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The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live
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Hair:
#Foxy -Lamb Hair-
Outfit:
HORNTAIL - Yui - Girl Power Event"
Pose:
[Focus Poses] -Naughty or Nice? 6-
Backdrop:
[Focus Poses] -Christmas Loft Backdrop-
31/52 - Sapporo city
March 08 - March 14
Sapporo is the capital city in Hokkaido and the population of just under 2 million. The 5th largest city in Japan. Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya and then Sapporo. The city is surrounded by mountains, rivers and ocean, so don’t feel like living in a big city which is one of the many reasons I love this city.
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A beautiful, quite chill & moist morning with camera at hand but for some reason I didn´t bring a tripod. Punk is alive.
Because reason #453 for taking your camera with you when Christmas shopping is that when you realise the cup of soothing Starbucks coffee can't last forever and the stress starts to take over, you can whip out the camera and snap pictures of random stuff (ignoring the stares of passers-by because all they see is you taking pictures of a "twig"). Instant stress reliever. :)
reason themselves into :-)
― Ben Goldacre
HFF!!
star magnolia, 'Scented Silver', j c raulston arboretum, ncsu, Raleigh, north carolina
Thank you all for your friendship and support, but for health reasons I will not be very regularly on flickr.
Thanks also not put multi-invitations to groups. Thank you very much.
Quero agradecer a todos a vossa amizade e apoio, mas por motivos de saúde não estarei com muita regularidade no flickr. Agradeço também que não coloquem muitos convites para grupos. Muito obrigada.
Watching the show, I always got the impression that Jem's secret identity had no actual reason to exist, and was just a pretext to crazy episodes and drama, and to turn Rio insane! lol
But I still like that well-behaved and uptight Jerrica can turn into a glamourous superstar and have tons of fun, doing what she would never normally do.
It totally makes her like a kind of drag queen, with 2 different personas ;)
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Absolutely no permission is granted in any form, fashion or way, digital or otherwise, to use copy, edit, reproduce, publish, duplicate, or distribute my images or any part of them on blogs, personal or professional websites or any other media without my direct written permission.
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On Mam Tor looking for the usual reason, but I decided to try and get a different photo to the ones which we normally see. Okay – I did the gate and the great ridge, but on my way back I was looking for something different.
I didn’t get much in the way of an inversion, but there was a little mist in the valley which was producing a lovely haze in the low morning sun, catching the light beautifully. As I came to the earthworks at the lower end of the summit I came across this sheep who was not in the mood for getting up. She very kindly stayed put while I composed my shot giving me something nice for the foreground. As the background was hazy I chose to blur it slightly by using a longer focal length but with a relatively small aperture. It also allowed me to stay a reasonable distance from the sheep so I didn’t spook it.
Canon EOS-6D with 24-105mm lens at 90mm. f/11 at ISO-50 for 1/50th second. Lee 3 stop soft grad ND filter on the upper part of the image to keep the lovely colours in the top of the image.
The center of a snowflake is almost always the most beautiful part. Even when the branches are asymmetrical, the center of a snowflake often echoes much stronger symmetry. The reason for this is pretty simple. View large!
As branches grow further away from the center, extremely small changes in humidity and temperature from one end of the snowflake to another will cause ever-so-slight changes in the growth patterns we see. Smaller hexagonal snowflakes have less of this change to deal with, but larger snowflakes can quickly become asymmetric. Very calm wind will often help larger snowflake grow balanced, but that’s not always the case.
This particular snowflake is a little odd, however. The left branch is stunted slightly, and there could be three main reasons for this:
- Aerodynamic properties of the snowflake might favour the growth on the other side, if the right side was facing more incoming water vapour. This is supported by the larger side-branches of the opposing crystal.
- Being attached to another snowflake for a time would slow the crystal growth where the two snowflakes overlap, resulting in a smaller branch with no visible reason when the snowflakes break apart from one another.
- The left branch might have gotten a late start, which would set it back in time by a few minutes and appear as if it’s a younger version of the other branches. This can happen based on the way the branches initially “sprout” from the central hexagonal shape.
In this crystal, the center did something interesting: it split in two. The pattern in the very center is solid, but that gives way to “bubbles” or “cavities” in the ice. The brighter parts of the center are where this cavity is present, allowing for twice the reflective surfaces of the ice. At some point, this cavity grew so large that it effectively split the crystal in two along its thin edge. What happens then? The two edges running in parallel compete for water vapour.
