to 80 m³) of wood to heat a home, they cleared most of Cape Cod of timber early on. They planted familiar crops, but these were unsuited to Cape Cod's thin, glacially derived soils. For instance, much of Eastham was planted to wheat. The settlers practiced burning of woodlands to release nutrients into the soil. Improper and intensive farming led to erosion and the loss of topsoil. Farmers grazed their cattle on the grassy dunes of coastal Massachusetts, only to watch "in horror as the denuded sands `walked' over richer lands, burying cultivated fields and fences." Dunes on the outer Cape became more common and many harbors filled in with eroded soils.[22]

 

By 1800, most of Cape Cod's firewood had to be transported by boat from Maine. The paucity of vegetation was worsened by the raising of merino sheep that reached its peak in New England around 1840. The early industrial revolution, which occurred through much of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, mostly bypassed Cape Cod due to a lack of significant water power in the area. As a result, and also because of its geographic position, the Cape developed as a large fishing and whaling center. After 1860 and the opening of the American West, farmers abandoned agriculture on the Cape. By 1950 forests had recovered to an extent not seen since the 18th century.

 

Cape Cod became a summer haven for city dwellers beginning at the end of the 19th century. Improved rail transportation made the towns of the Upper Cape, such as Bourne and Falmouth, accessible to Bostonians. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Northeastern mercantile elite built many large, shingled "cottages" along Buzzards Bay. The relaxed summer environment offered by Cape Cod was highlighted by writers including Joseph C. Lincoln, who published novels and countless short stories about Cape Cod folks in popular magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post and the Delineator.

 

Guglielmo Marconi made the first transatlantic wireless transmission originating in the United States from Cape Cod, at Wellfleet. The beach from which he transmitted has since been called Marconi Beach. In 1914 he opened the maritime wireless station WCC in Chatham. It supported the communications of Amelia Earhart, Howard Hughes, Admiral Byrd, and the Hindenburg. Marconi chose Chatham due to its vantage point on the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded on three sides by water. Walter Cronkite narrated a 17-minute documentary in 2005 about the history of the Chatham Station.

 

Much of the East-facing Atlantic seacoast of Cape Cod consists of wide, sandy beaches. In 1961, a significant portion of this coastline, already slated for housing subdivisions, was made a part of the Cape Cod National Seashore by President John F. Kennedy. It was protected from private development and preserved for public use. Large portions are open to the public, including the Marconi Site in Wellfleet. This is a park encompassing the site of the first two-way transoceanic radio transmission from the United States. (Theodore Roosevelt used Marconi's equipment for this transmission).

 

The Kennedy Compound in Hyannisport was President Kennedy's summer White House during his presidency. The Kennedy family continues to maintain residences on the compound. Other notable residents of Cape Cod have included actress Julie Harris, US Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis, figure skater Todd Eldredge, and novelists Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut. Influential natives included the patriot James Otis, historian and writer Mercy Otis Warren, jurist Lemuel Shaw, and naval officer John Percival.

[edit] Lighthouses of Cape Cod

Race Point Lighthouse in Provincetown (1876)

 

Lighthouses, from ancient times, have fascinated members of the human race. There is something about a lighted beacon that suggests hope and trust and appeals to the better instincts of mankind.

“

”

Edward Rowe Snow

 

Due to its dangerous constantly moving shoals, Cape Cod's shores have featured beacons which warn ships of the danger since very early in its history. There are numerous working lighthouses on Cape Cod and the Islands, including Highland Light, Nauset Light, Chatham Light, Race Point Light, and Nobska Light, mostly operated by the U.S. Coast Guard. The exception is Nauset Light, which was decommissioned in 1996 and is now maintained by the Nauset Light Preservation Society under the auspices of Cape Cod National Seashore. These lighthouses are frequently photographed symbols of Cape Cod.

 

Others include:

 

Upper Cape: Wings Neck

 

Mid Cape: Sandy Neck, South Hyannis, Lewis Bay, Bishop and Clerks, Bass River

 

Lower Cape: Wood End, Long Point, Monomoy, Stage Harbor, Pamet, Mayo Beach, Billingsgate, Three Sisters, Nauset, Highland

[edit] Transportation

 

Cape Cod is connected to the mainland by a pair of canal-spanning highway bridges from Bourne and Sagamore that were constructed in the 1930s, and a vertical-lift railroad bridge. The limited number of access points to the peninsula can result in large traffic backups during the tourist season.

 

The entire Cape is roughly bisected lengthwise by U.S. Route 6, locally known as the Mid-Cape Highway and officially as the Grand Army of the Republic Highway.

 

Commercial air service to Cape Cod operates out of Barnstable Municipal Airport and Provincetown Municipal Airport. Several bus lines service the Cape. There are ferry connections from Boston to Provincetown, as well as from Hyannis and Woods Hole to the islands.

 

Cape Cod has a public transportation network comprising buses operated by three different companies, a rail line, taxis and paratransit services.

The Bourne Bridge over the Cape Cod Canal, with the Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge in the background

[edit] Bus

 

Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority operates a year-round public bus system comprising three long distance routes and a local bus in Hyannis and Barnstable Village. From mid June until October, additional local routes are added in Falmouth and Provincetown. CCRTA also operates Barnstable County's ADA required paratransit (dial-a-ride) service, under the name "B-Bus."

 

Long distance bus service is available through Plymouth and Brockton Street Railway, with regular service to Boston and Logan Airport, as well as less frequent service to Provincetown. Peter Pan Bus Lines also runs long distance service to Providence T.F. Green Airport and New York City.

[edit] Rail

 

Regular passenger rail service through Cape Cod ended in 1959, quite possibly on June 30 of that year. In 1978, the tracks east of South Dennis were abandoned and replaced with the very popular bicycle path, known as the Cape Cod Rail Trail. Another bike path, the Shining Sea Bikeway, was built over tracks between Woods Hole and Falmouth in 1975; construction to extend this path to North Falmouth over 6.3 miles (10.1 km) of inactive rail bed began in April 2008[23] and ended in early 2009. Active freight service remains in the Upper Cape area in Sandwich and in Bourne, largely due to a trash transfer station located at Massachusetts Military Reservation along the Bourne-Falmouth rail line. In 1986, Amtrak ran a seasonal service in the summer from New York City to Hyannis called the Cape Codder. From 1988, Amtrak and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation increased service to a daily frequency.[24] Since its demise in 1996, there have been periodic discussions about reinstating passenger rail service from Boston to reduce car traffic to and from the Cape, with officials in Bourne seeking to re-extend MBTA Commuter Rail service from Middleboro to Buzzards Bay[25], despite a reluctant Beacon Hill legislature.

 

Cape Cod Central Railroad operates passenger train service on Cape Cod. The service is primarily tourist oriented and includes a dinner train. The scenic route between Downtown Hyannis and the Cape Cod Canal is about 2½ hours round trip. Massachusetts Coastal Railroad is also planning to return passenger railroad services eventually to the Bourne-Falmouth rail line in the future. An August 5, 2009 article on the New England Cable News channel, entitled South Coast rail project a priority for Mass. lawmakers, mentions a $1.4-billion railroad reconstruction plan by Governor Deval Patrick, and could mean rebuilding of old rail lines on the Cape. On November 21, 2009, the town of Falmouth saw its first passenger train in 12 years, a set of dinner train cars from Cape Cod Central. And a trip from the Mass Bay Railroad Enthusiasts on May 15, 2010 revealed a second trip along the Falmouth line.

[edit] Taxi

 

Taxicabs are plentiful, with several different companies operating out of different parts of the Cape. Except at the airport and some bus terminals with taxi stands, cabs must be booked ahead of time, with most operators preferring two to three hours notice. Cabs cannot be "hailed" anywhere in Barnstable County, this was outlawed in the early nineties after several robbery attempts on drivers.

 

Most companies utilize a New York City-style taximeter and charge based on distance plus an initial fee of $2 to $3. In Provincetown, cabs charge a flat fare per person anywhere in the town.

