The morning fog had burned off the valley as I headed east on CA 58 towards Tehachapi, Bakersfield behind me. I wasn't sure how this would come out, the sun was above and directly in front of me, so bumped up the contrast and used my slightly tented windshield and fast shutter to reduce the brightness. Also luck to find one of the few spots on this steep climb big enough to pull my rig off the roadway.

Old Fisherman's Cottage for Rent - West Coast of Scotland

This imaginary rental cottage on the west coast of Scotland is a charming, rustic building, nestled amongst the rolling hills and rugged coastline of the Isle of Bute.

The cottage is fairly well-equipped with some modern amenities. It has a small kitchen at the back, as well as unheated outdoor bathroom facilities. There is also a compact bedroom upstairs, where guests can fall asleep to the haunting sound of the wind and waves crashing against the shore. Warm extra bedclothes can be provided at no extra charge.

This is the perfect place to escape the hustle and bustle of modern life, a place where the stresses of daily life melt away, leaving only the wild forbidding landscape, the constant rain and the unrelenting swell of the sea.

Reduced rates for the winter months - September to May.

Imagined in Midjourney with additional work in Photoshop.

Reduced to the max

But as autumn approaches, certain influences both inside and outside the plant cause the chlorophylls to be replaced at a slower rate than they are being used up. During this period, with the total supply of chlorophylls gradually dwindling, the "masking" effect slowly fades away. Then other pigments that have been present (along with the chlorophylls) in the cells all during the leaf's life begin to show through. These are carotenoids they give us colorations of yellow, brown, orange, and the many hues in between.

The reds, the purples, and their blended combinations that decorate autumn foliage come from another group of pigments in the cells called anthocyanins. These pigments are not present in the leaf throughout the growing season as are the carotenoids. They develop in late summer in the sap of the cells of the leaf, and this development is the result of complex interactions of many influences - both inside-and outside the plant. Their formation depends on the breakdown of sugars in the presence of bright light as the level of a certain chemical (phosphate) in the leaf is reduced.

But in the fall, phosphate, along with the other chemicals and nutrients, moves out of the leaf into the stem of the plant. When this happens, the sugar-breakdown process changes, leading to the production of anthocyanin pigments. The brighter the light during this period, the greater the production of anthocyanins and the more brilliant the resulting color display that we see. When the days of autumn are bright and cool, and the nights are chilly but not freezing, the brightest colorations usually develop.

Groynes reduce longshore transport by trapping beach material and causing the beach orientation to change relative to the dominant wave directions. They mainly influence bedload transport and are most effective on shingle or gravel beaches. Sand is carried in temporary suspension during higher energy wave or current conditions and will therefore tend to be carried over or around any cross-shore structures. Groynes can also be used successfully in estuaries to alter nearshore tidal flow patterns.

Yellow-footed Rock Wallaby seen in the Flinders Ranges South Australia.

"A large brightly-coloured and distinctively-marked rock-wallaby. Generally fawn-grey, white ventrally, with rich orange to bright yellow forearms, hind limbs and feet. Prominent dark mid-dorsal stripe from top of head to middle of back. Long ears and dark auxiliary patch. White stripes on cheeks, sides and hips.

Population numbers were drastically reduced following European settlement by a combination of factors such as habitat alteration by livestock, hunting for sport and the fur trade and predation by introduced predators."

Fusion between 2 different instruments Orion 254/1000 f3.9 astrograph, Ultra optics with 1/10 lambda correction and Asi 294pro.

12 "Truss RC telescope reduced to 1790

Celestron 80/600 guide tube with Asi Zwo 224

Moravian G2 8300 camera with internal wheel

shot with a fujifilm x-s10, a 0.71x focal reducer and a tamron adaptall sp 90mm f/2.5 macro lens.

Cuckoo - Cuculus Canorus

Norfolk

The common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) is a member of the cuckoo order of birds, Cuculiformes, which includes the roadrunners, the anis and the coucals.

This species is a widespread summer migrant to Europe and Asia, and winters in Africa. It is a brood parasite, which means it lays eggs in the nests of other bird species, particularly of dunnocks, meadow pipits, and reed warblers. Although its eggs are larger than those of its hosts, the eggs in each type of host nest resemble the host's eggs. The adult too is a mimic, e that species is a predator, the mimicry gives the female time to lay her eggs without being seen to do so.