When one of the two edges gets a small lead, the race is won. The winning edge will continue to grow quickly and the loser will grow slowly. The “loser” in this case lost the battle on all sides – it’s the top hexagon. Such uniform losses can be difficult to explain without the knife-edge instability, which might suggest that the lower half of the crystal was slightly thinner than the upper half.
Oh, and I’m not a scientist of physicist. :) All of this is directly observable in the crystal and explanation in layman’s terms that as a science geek I can understand. A few basic rules with complex variables allows for an unending assortment of unique snowflakes!
For the book on the topic, Sky Crystals (science and photographic techniques): skycrystals.ca/book
For “The Snowflake” poster with over 400 crystals all measured and placed in relative size to each-other: skycrystals.ca/poster
And for more snowflakes? Watch this space tomorrow. :)
And I blame you, you, you,
You and that dress of yours
I blame you, you, you
you and that smile.
I'll blame you, you, you
I can't find another reason
I just go to pieces over you.
I want summer so bad. Summer is like my medicine to happiness. I took this like an hour ago. Riding down to the beach is funfunfun. I guess I live closer than I thought.
I'll really never know how lucky I am.
a TOMS photo once again!
I think I'll make a set :D
thank you for 200+ people adding me as a contact! if there's 200 of you, could maybe a few of you comment..? :) all comments & favorites are appreciated! I'm not gonna give you a lecture, but when I see all those views and no comments or favorites, it just makes me feel like no one really cares or looks at my stuff /: You guys use to eat it all up and now I feel like Flickr is so empty.. so please, lets be flickrers!
One reason why I haven't sought out a vintage 85mm lens is that I sort of have one already.
This is an example of what my fairly old, (first offered for sale in 1992) Canon EF 85mm f1.8 lens can do. Normally it won't focus any closer than 85cm, but here I added 32mm of extension tubes and I'm able completely blow away any details in the background and turn it into a blur of soft pastel colors that just blend into each other.
Shot at f3.5, the in focus areas are still sharp. So I always ask myself, "Do I really need an expensive vintage, manual lens when I already own this 32 year old lens?"
Mission Space for one reason or another has been a ride I have largely ignored shooting over the years. I think the reason for that is mostly just because the pattern I've shot Epcot in has usually had this area closed off before I could get to it. Only when I started shooting in this area right before closing have I managed to get any shots. This time however, extra magic hours allowed me the opportunity to shoot the area while the park was still open. Sure there were still people walking around but there were so few I was able to get plenty of shots around this area. With the moon rising over Mission Space I ended up shooting various shots and angles around here for about 45 minutes! I shot a lot of telephoto shots which I will share later which I used to make the moon appear bigger in relation to Mission Space but going through my shots this ultra wide shot was the one that grabbed me to edit first off. At least now I will be able to fill out this hugely overlooked pavilion with various shots.
This was shot with the Nikon D810 and Nikon 14-24 2.8. It was a 5 shot bracket which I blended manually with luminosity masks using 3 exposures. I used my longest 30 second exposure as my base exposure and 2 other exposures, which I used for my sky and to fix highlights. I had some additional shots exposed just for the moon but at such an ultra wide angle the moon was too small and just looked kind of stupid. Thus I decided to edit it as a bright glowing moon burst instead and I think it goes well with the Mission Space theme of the shot.
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“Maybe you're reason why all the doors are closed, so you can open one that leads you to the perfect road.”
― Katy Perry
Weirdly unseasonal song choice, this. RL I've been hanging about the house enjoying having Two! Days! Off! In A Row!!! and yet for some reason... I've just had this glum thing going on.
Someone on the Lapointe & Bastchild chat was saying that one of his shirts stopped answering to the hud that changes textures, which reminds me that one of MY shirts from there had stopped answering the phone, so I re-rezzed the object, unpacked it, and the new shirt works well.
And the first texture I considered setting it to was this one, which made me think 'wouldn't it be nice to be on the California coast right now...' so I went over to Baja Norte and took a photo with it.
STYLECARD (how long has it been since I did one of these?)
Hair: CHEVEUX "M107Hair Blacks"
Shirt: Lapointe & Bastchild '(Untucked) Swear Retro T-Shirt V2'
Shorts: Lapointe & Basctchild 'Swear Salvage Denim Shorts - Dk OIled'
Skin: Stray Dog 'Jude BUTTERMILK'
Location: Baja Norte
View..Large for the DETAILS
sometimes things work out . this one had a feel of that . the perfect moment . he put his hands behind his back and the gull was facing the right way .. at opposite sides of the photo
52 weeks of 2024
Week #50 ~ Panning
not the easiest task to accomplish at night but am very time poor these days!