[edit] Tourism

Hyannis Harbor on Nantucket Sound

 

Although Cape Cod has a year-round population of about 230,000, it experiences a tourist season each summer, the beginning and end of which can be roughly approximated as Memorial Day and Labor Day, respectively. Many businesses are specifically targeted to summer visitors, and close during the eight to nine months of the "off season" (although the "on season" has been expanding somewhat in recent years due to Indian Summer, reduced lodging rates, and the number of people visiting the Cape after Labor Day who either have no school-age children, and the elderly, reducing the true "off season" to six or seven months). In the late 20th century, tourists and owners of second homes began visiting the Cape more and more in the spring and fall, softening the definition of the high season and expanding it somewhat (see above). Some particularly well-known Cape products and industries include cranberries, shellfish (particularly oysters and clams) and lobstering.

 

Provincetown, at the tip of Cape Cod, also berths several whale watching fleets who patrol the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. Most fleets guarantee a whale sighting (mostly humpback whale, fin whale, minke whale, sei whale, and critically endangered, the North Atlantic Right Whale), and one is the only federally certified operation qualified to rescue whales. Provincetown has also long been known as an art colony, attracting writers and artists. The town is home to the Cape's most attended art museum, the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. Many hotels and resorts are friendly to or cater to gay and lesbian tourists and it is known as a gay mecca in the summer.[26]

 

Cape Cod is a popular destination for beachgoers from all over. With 559.6 miles (900.6 km) of coastline, beaches, both public and private, are easily accessible. The Cape has upwards of sixty public beaches, many of which offer parking for non-residents for a daily fee (in summer). The Cape Cod National Seashore has 40 miles (64 km) of sandy beach and many walking paths.

 

Cape Cod is also popular for its outdoor activities like beach walking, biking, boating, fishing, go-karts, golfing, kayaking, miniature golf, and unique shopping. There are 27 public, daily-fee golf courses and 15 private courses on Cape Cod.[27] Bed and breakfasts or vacation houses are often used for lodging.

 

Each summer the Naukabout Music Festival is held at the Barnstable County Fair Grounds located in East Falmouth,(typically) during the first weekend of August. This Music festival features local, regional and national talent along with food, arts and family friendly activities.

[edit] Sport fishing

 

Cape Cod is known around the world as a spring-to-fall destination for sport anglers. Among the species most widely pursued are striped bass, bluefish, bluefin tuna, false albacore (little tunny), bonito, tautog, flounder and fluke. The Cape Cod Bay side of the Cape, from Sandwich to Provincetown, has several harbors, saltwater creeks, and shoals that hold bait fish and attract the larger game fish, such as striped bass, bluefish and bluefin tuna.

 

The outer edge of the Cape, from Provincetown to Falmouth, faces the open Atlantic from Provincetown to Chatham, and then the more protected water of Nantucket and Vineyard Sounds, from Chatham to Falmouth. The bays, harbors and shoals along this coastline also provide a robust habitat for game species, and during the late summer months warm-water species such as mahi-mahi and marlin will also appear on the southern edge of Cape Cod's waters. Nearly every harbor on Cape Cod hosts sport fishing charter boats, which run from May through October.[28]

[edit] Sports

 

The Cape has nine amateur baseball franchises playing within Barnstable County in the Cape Cod Baseball League. The Wareham Gatemen also play in the Cape Cod Baseball League in nearby Wareham, Massachusetts in Plymouth County. The league originated 1923, although intertown competition traces to 1866. Teams in the league are the Bourne Braves, Brewster Whitecaps, Chatham Anglers (formerly the Chatham Athletics), Cotuit Kettleers, Falmouth Commodores, Harwich Mariners, Hyannis Harbor Hawks (formerly the Hyannis Mets), Orleans Firebirds (formerly the Orleans Cardinals), Wareham Gatemen and the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox. Pro ball scouts frequent the games in the summer, looking for stars of the future.

 

Cape Cod is also a national hot bed for baseball and hockey. Along with the Cape Cod Baseball League and the new Junior Hockey League team, the Cape Cod Cubs, many high school players are being seriously recruited as well. Barnstable and Harwich have each sent multiple players to Division 1 colleges for baseball, Harwich has also won three State titles in the past 12 years (1996, 2006, 2007). Bourne and Sandwich, known rivals in hockey have won state championships recently. Bourne in 2004, and Sandwich in 2007. Nauset, Barnstable, and Martha's Vineyard are also state hockey powerhouses. Barnstable and Falmouth also hold the title of having one of the longest Thanksgiving football rivalries in the country. The teams have played each other every year on the Thanksgiving since 1895. The Bourne and Barnstable girl's volleyball teams are two of the best teams in the state and Barnstable in the country. With Bourne winning the State title in 2003 and 2007. In the past 15 years, Barnstable has won 12 Division 1 State titles and has won the state title the past two years.

 

The Cape also is home to the Cape Cod Frenzy, a team in the American Basketball Association.

 

Soccer on Cape Cod is represented by the Cape Cod Crusaders, playing in the USL Premier Development League (PDL) soccer based in Hyannis. In addition, a summer Cape Cod Adult Soccer League (CCASL) is active in several towns on the Cape.

 

Cape Cod is also the home of the Cape Cod Cubs, a new junior league hockey team that is based out of Hyannis at the new communtiy center being built of Bearses Way.

 

The end of each summer is marked with the running of the world famous Falmouth Road Race which is held on the 3rd Saturday in August. It draws about 10,000 runners to the Cape and showcases the finest runners in the world (mainly for the large purse that the race is able to offer). The race is 7.2 miles (11.6 km) long, which is a non-standard distance. The reason for the unusual distance is that the man who thought the race up (Tommy Leonard) was a bartender who wanted a race along the coast from one bar (The Cap'n Kidd in Woods Hole) to another (The Brothers Four in Falmouth Heights). While the bar in Falmouth Heights is no longer there, the race still starts at the front door of the Cap'n Kidd in Woods Hole and now finishes at the beach in Falmouth Heights. Prior to the Falmouth race is an annual 5-mile (8.0 km) race through Brewster called the Brew Run, held early in August.

[edit] Education

 

Each town usually consists of a few elementary schools, one or two middle schools and one large public high school that services the entire town. Exceptions to this include Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School located in Yarmouth which services both the town of Yarmouth as well as Dennis and Nauset Regional High School located in Eastham which services the town of Brewster, Orleans, Eastham, Wellfleet, Truro, and Provincetown (optional). Bourne High School is the public school for students residing in the town of Bourne, which is gathered from villages in Bourne, including Sagamore, Sagamore Beach, and Buzzards Bay. Barnstable High School is the largest high school and is known for its girls' volleyball team which have been state champions a total of 12 times. Barnstable High School also boasts one of the country's best high school drama clubs which were awarded with a contract by Warner Brothers to created a documentary in webisode format based on their production of Wizard of Oz. Sturgis Charter Public School is a public school in Hyannis which was featured in Newsweek's Magazine's "Best High Schools" ranking. It ranked 28th in the country and 1st in the state of Massachusetts in the 2009 edition and ranked 43rd and 55th in the 2008 and 2007 edition, respectively. Sturgis offers the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme in their junior and senior year and is open to students as far as Plymouth. The Cape also contains two vocational high schools. One is the Cape Cod Regional Technical High School in Harwich and the other is Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical High School located in Bourne. Lastly, Mashpee High School is home to the Mashpee Chapter of (SMPTE,) the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. This chapter is the first and only high school chapter in the world to be a part of this organization and has received much recognition within the Los Angeles broadcasting industry as a result. The officers of this group who have made history are listed below:

 

* President: Ryan D. Stanley '11

* Vice-President Kenneth J. Peters '13

* Treasurer Eric N. Bergquist '11

* Secretary Andrew L. Medlar '11

 

In addition to public schools, Cape Cod has a wide range of private schools. The town of Barnstable has Trinity Christian Academy, Cape Cod Academy, St. Francis Xavier Preparatory School, and Pope John Paul II High School. Bourne offers the Waldorf School of Cape Cod, Orleans offers the Lighthouse Charter School for elementary and middle school students, and Falmouth offers Falmouth Academy. Riverview School is located in East Sandwich and is a special co-ed boarding school which services students as old as 22 who have learning disabilities. Another specialized school is the Penikese Island School located on Penikese Island, part of the Elizabeth Islands off southwestern Cape Cod, which services struggling and troubled teenage boys.