The English word "cuckoo" comes from the Old French cucu and it first appears about 1240 in the poem Sumer Is Icumen In - "Summer has come in / Loudly sing, Cuckoo!" in modern English.

The scientific name is from Latin. Cuculus is "cuckoo" and canorus, "melodious ".

A study using stuffed bird models found that small birds are less likely to approach common cuckoos that have barred underparts similar to the Eurasian sparrowhawk, a predatory bird. Eurasian reed warblers were found more aggressive to cuckoos that looked less hawk-like, meaning that the resemblance to the hawk helps the cuckoo to access the nests of potential hosts. Other small birds, great tits and blue tits, showed alarm and avoided attending feeders on seeing either (mounted) sparrowhawks or cuckoos; this implies that the cuckoo's hawklike appearance functions as protective mimicry, whether to reduce attacks by hawks or to make brood parasitism easier.

The common cuckoo is an obligate brood parasite; it lays its eggs in the nests of other birds. At the appropriate moment, the hen cuckoo flies down to the host's nest, pushes one egg out of the nest, lays an egg and flies off. The whole process takes about 10 seconds. A female may visit up to 50 nests during a breeding season. Common cuckoos first breed at the age of two years.

More than 100 host species have been recorded: meadow pipit, dunnock and Eurasian reed warbler are the most common hosts in northern Europe; garden warbler, meadow pipit, pied wagtail and European robin in central Europe; brambling and common redstart in Finland; and great reed warbler in Hungary.

Studies were made of 90 great reed warbler nests in central Hungary. There was an "unusually high" frequency of common cuckoo parasitism, with 64% of the nests parasitised. Of the nests targeted by cuckoos, 64% contained one cuckoo egg, 23% had two, 10% had three and 3% had four common cuckoo eggs. In total, 58% of the common cuckoo eggs were laid in nests that were multiply parasitised. When laying eggs in nests already parasitised, the female cuckoos removed one egg at random, showing no discrimination between the great reed warbler eggs and those of other cuckoos.

It was found that nests close to cuckoo perches were most vulnerable: multiple parasitised nests were closest to the vantage points, and unparasitised nests were farthest away. Nearly all the nests "in close vicinity" to the vantage points were parasitised. More visible nests were more likely to be selected by the common cuckoos. Female cuckoos use their vantage points to watch for potential hosts and find it easier to locate the more visible nests while they are egg-laying.

The Bighorn Sheep were in an area in Jasper where I don't usually see them, near the turnoff to the Maligne Lake Road. The Ewes were grazing and had obviously shooed several lambs up on the rocks to get some peace.

The lambs were full of energy and were quite entertaining for a few minutes, scrambling around on the rocks. I couldn't manage to get a good action shot but did get this lamb isolated, standing up on a ledge.

The traffic was awful, including several long haul truckers and the local province tourists, in their monster F-350 diesels. I swear the behavior of the lunatic fringe is getting worse all the time - where are the police to enforce the reduced speed limit zones in known animal areas?

December 6, 2020

in aller stille

A strong dairy barn stands ready to do what it once did but instead now houses goats. Once we reach a certain stage in life, our life's work is replaced by something else, usually with us playing a reduced role.

Dipper

0905.13.05.2026

Here is an image of a dipper taken on the River Irwell. The image was made at a very low shutter speed. The techs are 700mm, ISO100, f10 @1/25th Sec. Although I have in the past achieved just one sharp image at 1/6th sec the chances of getting much lower are considerably reduced because this image is created close to a large weir which causes the ground to vibrate slightly. Slow shutter speed images are best when there is water cascading downward which barely occurs in this image. Nonetheless the slow shutter does change the appearance of the fast flowing water and changes the mood of the image. On this day I was able to make about 3 sharp images of the bird and many images were consigned to the bin. I can spend all day with dippers and never get bored.

Dopo una lunga attesa sotto il sole, la mattinata sembrava dovesse chiudersi con la delusione di non vedere nemmeno un treno merci presso questo bel punto foto nei pressi di Stankovany.

Quando ormai le speranze erano ridotte al lumicino, ecco palesarsi questo convoglio misto diretto ad est con carri telonati ZSSK, alcune bisarche con auto Škoda e carri carichi di legname in coda, contornato dal verde paesaggio primaverile della splendida vallata del fiume Váh.