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A Cave Swallow on the lighthouse roof at Prince Edward Point, Prince Edward County, Ontario this morning. Very rare in Canada (they breed in southern Texas and northern Mexico), I’ve been searching for them here every November. Finally found one yesterday in the wind and rain. This morning it was still present in the sun.
For some reason starting a couple decades ago a few began to show up in Ontario in the late fall, early winter - a poor strategy for an insect-eating bird. One would think the tendency would be selected out of the population, but thus far it hasn’t. Still, a great birding moment, my first record for Canada.
The bird looked a bit out of it at first but after the sun’s rays warmed it up for about 30 minutes it took flight strongly and was able to catch some late season flies - and dodge a Merlin attack. Not sure if these birds manage to reorient themselves and head south, but I'm hoping for the best.
"I held a moment in my hand, brilliant as a star, fragile as a flower, a tiny sliver of one hour. I dripped it carelessly, Ah! I didn't know, I held opportunity."
Hazel Lee
(btw, in case you were wondering, it's potpourri in my hands, dead flowers) :)
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The Flickr Lounge: Reflections
If you are looking for a fun group of fellow photographers to share in the love of photography, join us at “52 Weeks of 2025” on Flickr. Each week we have a theme which each interprets in their own and creative way. It is a simple way to hone your skills, participate in a 52-week photography project and be inspired by others also participating. Please join in on the fun. and follow this link:
www.flickr.com/groups/52_weeks_of_2025/
Thank you so much for your views, comments and favs. I really do appreciate every one!
My images are posted here for your enjoyment only. All rights are reserved. Please contact me through flickr if you are interested in using one of my images for any reason.
Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.
If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.
For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing;
And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet *** to post myself as this kind of subject is not exactly my style but didn’t know any other way to describe the feelings I wanted this description to evoke **
For whatever reason, my last trip to Eureka Springs had me looking in shop windows more. This narrow stairway was in between two building entrances. I'm well happy with this photo. It gets more interesting the longer I look at it.
Pentax K2 DMD
Pentax-M 50mm f/1.4
Ilford Delta 400
Since the weather was reasonnably nice, I decided to walk from the the Exhibition by Manfred Menzel and Christoph Schrief (www.flickr.com/photos/herrsharif/49457357587/in/dateposted/) in Offenbach back to Frankfurt along the river.
Minolta SRT 101 and Rokkor 55mm f/1.7 (or was that indeed the 35mm f/2.8?), Agfa APX 400 in Rodinal 1+50 for 13 min @ 20°C, digitalized with kit zoom on macro extension tubes.
Thank you everyone for your visits, faves and comments, they are always appreciated :)
My actual reason for driving east of the city today was to go and introduce myself to one of the local landowners in that area. About a week ago, her Grandson had been curious about what we were doing, parked along the side of the road. He told me that his Grandmother was really nervous, wondering what we were up to. Understandably so, as there is plenty of crime in rural areas. I had reassured him that anyone in any cars were birders/photographers, interested only in seeing and photographing the special owls that were on their land. He invited me to go in and meet his Grandma, but I had to explain to him that my night vision for driving is bad and that I needed to try and get back to the city before it got dark (ended up driving in the dark!). I told him that I would call in another day and I wanted to make sure that I did this. So, today was the day. Last night, I had printed out a photo I had taken a week ago of one of these Short-eared Owls, perched on a post in their field. Also printed a Snowy Owl and a Great Horned Owl for them, and we had an enjoyable chat about the different kinds of owl. I do hope this lady feels safer now that she knows exactly what we are all doing.
It was SO cold out there today, thanks to our ongoing deep freeze. Despite being just a few degrees 'warmer' (i.e. less cold) today, it was bitterly cold. Snow is in the forecast for tonight and tomorrow morning. Again .....
Had a short search for Snowy Owls, but came up empty-handed. However, I did see a gorgeous Prairie Falcon (ID needs to be confirmed or corrected).
Before I get into the panoply of reasons, I can first tell you this is one of my favorite new photos I took a few weeks ago on a road trip through the North Island. Just looking at this photo, I remember the calmness and serenity in the natural Fibonacci rolling of the hills. It’s another one of those meaningful moments that sneaks up on you, and they mostly seem to happen in nature, at least for me. What a trip!