 

Cape Cod also contains two institutions of higher education. One is the Cape Cod Community College located in West Barnstable, Barnstable. The other is Massachusetts Maritime Academy in Buzzards Bay, Bourne. Massachusetts Maritime Academy is the oldest continuously operating maritime college in the United States.

[edit] Islands off Cape Cod

 

Like Cape Cod itself, the islands south of the Cape have evolved from whaling and trading areas to resort destinations, attracting wealthy families, celebrities, and other tourists. The islands include Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, as well as Forbes family-owned Naushon Island, which was purchased by John Murray Forbes with profits from opium dealing in the China trade during the Opium War. Naushon is one of the Elizabeth Islands, many of which are privately owned. One of the publicly accessible Elizabeths is the southernmost island in the chain, Cuttyhunk, with a year-round population of 52 people. Several prominent families have established compounds or estates on the larger islands, making these islands some of the wealthiest resorts in the Northeast, yet they retain much of the early merchant trading and whaling culture.

October 2015, you have largely been horrible. I learned, this morning, that my friend 'Chelle has lost her battle with cancer. Four deaths this month in my world, on top of two anniversaries of losses in the past has been way too much.

 

'Chelle particularly loved tree tunnels, rainbows and Kid Rock. The weather is far too dismal for rainbows, and Kid Rock doesn't appear to be in town, so I headed out to find a tree tunnel in her honour. Bless you 'Chelle; the only consolation is that you are no longer in pain. Thinking of your friends and family at this time. xx

 

So, October ... Pack your bags. You're leaving tomorrow, and I sincerely hope your neighbour November is much, much more kind.

 

(Sorry for not getting round to visit your photo streams - the above is the reason why. x )

 

Info: Canon 7D, 37.0mm, f/9.0, 1/50, ISO 1600

Largely for demonstration use now as the whole site is given over to being a visitor centre

Every Sufi Dargah is incomplete without Qawwals and their quintessential Qawwali..be it Makhdoom Shah Baba at Mahim,or Khwajah Garib Nawaz at Ajmer or Nizamuddin Aulia in Delhi.

Qawwali is the staple diet of the devotees who come to pay their salutations to the Dargahs during the annual Urus..

No Urus is complete without Qawwali rendition in music and vocal praising the Holy Saint and his Holy Shrine.

 

And the qawwals get handsomely paid by the crowds , but more than money the Qawwals to seek the blessiings of the Holy Saint to achieve success in Bollywood or shows all over the world.

Indians and Pakistanis love Qawwalis..

 

Qawwali sourced from wikipedia.

  

Qawwali (Urdu/Persian: قوٌالی; Punjabi/Multani: ਖ਼ਵ੍ਵਾਲੀ, قوٌالی; Brajbhasha/Hindi: क़व्वाली) is a form of Sufi devotional music popular on the Indian subcontinent. It's a vibrant musical tradition that stretches back more than 700 years. Originally performed mainly at Sunni Sufi shrines throughout the subcontinent, it has also gained mainstream popularity. Qawwali music received international exposure through the work of the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, largely due to several releases on the Real World label, followed by live appearances at WOMAD festivals. Often listeners, and even artists themselves, are transported to a state of wajad, a trance-like state where they feel at one with God, generally considered to be the height of spiritual ecstasy in Sufism. Although famous throughout the world, its economic and spiritual hub remains the Punjab province of Pakistan from where it gained entry into the mainstream commercial music industry and international fame.

[edit] Song content

The songs which constitute the qawwali repertoire are mostly in Urdu and Punjabi (almost equally divided between the two), although there are several songs in Persian, Brajbhasha and Siraiki.[1][2] There is also qawwali in some regional languages (e.g., Chhote Babu Qawwal sings in Bengali), but the regional language tradition is relatively obscure. Also, the sound of the regional language qawwali can be totally different from that of mainstream qawwali. This is certainly true of Chhote Babu Qawwal, whose sound is much closer to Baul music than to the qawwali of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, for example.

 

The poetry is implicitly understood to be spiritual in its meaning, even though the lyrics can sometimes sound wildly secular, or outright hedonistic. The central themes of qawwali are love, devotion and longing (of man for the Divine).

 

Qawwalis are classified by their content into several categories:

 

A hamd is a song in praise of Allah. Traditionally, a qawwali performance starts with a hamd.

A naat is a song in praise of the Prophet Muhammad. The opening hamd is traditionally followed by a naat.

A manqabat is a song in praise of either Imam Ali or one of the Sufi saints. Interestingly, manqabats in praise of Ali are sung at both Sunni and Shi'a gatherings. If one is sung, it will follow right after the naat. There is usually at least one manqabat in a traditional programme.

A marsiya is a lamentation over the death of much of Imam Husayn's family in the Battle of Karbala. Once again, this would typically be sung only at a Shi'a concert.

A ghazal is a song that sounds secular on the face of it. There are two extended metaphors that run through ghazals -- the joys of drinking and the agony of separation from the beloved. These songs feature exquisite poetry, and can certainly be taken at face value, and enjoyed at that level. In fact, in India and Pakistan, ghazal is also a separate, distinct musical genre in which many of the same songs are performed in a different musical style, and in a secular context. In the context of that genre, the songs are usually taken at face value, and no deeper meaning is necessarily implied. But in the context of qawwali, these songs of intoxication and yearning use secular metaphors to poignantly express the soul's longing for union with the Divine, and its joy in loving the Divine. In the songs of intoxication, "Wine" represents "knowledge of the Divine", the "Cupbearer" (saaqi) is God or a spiritual guide, the "Tavern" is the metaphorical place where the soul may (or may not) be fortunate enough to attain spiritual enlightenment. (The "Tavern" is emphatically not a conventional house of worship. Rather, it is taken to be the spiritual context within which the soul exists) Intoxication is attaining spiritual knowledge, or being filled with the joy of loving the Divine. In the songs of yearning, the soul, having been abandoned in this world by that cruel and cavalier lover, God, sings of the agony of separation, and the depth of its yearning for reunion.

A kafi is a song in Punjabi, which is in the unique style of poets such as Shah Hussain and Baba Bulleh Shah. Two of the more popular Kafis include Ni Main Jana Jogi De Naal and Mera Piya Ghar Aaya.

A munadjaat is a song where the singer displays his thanks to Allah through a variety of linguistic techniques. It is often sung in Persian, with Mawlana Jalāl-ad-Dīn Rumi credited as its inventor.

 

[edit] Composition of a qawwali party

A group of qawwali musicians, called a party, typically consists of eight or nine men — women are, for all intents and purposes, excluded from traditional Muslim music as respectable women are traditionally prohibited from singing in the presence of men, though these traditions are changing — including a lead singer, one or two side singers, one or two harmoniums (which may be played by lead singer, side singer or someone else), and percussion. If there is only one percussionist, he plays the tabla and dholak, usually the tabla with the left hand and the dholak with the right. Often there will be two percussionists, in which case one might play the tabla and the other the dholak. There is also a chorus of four or five men who repeat key verses, and who aid and abet percussion by hand-clapping.

 

The performers sit in two rows — the lead singer, side singers and harmonium players in the front row, and the chorus and percussionists in the back row.

 

Before the fairly recent introduction of the harmonium, qawwalis were usually accompanied by the sarangi. The sarangi had to be retuned between songs; the harmonium didn't, and was soon preferred.

  

[edit] Musical structure

Songs are usually between 15 to 30 minutes long. However, the longest commercially released qawwali runs slightly over 115 minutes (Hashr Ke Roz Yeh Poochhunga by Aziz Mian Qawwal). The qawwali maestro Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan has at least two songs that are more than 60 minutes long.