After a long wait under the sun, the morning seemed to end with the disappointment of not seeing even a freight train at this beautiful photo point near Stankovany.

When hopes were reduced to the minimum, this mixed convoy appeared heading east with ZSSK tarpaulin wagons, some car transporters with Škoda cars and wagons loaded with timber at the rear, surrounded by the green spring landscape of the splendid valley of the Váh river.

The Teatro Reale di San Carlo, is an opera house in Naples, Italy, connected to the Royal Palace and adjacent to the Piazza del Plebiscito. It is the oldest continuously active venue for opera in the world, having opened in 1737, decades before either Milan's La Scala or Venice's La Fenice.

The opera season runs from late January to May, with the ballet season taking place from April to early June. The house once had a seating capacity of 3,285, but has now been reduced to 1,386 seats. Given its size, structure and antiquity, it was the model for theatres that were later built in Europe.

Thick fog in the summit of mt. Kanavuori in Central Finland.

El Garceta rojiza (Egretta rufescens) es una garza de tamaño medio conocida por ser uno de los miembros más activos y "dramáticos" de su familia. Es famosa por su inusual técnica de pesca, que parece un baile frenético sobre el agua.

Características Físicas

Esta especie presenta dos variantes de color (morfos) que conservan durante toda su vida:

Morfo Oscuro (más común): Tiene el cuerpo de color gris pizarra con la cabeza y el cuello de un tono rojizo o canela intenso.

Morfo Blanco: Es completamente blanco.

Rasgos comunes:

Pico: Largo y puntiagudo, de color rosa con la punta negra (más brillante durante la época de cría).

Cuello: Presenta plumas largas y desgreñadas que le dan un aspecto "shaggy" o despeinado.

Patas: Son largas y de un color azul cobalto o negruzco.

Tamaño: Mide entre 68 y 82 cm de largo, con una envergadura de unos 116 a 125 cm.

Comportamiento y Alimentación

Se le apoda el "T-Rex de las marismas" por su estilo de caza agresivo y enérgico:

Baile de Pesca: A diferencia de otras garzas que esperan inmóviles, la rojiza corre, salta y gira en aguas poco profundas para perseguir a los peces.

Pesca con dosel: A menudo extiende sus alas formando una sombra sobre el agua; esto reduce el reflejo del sol y atrae a los peces que buscan refugio en la sombra, facilitando su captura.

Dieta: Se alimenta principalmente de pequeños peces, aunque también consume ranas y crustáceos.

Hábitat y Distribución

Es una especie casi exclusivamente costera.

Ubicación: Se encuentra en las costas del Golfo de México, el Caribe, América Central y el norte de Sudamérica. En EE. UU., es común en Texas y Florida.

Entorno: Prefiere marismas saladas, lagunas costeras, manglares y llanuras de marea.

=======ENGLISH========

The Reddish Egret (Egretta rufescens) is a medium-sized heron celebrated for being the most energetic and "theatrical" hunter of the heron family. It is best known for its frantic, dance-like fishing technique.

Physical Appearance

This species is unique because it exists in two distinct color morphs, regardless of age or sex:

Dark Morph (Most Common): Features a slate-grey body with a contrasting shaggy, reddish-cinnamon neck and head.

White Morph: Completely white plumage.

Key Features:

Bill: Distinctive two-toned bill—bright pink at the base with a black tip.

Eyes: Pale, yellowish-white irises that give it a piercing gaze.

Legs: Long, cobalt-blue to blackish legs.

Size: Stands about 27–32 inches (68–82 cm) tall with a wingspan of approximately 46–49 inches.

The "Canopy" Hunting Behavior

The Reddish Egret’s hunting style is its most famous trait. Unlike other herons that stand still, it:

Dances: Runs through shallow water, spinning, leaping, and flapping its wings to startle fish.

Canopying: It often arches its wings over its head to create a shadow (canopy) on the water. This reduces glare, allowing the bird to see prey better, and lures fish into the shade for safety—at which point the egret strikes.

Habitat and Conservation

Range: A strictly coastal bird found along the Gulf Coast of the US (Texas, Florida), Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America.

Habitat: It stays near salt water, favoring tidal flats, lagoons, and salt marshes.

Conservation: It is considered one of the rarest herons in North America, largely due to habitat loss and historical hunting for the plume trade.

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Lugar de Observación / Taken: Minas de sal, Monte Cristi,, República Dominicana.