I saw, after the debate, some of the most popular Google searches were: ‘how to move to Canada’ and ‘how to move to New Zealand’ – yeah I get it! I’m not being political or anything by the way… but here are the reasons I moved here about ten years ago. Note I didn’t include benefits such as medical care (universal, free, etc), a sane legal system (no personal injury litigation, etc), and many more, as those aspects are well-known. These are my 7 personal reasons!
1) The people! Kiwis are some of the coolest and most laid-back people in the world. They don’t seem to take themselves too seriously, which fits into my chilled-out zen mentality.
2) It’s a safe, international place to raise kids. I am NOT anti-USA or anything… however, I do know the USA is a “bit” of a bubble. I knew that travel made me a more gentle and understanding person as I interacted with different cultures around the world, and I wanted the same for my family. Unfortunately, last year, Tina and the girls moved back to Austin, but Ethan is still here in NZ. We planned a lot more back-and-forths but Covid kinda shut that down, which mega sucks! But, at least the whole family are full NZ citizens so they can come back any time.
3)The scenery! Since I am mostly a landscape photographer, there is a lifetime of photos here. I think most people would think this would be my #1 reason, but you can see it is #3! I do look forward to traveling again, but I don’t have to. There’s always more to see and discover in the world, but there is a world of discovery in the beautiful natural environs here. It was initially Iceland that began to connect me with natural environments. I went there for four summers in a row when I was just getting started with photography when I turned 35. I’ll never forget the first time I was walking in nature alone for hours and I finally felt at ease. It’s a nice realization when you discover you’re not separate from the Earth but part of it. Like one of my favorite philosophers says, “A tree ‘apples’ and the Earth ‘peoples’” – genius… if you wanna know more, you can see some of my Alan Watts videos – just jump on YouTube and search for Alan Watts Trey Ratcliff.
4) All natural… well mostly! It’s not perfect, but the environment is very clean and it’s easy to eat all-natural food that is locally made. I remember one of the first pieces of fruit from a tree in a friend’s yard after I arrived… I was like, wow, THIS is what food is supposed to taste like! Yeah, people take pretty good care of the Earth here; there’s always room for improvement but we have a lot of smart, committed people converting it to a fully sustainable place of even more abundance. Burning Man and stuff has definitely made me more of a hippie in this way to live as part of the Earth… but I actually think that is becoming the “normal” way to be. A fun and approachable doco show to watch is The Biggest Little Farm on Netflix.
5) Business. New Zealand provides a great environment for running a business with plenty of clever people. I moved my fine art company ( www.treyratcliff.com – Plug #1) here almost immediately and recently started the Machine Elf company ( the-machine-elf.com/ – Plug #2) with my friend Sam here in the Queenstown/Arrowtown area. There is a great thirst for tech and creative startups and an excellent network of people that want to build cool shit here in NZ. Also, since lots of Silicon Valley people are retreating back here, the brain drain has been reversed and people that want to contribute are flocking back to NZ to build better business and better lives for everyone.
6) Outdoor activities. Most everyone here is super-outdoorsy and this has a really good cultural knock-on effect to keep people healthy. I see all these people out there hiking and skiing and biking and it makes me feel super lazy so I get out there and join in! Every day, I try to hike at least 2 hours and listen to podcasts or audiobooks. It’s really calming and good for your whole mind/body/spirit connection to spend time in nature… we’re not meant to live in boxes and look at screens all day. I am a very zen, chilled out dude anyway, but even when I feel low levels of anxiety creeping in, as it does to everyone, then a simple walk in nature cures all those indoor screen-induced ails. Do you use any good meditation apps? I have tried a ton and my favorite so far is the Sam Harris Waking Up app. He has a great introductory course that anyone can do that only takes 10 minutes a day. Sam also has one of my favorite podcasts… if you listen to his podcasts, you’ll level up as my friend!