 

Qawwalis tend to begin gently and build steadily to a very high energy level in order to induce hypnotic states both among the musicians and within the audience. Songs are usually arranged as follows:

 

They start with an instrumental prelude where the main melody is played on the harmonium, accompanied by the tabla, and which may include improvised variations of the melody.

Then comes the alap, a long tonal improvised melody during which the singers intone different long notes, in the raag of the song to be played.

The lead singer begins to sing some preamble verses which are typically not part of the main song, although thematically related to it. These are sung unrhythmically, improvised following the raag, and accompanied only by the harmonium. After the lead singer sings a verse, one of the side singers will repeat the verse, perhaps with his own improvisation. A few or many verses will be sung in this way, leading into the main song.

As the main song begins, the tabla, dholak and clapping begin. All members join in the singing of the verses that constitute the refrain. Normally neither the lyrics of the main verses nor the melodies that go with them are improvised; in fact, these are often traditional songs sung by many groups, especially within the same lineage. As the song proceeds, the lead singer or one of the side singers may break out into an alap. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan also popularized the interjection of sargam singing at this point. The song usually builds in tempo and passion, with each singer trying to outdo the other in terms of vocal acrobatics. Some singers may do long periods of sargam improvisation, especially alternating improvisations with a student singer. The songs usually end suddenly.

The singing style of qawwali is different from Western singing styles in many ways. For example, in words beginning with an "m", Western singers are apt to stress the vowel following the "m" rather than the "m" itself, whereas in qawwali, the "m" will usually be held, producing a muted tone. Also in qawwali, there is no distinction between what is known as the chest voice and the neck voice (the different areas that sound will resonate in depending on the frequency sung). Rather, qawwals sing very loudly and forcefully, which allows them to extend their chest voice to much higher frequencies than those used in Western singing, even though this usually causes a more noisy or strained sound than would be acceptable in the West.

  

[edit] Singing Order in Chistiya

Instrumental: This is supposed to be the announcement of the arrival of Khawaja Moinuddin Chishti's, as Sufi believes their saints are free of time-space. Also that Nabi, Siddique, Shaheed, and Saleh category of faithfuls are never dead, just gone into some other state from where they visit whenever they are mentioned, especially if there is a function in their honor.

Hamd

Naat

Manqabat Ali

Manqabat Ghous: Praise of Shaikh Abdul Qadir Jelani

Manqabat Khwaja: Praise of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti

Manqabat Shaikh: Praise of the Shaikh/Pir if it is his anniversary

Rang or Badhawa: If it is the death anniversary of the Pir, then it is usually Rang, a poem by Amir Khusro. If it is the Shaikh's birthday, it is usually the Badhawa.

 

[edit] Legendary Qawwals of the Past

Aziz Ahmed Warsi

Aziz Mian Qawwal

Badar Ali Khan (aka Badar Miandad)

Bahauddin Qutbuddin

Fateh Ali Khan Mubarik Ali Khan

Jafar Husain Khan Badauni

Muhammed Saeed Chishti

Munshi Raziuddin

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

Sabri Brothers

 

[edit] Well-known Qawwals of Today

Abida Parveen

Amjad Sabri

Aziz Nazan

Bakshi Javed Salamat

Chhote Aziz Nazan

Faiz Ali Faiz

Fareed Ayaz

Ghulam Sabir Nizami and Ghulam Waris Nizami

Mehr Ali Sher Ali

Najmuddin Saifuddin

Rahat Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

Sher Miandad Khan

Waheed and Naveed Chishti

   

Bellbird ( Anthornis melanura )

These birds are residents on our property in Gisborne and we only have a matter of day's before shifting to a new home,

I realised I had largely ignored them .......

Sandhill Crane drinking from stream.

 

Between 34 to 48 inches in length with a wingspan of nearly 7 feet. They are very tall with a long neck and long legs. Largely gray with a red forehead. Juveniles are browner and have no red on head. Their plumage often appears a rusty color because of iron stains from water of ponds or marshes.

 

They inhabit large freshwater marshes, prairie ponds and marshy tundra. They are also on prairies and grain fields during migration and in winter.

 

They range from Siberia and Alaska to the Hudson Bay and south into western Ontario. There are isolated populations in: the Rocky Mountains, the northern prairies, the Great Lakes, Mississippi, Georgia and Florida. They winter in California's Central Valley and across the southern states from Arizona to Florida.

 

Kensington Metropark, Livingston County, Michigan.

Caterpillar 988F block handler in the process of being loaded onto a De Angelis tri-axle beam trailer before heading for export via the Port of Carrara after being replaced by a new 988K at a marble quarry.

Built in the 17th Century and again largely rebuilt in 1881 after a fire destroyed a large part of the house. Lanhydrock House sits in 450 acres of woodland and is a fine example of life 'upstairs/downstairs.' Once owned by the Robartes family. The house and grounds are now owned and maintained by The National Trust.

Changde Rd., Shanghai

 

The banner reads: 'Remember to get vaccinated after you have had your nucleic acid test and you will be healthy and able to travel without hindrance. Seniors can get good gifts for their first injection, while supplies last. '

 

Such outright lies about Chinese-made vaccines have been everywhere as far back as last year and earlier this year. Between May 2021 and January 2022, the Shanghai authorities set up numerous vaccination tents or parked vaccination buses in the heart of the downtown area. The vaccines used in all these vaccination sites were developed by Chinese companies. The Chinese public was sceptical about their safety and efficacy. In order to encourage people to get vaccinated, the vaccination sites offered prizes or gifts for everyone who got vaccinated. Yet the Chinese vaccine has proven largely ineffective against Covid-19. So far, almost a year on, the outbreak in China is on the rise and getting worse. In fact, even those who received the vaccine were not granted the right to travel freely, and once they were judged to be the socalled 'closely contacted', jus like those who had not been vaccinated, they would still be locked up or even escorted to a concentration camp because the authorities knew that their vaccine was simply ineffective. Nevertheless, even the catastrophic two-month city-wide lockdown in Shanghai this spring and the current China-wide spread of the epidemic has not stopped them from continuing to brag about peddling those ineffective Chinese vaccines.

Largely because of the irregularities between the calendar year and Earth’s actual movement, winter solstice can occur between December 20-23. It occurred on the 21st this year, though if you were in question about it in a given year, just go through this passageway and walk to the main chamber… winter solstice is the only day of the year that sunrise will illuminate that inner chamber.

 

Dating back to the Stone Age about 5,200 years ago, this is Newgrange Burial Mound in County Meath, Ireland, one of the many wonderful places our friend Sean Mulligan was gracious enough to take us to. It was first discovered in 1699 when it appeared only as a hill-like bump in the landscape. The landowner had laborers extracting rock from the mound until they found the entrance. It didn’t take long after that for Newgrange to become an important archeological find and site… it predates the Pyramids of Giza and Stonehenge of the UK and may have similar implications. Researchers consider it to be not only a burial mound where human remains were found, but also a temple, a place of astrological, spiritual, religious and ceremonial importance. Strangely, the interior has a cruciform shape, much as more modern cathedrals were designed. “Consider” is the key word there as researchers have no real way of understanding the exact significance of the structure.

 

A few things stand out here to me, the first being that large kerbstone with the swirling engraved symbols called megalithic art. The same theme carries into the chambers as well. When you’re there, you will also notice that it apparently took some time before Newgrange was given conservation status. That happened in 1890… within the chamber, there are inscriptions of many who had visited since its discovery with names and dates prior to the conservation. That made me wonder… no one seems to be able to solve the meaning of the “megalithic art”. Perhaps it was just some Stone Age fella’s way of saying “Bob was here!” Bob… if that’s not an Irish name, it should be.