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Scientific classification

Kingdom:Animalia

Phylum:Chordata

Class:Aves

Order:Pelecaniformes (disputed)

Family:Ardeidae

Genus:Egretta

Species:E. rufescens

Binomial name

Egretta rufescens

Redish_mtecristi-4340

Sighted this beautiful bird sunbathing in the sun early this morning. This is a target bird of mine for flight photography, and is not difficult to sight around here. It is hard to get it in flight though since it requires a clear line of sight and the bird has to fly nearby.

The neck and face are quite thin and AF didn't catch them, so had to focus on the body and reduce the F-Value. It was there for about 15 mins preening itself, drying the wings and finally flew away to the far side of the lake. The bird is known for diving into the water, swimming under and catching fish.

Thanks in advance for the views and feedback if any.

Here is a one year anniversary image from our trip to Acadia last summer. This was sunrise along the Atlantic Coast.

I went back to this RAW image and post processed a little more to bring up the overall exposure a little, slight more definition in the shadows, and reduced the clarity setting ... it was too high previously adding some halo that I did not like in the very high contrast areas of the image.

This certainly is an amazing section of coastline ... and I was blessed with such a pretty sunrise.

olympus omd - lightroom - silver efex pro

For this capture I reduced the shutter speed down to 2.5 seconds to try and keep from blowing out the light on the white lighthouse ... but still get a bit of the Milky Way there in the sky.

Hay meadow and greenland in Kitzbühel county, Tyrol

late Lippewalking

A fence I used once before. I use it again to christen a new lens, and because the fence pickings ain't so good in our neighborhood. Is anyone running fence tours?

HFF to all: Looking forward to seeing everyone's handiwork.

Snowy Egret

The Snowy Egret (Egretta thula) is a small white heron. It is the American counterpart to the very similar Old World little egret, which has established a foothold in the Bahamas. At one time, the beautiful plumes of the snowy egret were in great demand by market hunters as decorations for women's hats. This reduced the population of the species to dangerously low levels. Now protected in the United States by law, under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, this bird's population has rebounded.

For more info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_egret

Here I am standing on the edge of Lake Michigan during a polar vortex. The wind and blowing snow made it nearly impossible to get one shot without snow completely covering my lens. But somehow I managed to get a few. The sun was trying to shine thru the clouds at sunset. Snow squalls come and go making a very dramatic stormy feel to it.

day 2 of the monsoons. At least we don't have the wind today. The dog keeps whining to go out, then puts her nose out of the door and comes straight back in. So looks like a day to catch up on some paperwork - whoopeeeee!

Un rapace perdu dans le silence du soir, immobile sur une branche nue, face à un ciel dénudé.

Une image dépouillée où la nature se résume à trois éléments : l’oiseau, l’arbre et la lumière.

Dans cette simplicité se cache toute la force du minimalisme : moins d’objets, plus de présence.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

A raptor lost in the silence of evening, motionless on a bare branch against a stripped‑down sky.

A stripped‑back image where nature reduces itself to three elements: the bird, the tree, and the light.

Within this simplicity lies the strength of minimalism: fewer things, more presence.

________________________________________PdF______

somewhere in Maine.

thank you for visiting!

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361/366: 2016

Macro Monday - Redux...all in a row

I saw these Christmas macarons, on Christmas Eve, they were reduced so I bought them for a photo prop. Macro Monday is visiting past themes so I used the macarons for 'all in a row" I really struggled to get a shot I am happy with and am not overly pleased with this but have spent enough time faffing and these macarons aren't going to eat themselves! ;) HMM

Ruin of Teylingen Castle

The ruin of Teylingen Castle is a round moated castle that dominates the flat landscape. Originally there was only a ring wall; the keep was added later in the thirteenth century. In addition to the current castle, there was an extensive outer castle, which was also surrounded by a moat. A comfortable and luxurious house was built here in the fourteenth century.

The castle today consists of the still impressive round castle (37 m in diameter) on a castle island surrounded by a wide moat. On the inside of the wall you can see large savings arches on which a wall corridor has been placed. The massive residential building had also been erected against the wall. It is now an empty hull, but it used to have four storeys, the first of which was vaulted. The beam holes of the top floors can still be seen in the interior.