7) WORLD PANDEMIC OR WAR. This was honestly one of my reasons for moving here a decade ago. I’m definitely not saying I’m Nostradamus or anything… and I’m not a conspiracy theorist… but, you know… JUST IN CASE, I thought. I told that to a few people before I came and they thought I was curazy. Well, I am definitely on the curazy scale, mostly in the good way I hope, but in this case I turned out to be right. As of the time of writing this, there are no active cases of COVID-19 here except for a few incoming international passengers who just arrived and are all forced quarantine in gov’t approved facilities. That means all 5 million of us can go do whatever! Restaurants, movies, raves (excited about the upcoming Kiwiburn… in fact I may just go do a rave every month on a road trip and take my camera – why not?), beaches, kids playing at school like normal kids should, shopping, flights, etc… it’s all back to 100% normal after the initial lockdown (thanks Jacinda!)! I was thinking before I moved here, just in case of a pandemic or war, it’s an island nation (no shared borders) that is completely self-sustaining. It’s all hydro power because we get bucketloads of rain. We can grow our own food in a soil-replenishing ecosystem. It’s doubtful anyone is gonna nuke New Zealand because everyone seems to like the Kiwis, except for the Aussies, but I don’t think they have nukes. Seven Gods, I hope not.
Day Hundred and five:
"Be who you want to be."
What a lovely quote, I'm here sitting down thinking that sometimes I was just thinking so negative the beginning of this week and for some reason, today I realized this week has not been so bad at all with lovely surprises and just being thankful for the small things and appericating those small moments of joy.
Isaiah 9:6-7
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.
Thanks for stopping by and view this photo. The reason for posting this photo on Flickr is to learn so if you have constructive feedback regarding what I could do better and / or what should I try, drop me a note I would love to hear your input.
View on Black the way it should be seen!
-- Let the sound of the shutter always guide you to new ventures.
© 2021 Winkler
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~Andre Kertesz
Sad Dog Fence Friday! It must be, right? You've got paw-prints in the sand and a discarded beer bottle...you know some depressed dog was drinking away his blues with a lonely walk on the beach. :(
Don't Forget! Monochromatic Month starts a week from today! 30 solid days of nothing but B&W photos from me! How about you? Have you been waiting for a reason to work your monochromatic mojo?--well here it is! Lots of sharing tips & techniques along the way, too! Come join the colorless fun! :)
Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L
Aperture: f/6.3
Focal Length: 70mm
ISO Speed: 100
Lighting: Ambient
Polarizer/Filter: None
Exposure: 1/320
RAW File Processing: Lightroom 3
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
© Steven Brisson. Do not use without permission.
♫ Song/Give Me One Reason by Tracy Chapman ❥
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASTQeKywbs8
Will I ever leave Second Life?
Maybe...
Maybe one day I'll go quietly out through the backdoor ;)
INDECISIVE!
❤ BLOG: Credits & Slurls & More ❥
To the trains! The reason for the season is the patched pair pleasin' on Friday the 13th! I spent 11 hours pounding ground on the Cal Northern, gave Strench a call leaving Woodland and he had the eye on the patched pair returning west on the Mococco from Pittsburg with a late LRJ46. Kimmie Kim had caught the Friday edition of the YOZ85 Crockett Rocket off the Ozol extraboard and they were busy building their train with a set of armour yellow power. It was looking pretty bleak to get the rarest pair of locomotives in California out on the Rocket today.
46 Job got to Ozol with 10 minutes to work AND THE 85 JOB TOOK THEIR POWER! A beautiful day in the east bay (with a significant amount of sky junk near the horizon) and the Cotton Belt pair with the proper leader was coming out well before sunset.
So there's this shot at Rodeo. I had never seen it before I saw Davis Strench's shot of a leaser/yellow set switching here on this 85 job. So as far as I'm concerned he owns it and this is Strench Beach. After shots at Crockett and Selby,Davis, his father Bibb who's in town, Pete, Erie and I hiked in from the road and around the shit (waste treatment plant) keeping an eye to the ground trying to avoid hypodermic needles to line up our low light angles. Just out of view to the right the beach is overtaken with tents and garbage of California's ever-present beachfront homeless population.
The crew made a couple of moves up to the beach, the sun fell below the murk and we went and had a fancy-ass dinner that Bibb wouldn't let us pay for. And Kim, she was tied up before 10pm. A good time was had by all.
Tonight at 8:00pm to 8:01 PM EDT (I think thats GMT-5)
We ask that you all just take a moment, stop, and pause in honor of my son Craig who we lost on 3/15/10.
My wife Sherri has created a virtual event site on Facebook.
www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=369325461198&index=1#!...
There is no where to be, nothing special to do,, just stop for one minute to honor him in what ever way you want.