 

The next thing that stands out to me is that this is Ireland. If you don’t understand that statement, you’ve not been to Ireland… it’s often rainy and cloudy in Ireland. Sunrises were hard to come by for the week and a half that I was there in August as I tried to chase them with the camera... it was raining when I took this image. How was it determined to place the opening of this mound so exactly that it lights up the interior only on the shortest day of the year? Did the chief architect bang his head against those walls until he finally got it right? “For crying out loud… another year blown!” More than likely, they had prearranged that alignment before it was built

 

The last thing that stands out to me is that white rock facing with specifically placed round gray rocks. Another friend, Rodney Harrison, had taken us on a tour of the coast of Northern Ireland. While there, I took note of the chalk cliffs that rimmed the coast. Within the chalk were dotted layers of round gray rock with every bit the appearance here… that gray rock was flint, from which Stone Age man constructed tools and weapons. For those who lived in that era, flint was more than just a rock… in many ways, it was the difference between life and death. Perhaps this is of significance here.

IMGP9177

 

Audley End House is a largely early 17th-century country house outside Saffron Walden, Essex, England. It was once a prodigy house, a palace in all but name and renowned as one of the finest Jacobean houses in England. Audley End is now one-third of its original size, but is still large, with much to enjoy in its architectural features and varied collections. The house shares some similarities with Hatfield House, except that it is stone-clad as opposed to brick. It is currently in the stewardship of English Heritage and long remained the family seat of the Barons Braybrooke. Audley End railway station is named after the house.

This beautiful yellow iris seen during a Spring walk in the park De Breul in Zeist, the Netherlands.

 

The current historic garden and park construction of the Breul dates largely from the second or third decade of the 19th century and was probably designed by Jan David Zocher Jr. (1791-1870).

The pond behind the house is located in a bowl-shaped space enclosed by embankments and hill with the house standing on it.

 

Please see here more photos from Spring in Holland.

© www.tomjutte.tk

.

 

:: BIGGER ........is LARGELY ......recommended!

 

:: One by One view on black!

 

:: Most Interesting images according to Flickr!

 

:: For your eyes only!

 

:: Winter Solitariness !, Lac Simon, Québec, Canada

Copyright © 2008 Gaëtan Bourque. All rights reserved. Use without permission is illegal.

 

Pixnote:

A young white-tailed deer crossing a frozen lake covered with fresh snow!

  

A unique piece of Dutch history on the River Zaan

The Zaanse Schans is a residential area in which the 18th and 19th centuries are brought to life. Stroll past the bakery museum and enjoy the smell of fresh cookies, or take a look at the warehouse where clogs are made. You should be sure not to miss the cheese factory, pewter foundry and the various windmills. The Zaanse Schans is a unique part of the Netherlands, full of wooden houses, mills, barns and workshops. Make a cycling or sailing trip, browse the shops or treat yourself at the pancake restaurant. A day out at the Zaanse Schans in North Holland is fun and educational.

 

Please do not use my images without my explicit permission.

 

Covid 19

The necessary measures have been taken so that everyone can enjoy a day at Zaanse Schans safely and with great pleasure. For example, a modified route has been created, which is used when it is too busy. Visitors are directed where necessary with the help of public guides and signs. The Zaanse Schans is largely a public outdoor area where you don’t have to wear a mask (at the moment).

The shops, museums and windmills are independent organizations and can decide for themselves. We recommend you just in case to bring your own mask. Most of the locations at the Zaanse Schans have indicated that they (must) close their doors until at least during the current lockdown. The rate for the car park will be reduced to € 5 during the lockdown period. The toilets are closed.

One of my favorite views in Grand Teton National Park. The Teton Range looms largely in the distance when viewing Cottonwood Creek from the bridge near the Jenny Lake area. The total scene simply invigorates me ... whether it be the sound of the rushing water as it meanders over and around the rocks, or the wonderful trees that line the shoreline, or the sight of those incredible mountains that make up the Teton Range ... it's fabulous.

 

This image was taken in the early autumn season of 2017, a year when autumn seasonal changes decided to follow a timetable of their own, so the colors hadn't arrived yet. It doesn't matter though as the beauty of the area will not be denied. OK, let's get real for a moment ... everyone who has been there and taken it all in CANNOT tell me that they didn't imagine what it might be like to live in the cabin! LOL I know that I have ... and still do.

 

Well, the weekend is almost to a close, as are the days preceding our holiday season. Still in shock over that one.

 

Thanks for stopping by to view.

© 2017 Debbie Tubridy / TNWA Photography

www.tnwaphotography.com

www.tnwaphotography.wordpress.com

This is the J. Vance Lewis House located at 1218 Wilson in Houston’s Fourth Ward. The house is located in the National Register Historic District of Freedman’s Town, the community was settled after Emancipation and became a thriving center of black cultural and commercial activity way into the 1930s. Mr. Lewis was born a slave in Louisiana in 1863. He attended college in New Orleans before going on to earn a law degree and was admitted into the Supreme Court of Illinois in 1897, before being admitted to the Bar of the United States Supreme Court. He moved to Houston in 1901, where he built the house in 1907 at a cost of $2,800. He lived there with his wife, a librarian at the Colored Carnegie Library. He also practiced law from part of the house. After Mr. Lewis died in 1925 his wife lived in the house until her death in 1963. The outside has remained largely unaltered and In February 2007, the house was purchased by the Rutherford B. H. Yates Museum, Inc.

Northamptonshire, where I live, is a pleasant but largely unknown rural county about 75 miles north of London. Long may it stay that way! It was once renowned for its boot and shoe industry, though sadly that has been in decline for many years due to cheap foreign imports. The main town is Northampton and there are only three other towns of any size: Corby (which was once important for its steel industry), Wellingborough and Kettering.

 

Although there has been a settlement here since the 10th century, very few of Kettering's buildings, other than the parish church, are older than the Victorian era. Kettering is sometimes known as "the town that Gotch built", as the eminent architect John Alfred Gotch was responsible for designing so much of the town. His practice, which I worked with for 13 years, is now known as GSS Architecture. Kettering is an important commuter town, and the train journey to London takes just an hour.

 

The Market Place in the centre of Kettering has recently been rebuilt and the buildings to the right of the church, which have an appropriate Victorian feel to match the rest of the town centre, are in fact brand new. The spire of the parish church, St Peter & St Paul, is the dominant feature in the town, which has a population of just over 50,000, though the borough is somewhat larger and incorporates a number of surrounding villages.

 

The Drawing Room

 

Audley End House is a largely early 17th century country house just outside the town of Saffron Walden in Essex.

 

The site was originally Walden Abbey, a Benedictine monastery founded in 1139. In 1538, during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Henry VIII granted the abbey and lands to his Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas Audley.

 

Sir Thomas Audley converted the abbey buildings into a mansion. His great-grandson, Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk, demolished most of the earlier house and built the current magnificent mansion between 1605 and 1614. It was intended to be grand enough to host King James I, a feat it achieved, but its immense cost led to the Earl's financial ruin and conviction for embezzlement.

 

Throughout the 18th century, successive owners, including the Countess of Portsmouth, reduced the house to a more manageable size by demolishing large sections, saving it from total dereliction.

 

In the 1820s, the 3rd Lord Braybrooke remodelled the house to recover its original Jacobean character, a style that largely prevails in the house's interiors today.

 

After the second world war, due to heavy death duties, the 9th Lord Braybrooke sold the house to the Ministry of Works (the predecessor of English Heritage) in 1948. The house and gardens are now open to the public, offering a glimpse into centuries of English history.

Abadan was largely destroyed in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War, as many towns along the Shatt Al Arab river border with Iraq, due to Saddam Huseein's scorched earth policy. Today the town is completely rebuilt, featuring some striking architecture.

 

* 3 Nov - 250 views

My Website : Twitter : Facebook : Instagram : Photocrowd

 

A B&W version of a previously uploaded photo of Fredriksborg Castle on the island of Zealand in Denmark. As is the case here, sometimes I go back to old photos and make new versions to suit the brief of www.photocrowd.com competitions.

 

More photos from my trip : www.flickr.com/photos/darrellg/albums/72157656314165922

 

From Wikipedia : "Frederiksborg Castle (Danish: Frederiksborg Slot) is a palatial complex in Hillerød, Denmark. It was built as a royal residence for King Christian IV of Denmark-Norway in the early 17th century, replacing an older castle acquired by Frederick II and becoming the largest Renaissance residence in Scandinavia. Situated on three islets in the Slotssøen (castle lake), it is adjoined by a large formal garden in the Baroque style.

 

After a serious fire in 1859, the castle was rebuilt on the basis of old plans and paintings. Thanks to public support and the brewer J. C. Jacobsen, the building and its apartments were fully restored by 1882 when it was reopened to the public as the Danish Museum of National History. Open throughout the year, the museum contains the largest collection of portrait paintings in Denmark. It also provides visitors with an opportunity to visit several of the castle's state rooms including the restored Valdemar Room and Great Hall as well as the Chapel and the Audience Chamber which were both largely spared by the fire and contain sumptuous decorations."

 

© D.Godliman

Back when I was younger the Conway Scenic Railroad was a strictly seasonal operetion and would largely shut down during the winter months. In recent years however it has become a year round operation running trains to Conway all winter long and for the first time this winter running trains through Crawford Notch in the snow. Not wanting to miss out on the chance for some snowy winter shots along the old Mountain Sub I made the trip up on the long President's Day weekend to try for some snowy images.

 

Alas the Saturday trip featured just CSRR 255 solo with five cars meaning the return trip which is the better chase photographically would be long hood forward which just didn't interest me. Regardless, I did make the trip up through the Notch for a few signature shots on the westbound trip. Having reached the at the end of their run at MP 85 on the former Maine Central Mountain Subdivision 255 has runaround her train and is now coming back up the main to couple to the east end. At 1900 ft, Crawford depot is the summit of the line, and they have climbed some 1400 ft in the 25 miles since leaving North Conway grades of up to 2.2%.

 

This unit is right at home here having been built in November 1966 for the Maine Central Railroad as part of an order of 13 of the model which were the first batch of second generation diesel locomotives purchased by the road. She came to Conway Scenic in 2022 and still wears her Vermont Rail System red paint from her nearly two decade second career as Clarendon & Pittsford 203 after having being sold by MEC successor Guilford Transportation in the early 1990s.

 

Crawford Depot

Carroll, New Hampshire

Saturday February 15, 2025

Humans have cut down almost all of this species' habitat to clear farm land. As a result, the blue-eyed black lemur is nearly extinct in the wild. The blue-eyed black lemur is listed on Appendix I of CITES, and is critically endangered. As few as 1,000 individuals are thought to remain in the wild, largely due to slash and burn habitat destruction, as well as a mild threat from hunting problems.

After getting this shot of them passing brewery number one: flic.kr/p/2qALtJ4 I turned 180 degrees for a shot with brewery number two...now you know why I love this town!

 

CSXT train L022's pair of classic EMD SD40-2s 8840 and 8128 (blt. Oct. 1978 as Conrail 6465 and Aug. 1980 as Clinchfield 8128 respectively) has just crossed State Street at MP QCV 1.3 on the Claverack Industrial Track and is passing the lesser known of the town's two stations as they head light out to the big ADM flour mill at the end of the line in Greenport Center. Amtrak continues to serve the famous former New York Central depot down on the waterfront which has had continuous service since it was built in 1874 but this little depot hasn't had a passenger train call since 1933.

 

This two mile long spur off the Hudson Line main is actually former Boston and Albany trackage having been built in 1838 as the Hudson and Berkshire Railroad. It was sold at foreclosure to the Western Railroad of Massachusetts in 1854 and became part of the new Boston and Albany system in 1870. A year later the railroad built this station and at its peak in the 1880s four round trip passenger trains and a northbound mixed called there every day. After passenger service ended the 17 miles between Hudson and Chatham was sustained largely by cement traffic moving east to Boston, but by 1959 the line was severed east of Claverack and abandoned through Mellenville and Ghent (via the Upper Harlem Line) to Chatham where it met the B&A mainline. Another mile and half from the feed mill in the center of Claverack was removed in the early 1980s after the coming of Conrail leaving only what survives today.

 

This job solely exists to service the flour mill located in the former Lone Star Cement facility which is the only customer left on this line. For a tiny branch it offers superlative photo opportunities including this depot, trackage thru the town square, street running down South 7th Avenue, and an insane 3.22% grade up from the yard along the Hudson Line that during the Conrail era was the steepest on the entirety of the railroad! And while Hudson is a cool railfan location it's an even cooler town to visit in just its own right if you like good food, good beer, art, antiques, history, and beautiful scenery.

 

After being vacant for many years the station has now been gorgeously restored remodeled as the Upper Depot Brewery which opened in December 2022. Definitely stop in for a good beer and grab some BBQ from the food truck if you're ever in town and check out the B&A photos and maps inside or sit on the deck and maybe you'll catch some classic EMDs on the grain train for yourself!

 

Hudson, New York

Friday December 6, 2024

This is a Grey-headed Albatross photographed at Shag Rocks, which is 150 miles west of South Georgia, where it breeds. It is a rare albatross whose world population was estimated at 250,000 individuals back in 2004, but the population is on a downward trajectory so it is likely to be much rarer than that now, largely due to fisheries by-catch. It has been classified as endangered by IUCN. It is the same size and general appearance of Black-browed Albatross, except that it has an all-grey head and a yellow-edged dark bill. Its scientific name chrysostoma translates as gold mouth, and the generic name Thalassarche means commander of the sea.

Like most of the town, St Mary's was largely destroyed by the Great Fire of Warwick in 1693 and the tower and nave were rebuilt in 1704 in an idiosyncratic Georgian Gothic style. Luckily some of the eastern end survived, including the wonderful Beauchamp Chapel, one of the most evocative and splendid medieval chapels in Britain.

 

Dare I say that the nave is a space that is hard to love? Emotionally chilly and distant, and despite those huge windows, the effect is gloomy and oppressive.

The gentleman is participating in the weekly jam session known as "Guitar Army." Diverse musicians, playing a variety of acoustic instruments besides guitar, drop by the waterfront along Charlotte Harbor in Punta Gorda, Florida, to create a unique musical community. Musicians break up into as many as three groups based largely on musical genres. Bluegrass, gospel, folk, and rock music permeates the casual gathering which usually draws many fans.

The Sandhill Crane is widely dispersed across the US and Canada with several localized breeding populations. Some are year round residents, while others migrate to northern breeding grounds. This individual is part one of the most northern breeding populations, photographed a over a hundred miles north of the arctic circle. This was not a species I expected to see in Alaska, and was immediately struck by the strong rusty tones in its plumage. I did a little research and found out that their coloration is in part due to iron stain from a diet that is largely among peat bogs and muskegs.

The midnight sun provides even more warmth to this summer tundra scene.

Alaska 2019

A family largely composed of climbing, tropical plants. Tecomanthe dendrophila is a liana, woody vine, and can grow to 30 feet tall. The flowers are trumpet-shaped and hang in a cluster of blooms. These showy flowers are bi-colored and range from deep rose to pink with a creamy yellow throat. Each flower about 11 cm long.

Trumpet vine family contains approximately 80 genera of mainly tropical plants, and includes the more familiar Catalpa and Campsis. T. dendrophila is a vigorous liana (woody climber) occurring in the wet tropics of Maluku, New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

www.emeraldgoddessgardens.com/shop/index.php?main_page=pr...

Rangipo Desert before the storm. New Zealand. Rangipo Desert is a barren desert-like environment in New Zealand, located in the Ruapehu District on the North Island Volcanic Plateau. The region is largely uninhabited, possibly due to the unproductive nature of the extreme winter climate. The town of Waiouru, with its army camp, lies to the south and much of the southern part of the desert is used for training purposes. To the north of the desert lies the Rangipo prison farm.

largely inspired by Siebe's Cookie Splash photos! His work is amazing!

 

www.katelynleblancphotography.tumblr.com

 

....in with the new. I have largely been absent due to kitchen renovation which has been going on for 2 months. Hoping I can cook Easter dinner as I have been using mostly my microwave, toaster, and once, my outdoor grill to boil water for tea! I AM NOT WHINING. My patience and any sense of order has been tested, but I am very mindful how privileged I am when I think of all the refugees there are in our world. How foolish worrying about the outcome of decorating decisions would seem to them and in that light, to me as well. Whatever happened to...." give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free?"