I also want to thank all of you out there who have been so supportive in the last few months, weeks and days. You have really touched us with your compassion, icon tributes, posts to the Caring Bridge site etc. It means a lot to us,
I also want to stop and do something I do not do often enough,, I want to thank my wife Sherri. She has always stopped her life to help and support others, be it as the care giver for her father for his last years, her taking 2009 to travel back and forth to Houston from Tampa to help her mom and sister at MD Anderson Hospital as they fought and still fight Breast Cancer. For being a ROCK during these very tough times.
She has always done whats right for others, friends, family, strangers, people at the hospitals, the baseball parks and many other places,, and doing it at many times to the detriment of herself,,, Just because its the right thing to do..
Setting up the Caring Bridge Site, Camo for Craig and Craigs Army,, crocheting tons of camo beanies, cross sticking thousands of crosses, endless time spent trying to work things out and make things work out,, because its the right thing to do.
So Sherri,, I don't say it enough, and you deserve it much more for many other reasons too numerous to post here...
THANK YOU...
I love you and could not make it through this without you.
Justification of Red List category
This species is listed as Critically Endangered because its population has undergone a very rapid reduction, for reasons that are poorly understood but are likely to be at least partly due to hunting along the migration flyway; this decline is projected to continue and increase in the future. Fieldwork in Kazakhstan (and counts in Turkey and the Middle East) has shown the population to be substantially larger than previously feared, but recent demographic studies have found low adult survival, possibly largely driven by hunting pressure along the migration routes and wintering grounds.
By Jim Lawrence
BirdLife International, RSPB (BirdLife in the UK) and leading optics manufacturer Swarovski Optik have just launched a remarkable new interactive website The Amazing Journey which charts the migration of one of the world’s most threatened birds - Sociable Lapwing. The new website enables you to experience the birds' migration online and witness new discoveries as they happen. It also provides support to a large team of international scientists who are trying to prevent the species from becoming extinct. Following extensive research, nine Sociable Lapwings have been carefully fitted with tiny, state-of-the-art satellite transmitters, which will track their hazardous 5,000+ km journey from their breeding grounds in Kazakhstan to their non breeding areas in tropical Africa and other, as yet undiscovered, destinations. The Amazing Journey follows the adventures of Erzhan, Dinara, Svetlana and six other intrepid satellite-tagged lapwings as they fly south for the winter - dodging hunters with guns and falcons and the myriad other unknown threats that await them. Andreas Pittl – Head of the Nature Division at Swarovski said, “This is a hugely important and fascinating project which Swarovski Optik is proud to champion. Wildlife is threatened with extinction for many reasons so finding ways to help such a beautiful and inspiring creature as the Social Lapwing is an important conservation effort we are keen to support. We want to bring people and nature together so they can continue to enjoy brilliant, close-up views of birds like these for years to come.” Designed by online marketing experts Digital Spring, The Amazing Journey uses satellite data fed through Google map technology to keep pace with the birds. A mixture of clever, regularly updated maps and video and photo blog reports from the field will follow their progress. Relatively little is still known about the routes Sociable Lapwings take, so tracking them will provide vital information, enabling BirdLife scientists to monitor and protect the birds and unlock the mystery of their migration. Now, for the first time, those interested in birds, wildlife and conservation can sit alongside scientists, and learn about these extraordinary birds, their migration habits and their conservation. Dr. Paul Donald, the project’s Principal Conservation Scientist at RSPB said, “We are using the world’s smallest and latest satellite transmitter – weighing just 5 grams – to record this amazing journey. By engaging with people around the world and inviting them to see this fascinating migration happening live online we believe we can inspire them to play their part too.” As the Sociable Lapwings progress along a lengthy route through various countries they need to stop every now and again to ‘refuel’ along the way. As they do so they form big feeding flocks (which is how they get their name). Whenever they touch down, precise details of their location are picked up by satellites orbiting high overhead and sent to RSPB scientists. These locations are then passed on to conservation project partners in each of the countries the birds travel through. With detailed coordinates they can quickly locate the flocks of birds, wherever they’ve touched down and take action if they are threatened in any way. The Amazing Journey website will provide regular reports from these scientists in the field keeping us up to date with all the latest news on the birds’ progress. Jim Lawrence, Preventing Extinction Programme Manager at BirdLife International said, “Protecting migratory species on the brink of extinction like Sociable Lapwings can’t be done without the considerable support of BirdLife Species Champions like Swarovski and RSPB. The Amazing Journey website is a new window on our world where you can see BirdLife International Partners around the globe delivering co-ordinated international conservation solutions.” Main photo credit Maxim Koshkin - Conservation Project Leader ACBK.