Kennesaw Mountain. Atlanta largely avoided the expected snowstorm of late last week, and our NW suburbs only got a fraction of the possible snow that was predicted. Kennesaw Mountain is always a great place to hike after an area snow or ice event due to the higher elevation/cooler temperatures giving more dramatic scenes of nature's winter beauty.

St Mary's is largely a creation of the early 18th century, since the 1694 fire swept away its predecessor. Still remaining from the earlier medieval church are the crypt and the wonderful Beauchamp Chapel. These decorations to the columns of the nave definitely seem to have the 18th-century style, particularly the angels' faces. I suppose, looking more closely, that the style of carving, egg and dart above and acanthus leaves below, is much more in the country house style than the ecclesiastical - maybe that's one reason why people were so critical of the church when it was rebuilt.

~Jack Nicklaus

 

Looks pretty nice View On Black

 

Made Explore October 16th #151

Preserved façade of the otherwise largely destroyed ‘Kaiserpfalz' (Imperial Palace) on the river Main, whose construction in the 12th century presumably dates back to the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. In the early and high Middle Ages, the palaces were temporary bases for the travelling kings of the Merovingians, Carolingians and the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. The size of the conquered territories made it necessary for the rulers to be in direct personal contact with their vassals (‘travelling kingship’). The façade is made of red sandstone.

Seligenstadt, district of Offenbach

Hesse, Germany 23.04.2024

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seligenstadt

www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4ZfxSvtU1I

 

Erhaltene Fassade der ansonsten weitgehend zerstörten 'Kaiserpfalz' am Main, deren Errichtung im 12. Jahrhundert mutmaßlich auf den staufischen Kaiser Friedrich Barbarossa zurückgeht. Im Früh- und Hochmittelalter waren die Pfalzen kurzzeitige Stützpunkte der reisenden Könige der Merowinger, Karolinger und der Kaiser des Heiligen Römischen Reiches deutscher Nation. Die Größe der eroberten Gebiete machte es erforderlich, daß die Herrscher vorort im direkten persönlichen Kontakt mit ihren Vasallen standen ('Reisekönigtum'). Die Fassade besteht aus rotem Sandstein.

Seligenstadt, Kreis Offenbach

Hessen, Deutschland 23.04.2024

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfalz_Seligenstadt

www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4ZfxSvtU1I

Northamptonshire, where I live, is a pleasant but largely unknown rural county about 75 miles north of London. It was once renowned for its boot and shoe industry, though sadly that has been in decline for many years due to cheap foreign imports. The main town is Northampton and there are only three other towns of any size: Corby (which was once important for its steel industry), Wellingborough and Kettering. Although there has been a settlement here since the 10th century, very few of Kettering's buildings, other than the parish church, are older than the Victorian era.

 

The spire of the parish church, St Peter & St Paul, is the dominant feature in the town, which has a population of just over 50,000. Much of Kettering's town centre has been knocked down and replaced with modern buildings, but the beautiful parish church with its wonderful spire remains, together with a handful of surrounding buildings. The church is Grade I-listed and dates mainly from the 15th century, though the eastern end of the chancel is from around 1300, so it seems likely there was an earlier building on the site. The crocketed spire rises to 179 feet and is a widely recognised landmark.

 

The Polar Bear (Ursus maritimus) is a carnivorous bear whose native range lies largely within the Arctic Circle, encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is a large bear, approximately the same size as the omnivorous Kodiak bear (Ursus arctos middendorffi). A boar (adult male) weighs around 350–700 kg (772–1,543 lb), while a sow (adult female) is about half that size. Although it is the sister species of the brown bear, it has evolved to occupy a narrower ecological niche, with many body characteristics adapted for cold temperatures, for moving across snow, ice and open water, and for hunting seals, which make up most of its diet. Although most polar bears are born on land, they spend most of their time on the sea ice. Their scientific name means "maritime bear" and derives from this fact. Polar bears hunt their preferred food of seals from the edge of sea ice, often living off fat reserves when no sea ice is present. Because of their dependence on the sea ice, polar bears are classified as marine mammals; an alternative basis for classification as marine mammals is that they depend on the ocean as their main food source.

 

Because of expected habitat loss caused by climate change, the polar bear is classified as a vulnerable species, and at least three of the nineteen polar bear subpopulations are currently in decline. For decades, large-scale hunting raised international concern for the future of the species, but populations rebounded after controls and quotas began to take effect. For thousands of years, the polar bear has been a key figure in the material, spiritual, and cultural life of circumpolar peoples, and polar bears remain important in their cultures. (wikipedia)

 

Polar bear were hunted heavily in Savalbard, Norway throughout the 19th century and to as recently as 1973, when the conservation treaty was signed. 900 bears a year were harvested in the 1920s and after World War II, there were as many as 400–500 harvested annually. The polar bear population continued to decline and by 1973, only around 1000 bears were left in Svalbard. Only with the passage of the treaty did they begin to recover. We were very fortunate to see Polar Bears on a recent trip with National Geographic/Lindblad Expeditions around the Svalbard Archipelago. The summer of 2017 proved to be one of the best sea ice years in a long time. However, this was due to a very late winter and no real spring. They are a magnificent mammal and it was a real thrill and honour to watch bears reasonably close and at long range.

Dungeness is a headland on the coast of Kent, England, formed largely of a shingle beach in the form of a cuspate foreland. It shelters a large area of low-lying land, Romney Marsh. Dungeness is also the name of the power station and a few other nearby buildings near the beach, and of an important ecological site at the same location.

 

Dungeness is one of the largest expanses of shingle in the world. It is of international conservation importance for its geomorphology, plant and invertebrate communities and birdlife. This is recognised and protected mostly through its conservation designations as a National Nature Reserve (NNR), a Special Protection Area (SPA), a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and part of the Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) of Dungeness, Romney Marsh and Rye Bay.

 

There is a remarkable variety of wildlife living at Dungeness, with over 600 different types of plant: a third of all those found in Britain. It is one of the best places in Britain to find insects such as moths, bees and beetles, and spiders; many of these are very rare, some found nowhere else in Britain.

 

The short-haired bumblebee, Bombus subterraneus, was last found in the UK in 1988, but has survived in New Zealand after being shipped there more than 100 years ago. It is to be reintroduced at Dungeness. It is planned that the first bees will be introduced in the spring of 2010.

 

The flooded gravel pits on Denge Beach, both brackish and fresh water, provide an important refuge for many migratory and coastal bird species. The RSPB has a bird sanctuary there and every year thousands of bird watchers descend on the peninsula to catch a glimpse of a rare bird from the bird observatory.

 

One of the most remarkable features of the site is an area known as 'the patch' or, by anglers, as 'the boil'. The waste hot water and sewage from the Dungeness nuclear power stations are pumped into the sea through two outfall pipes, enriching the biological productivity of the sea bed and attracting seabirds from miles around.

 

Beach fishing is popular at Dungeness, with the area being a nationally recognised cod fishing venue in the winter.

 

The name Dungeness derives from Old Norse nes: "headland", with the first part probably connected with the nearby Denge Marsh. Popular etymology ascribes a French origin to the toponym, giving an interpretation as "dangerous nose".

I tried to document this event from different point of view: the people, the media and the enforcement officers

 

=====

 

3 March 2012 -- Thousands of people marched to the offices of the Hong Kong city government on Saturday, demanding that outgoing chief executive Donald Tsang stand trial following allegations of ethics violations in his dealings with businessmen.

 

Organizers said more than 5,000 participated in Saturday's march, but local police estimated about 2,800 turned up at Victoria Park, the site of Hong Kong's annual Tiananmen vigil and where the protest started.

 

Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997 amid promises of a high degree of autonomy. But China's leaders have kept grip over political and administrative elite from behind the scenes.

 

The city's seven million people can elect some legislative and district council members, but have no direct vote for their top leader, who is selected by a 1,200-strong election committee comprised largely of business leaders and Beijing loyalists.

 

Source: Reuters

 

For more photos, please visit my set:

Rally Against Outgoing Leader 民陣3月3日「踢走爛攤子，還我真普選」大遊行

flic.kr/s/aHsjytQ8zS

thousands of years after the last glacial scraping.

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Sony DSLR-A350 - © 2016 - Copyrighted - All Rights Reserved by

Lázaro Antônio dos Santos - "monsieurlazarophotographies".

Photos are copyrighted. All rights reserved. Pictures can not be used without explicit permission by the creator.

  

---------------------------------GOD BLESS YOU------------------------------------

  

Villars-sur-Ollon

  

Villars-sur-Ollon, commonly referred to as Villars, is a village in Switzerland in the canton of Vaud, part of the municipality of Ollon. Accommodation in the village consists largely of chalets. It is also known for its boarding schools, especially for Collège Alpin International Beau Soleil and Aiglon College, two of the most expensive schools in the world.

 

Villars is served by the Chemin de fer Bex-Villars-Bretaye (BVB) railway, featuring an Abt rack system leading from the town center to a ski piste network.

 

The Village of Villars overlooks the Rhône Valley and views of Mont Blanc are clearly visible from parts of the village and the local ski area of Bretaye. Bretaye is linked to Villars by the BVB railway. There is also a gondola lift connecting the village to Roc d'Orsay, 200 metres above Bretaye.

 

There are around 270 km of pistes for all skiing and snowboarding abilities that link over to the slopes of Gryon and to the next resort of Les Diablerets, Isenau and Glacier 3000. There is also a snow park called '1984' that allows freestyle skiing and snowboarding.

 

The GivenGain Foundation has its headquarters in Villars-sur-Ollon.

  

History and Culture

 

Back in the 12th and 13th centuries a notable demographic upsurge motivated the monks from the Abbey of Saint-Maurice to assist the local peasants in conquering and clearing the mountain pastures. Once conquered, these pastures were seen as real treasures and defended against encroaching neighbors.

 

In 1750, the mountain "dixains" (Villars, Chesières, Huémoz) requested to form a separate town and in 1889 the town became one indivisible entity.

 

The mountain cog-train to Bretaye was built in 1913. In 1936, the first ski lift was built at the ‘Combe’ on the Chaux Ronde. This was a first in Switzerland, and skiers had to fasten themselves on with a large leather belt in order to go back up the mountain.

 

On 13 December 1936, the Orient Express made a special stop in Aigle for a huge slalom race that took place at Bretaye. That same year a ski lift was built in the form of a sledge. This lift could transport 12 skiers to the peak of the Grand Chamossaire and was in use until 1953.

 

In 1938, Villars was classified as one of prime resorts of Europe and many Swiss ski clubs came to train in the resort on the back of its reputation.

  

Boarding schools

 

Villars is home to the private international school Collège Alpin International Beau Soleil and the English boarding school Aiglon College which are both in the top five most expensive boarding schools in the world. There are two international primary schools (from 4 to 14 years of age), La Garenne School and Pre Fleuri.

 

Activities

 

Villars is a dual season resort and has a huge array of activities on offer for both winter and summer visitors.

Ski Lift to the slopes above Villars

Ski Lift to the slopes above Villars

 

Most people come to Villars in the winter months to ski or snowboard. There are over 120 km of pistes for all abilities with the added attraction of the Diablarets glacier nearby which offers year round skiing. Cross country skiing has become increasingly popular with over 50 km of tracks that criss-cross Villars and its neighbouring town of Gryon through undisturbed natural beauty. There are snow shoeing trips organized by the Tourist Office and telemarking is also seeing a comeback on the pistes. There is a large indoor ice-skating rink as well as a smaller outdoor one in Gryon during the winter season. For the more adventurous there is ski touring and paragliding.

 

The largest ski school is the Ecole Suisse de Ski et Snowboard’ with over 250 instructors dressed in red. The office is in the centre of town next to the Tourist Office. The Villars Ski School’ is another well recognized school where instructors are dressed in yellow and blue. New Generation is a new ski school in Villars and Association Handiconcept is a not-for-profit association offering skiing and other activities for the disabled.

  

Summer Activities

 

In the Summer the pistes are transformed into lush green pastures offering a multitude of outdoor activities for all abilities.

 

There are over 300 km of marked trails for hikers of all levels and 130 km of biking trails through stunning mountain scenery stopping off at wine caves, cheese-making farms, pretty mountain refuges and breath-taking peaks like the famous ‘Miroir d’Argentine’.

 

For golf lovers the Villars Golf Club, established in 1922, has an impressive Club House and an 18 hole course set at 1,600 metres and perched on a south facing plateau with views of Mont-Blanc.

 

The Villars sports centre has 5 outdoor tennis courts and three indoor with an indoor sports hall for volley-ball, badminton or football. There is an indoor gym, a large indoor ice skating rink where the Villars Hockey Club regularly play. The swimming pool is currently being refurbished and is due to open in August 2016 to provide an indoor/outdoor 25m stainless steel state of the art pool, 2 x hammams, 2 x saunas, 2 x hot tubs and several massage rooms. A modern 9 lane bowling lounge is a popular attration.

  

Spa and Wellness

 

There are spas and wellness centres in and around Villars including Les Bains de Lavey in Lavey les Bains 30 minutes drive away housing the hottest thermal water baths in Switzerland.

 

Local Attractions

 

Other fun local attractions include ‘AquaParc’, one of the largest water parks in Europe, ‘Labyrinthe Adventure’ which houses one of the largest permanent labyrinths in the world and ‘Parc Adventure’ where you can zip-wire through the forest canopy.

 

Visitors to Villars can enjoy a number of excursions including trips to the nearby lakes and chateaux. The attractive lakeside towns of Montreux, Evian, Vevey and Rolle are all close by and boat trips around Lac Leman is an enjoyable pastime.

  

Sight Seeing

 

The imposing Château d'Aigle built in the 12th century now houses the ‘Musee de la Vigne et du Vin’. Chateau de Chillon built in the 13th century on the banks of Lac Leman used to serve as a residence for the noble counts during the Middle Ages. The closest art gallery is in Martigny, one hour away called Fondation Gianaddawhich has regular world class exhibitions.

  

Events

 

The village has previously hosted the Snowbombing electronic dance music and snowboarding spring festival.

 

Villars-sur-Ollon is also the home of the once well known Ollon-Villars hillclimb. Racing drivers from all over the world would come to participate in this internationally renowned event. Starting in the small town of Ollon, at the base of the mountain, and covering 8 km of mountain road, arriving at the top of the mountain, in Villars. The event was popular in the fifties and early sixties, before laws were passed banning motor racing in Switzerland. In recent years a revival of the hillclimb has begun to gain a certain notoriety as collectors and enthusiasts have the chance to enjoy the rare occasion of the closed mountain road.

  

Tourist Information

 

Restaurants and Bars

 

Villars has many restaurants and bars to choose from. There are Mexican, French, Thai and Japanese restaurants in town as well as many serving traditional cheese fondues and raclettes.

 

Many of the restaurants also have bars and winter bars are also set up on the pistes during the winter season.

  

Accommodation

 

There are many hotels, chalets and apartments in Villars catering for all tastes and most budgets.

  

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dungeness is a headland on the coast of Kent, England, formed largely of a shingle beach in the form of a cuspate foreland. It shelters a large area of low-lying land, Romney Marsh. Dungeness is also the name of the power station, of the hamlet within the location, and of an important ecological site at the same location.

 

The name Dungeness derives from Old Norse nes: "headland", with the first part probably connected with the nearby Denge Marsh. Popular etymology ascribes a French origin to the toponym, giving an interpretation as "dangerous nose".

Ecology

 

Dungeness is one of the largest expanses of shingle in Europe and is classified as Britain's only desert by the Met Office. It is of international conservation importance for its geomorphology, plant and invertebrate communities and birdlife. This is recognised and protected mostly through its conservation designations as a national nature reserve (NNR), a Special Protection Area (SPA), a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and part of the Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) of Dungeness, Romney Marsh and Rye Bay.

 

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