The castle was originally inhabited by the lords of Teylingen. The castle served to protect the Rijndijk and the road to Haarlem. The lords of Teylingen first appear in 1143. It is likely that the lords of Teylingen had borrowed the castle and the surrounding land from a count. In 1282 this family died out in the male line and the castle passed to the count.

The castle was given the function of hunting lodge and forester by the Dutch counts and the feudal man was given the title of forester and actually became a kind of civil servant with responsibility for management.

The most famous forester was Jacoba van Bavaria (1433). She came from the highest noble circles, but due to an unwanted marriage to Frank van Borsele had forfeited her rights to countlessness. She died of TB in 1436.

The castle was badly damaged during the Eighty Years' War. In 1572, during the siege of Haarlem and Leiden, Teylingen fell prey to the Spaniards and was reduced to ruin.

In 1888, the now heavily neglected castle was transferred to the state and the management of the monument was mainly focused on preservation and only since 1933 has further deterioration been prevented by constructive measures.

Since 1 June 2013, the ruin has been managed by: Stichting Beheer Kasteel Teylingen.

Outside Madison, Indiana, I discovered a cloud factory. Must have been on reduced capacity that day. Still, it was putting out quality work.

This string of jetty jacks, positioned along the brush-covered east bank of the Mojave riverbed beside the Rocksprings trestle, helps to control erosion of the embankment where the rails leave the trestle and head across land; a matching set of jacks occupies the same position on the western shore. Each individual jack consists of three lengths of steel angle joined at their midpoints, producing a structure like a six-pronged jack from the child's game; the lengths of angle are held in place by wire, laced like a spider's web about the jack's center. The jacks are then attached along a cable anchored at each end, the whole length—in this case, half a dozen or so jacks—protecting the shoreline by catching sediment and debris, as the river, flush with water when the winter rains are heavy, courses beneath the trestle.

Camera: Univex Iris (1938, with Vitar 50mm f/7.9 lens). The Iris is an Art-Deco styled, cast-metal camera with adjustable aperture, fixed shutter speed, and fixed focus. Its native film is Universal No. 00, a proprietary film manufactured for the camera's maker, Universal Camera Corp., by Gevaert in Belgium. 00 film featured six 28 x 38 images per roll, and at 32mm wide was just slightly narrower than 35mm film. Universal filed for bankruptcy in 1952 and closed its doors in 1964, so there has been no new 00 film for the Iris and other early Universal cameras for several decades.

Film: I have read of people cutting down 120 film to make 00 film, but because 32mm is an odd width, one would have to develop it in open trays and make a special film holder for scanning. I decided instead to use the next smaller film size, 16mm or 110 film. I made 00 backing paper by cutting down 120 film backing paper. 00 film's image length is nearly the same as that of 828 film (00's image is 38mm long, 828's is 40mm), so I used my 828 backing paper template (www.pheugo.com/cameras/index.php?page=spool828), cutting it slightly narrower for the 00 spool (32mm rather than 828's 35mm), and reducing the length from 828 film's eight image length to 00's six. When cutting down 120 film for 127 film cameras, there is a strip of film about 15mm wide left over; I used one of these strips to roll up in the backing paper. I used my accustomed 100 ISO Arista.edu Ultra film, developed in Arista Liquid Developer for 8:15 minutes @ 65 degrees, and scanned with an Epson V600 scanner. This was my first time developing and scanning 110 film—thanks to my Flickr friend Nyms for her insight on the Yankee Clipper developing tank!

Europhenix liveried 37611 slows for a signal check at Beck Foot before getting looped at Grayrigg to allow faster traffic to pass. The tractor is dragging Transpennine 397005 running as 5N32 Kilmarnock - Longsight.

More photos at: cogloadjunctionphotography.weebly.com/

If you look at the Google Street View of Ulm, you'll find this house as it was in 2014. The house is well-maintained, with an American flag flying on the porch. The yard is filled with a happy and vibrant selection of plants, and decorated with various knickknacks and bird baths. But on this rainy day in 2023 the house was abandoned. The yard was overgrown with brown weeds, with a crooked "Price Reduced" sign nearly hidden by a bush. I don't know what happened here, but we can guess. I can easily imagine a scenario, where the original owners were elderly, but they loved and dedicated their lives to this house and its yard. But when they sadly passed on, and there was no one to take care of the house or the property. It was put up for sale, but there were no takers. And then time passed along, as it always does.

Fotografiert mit einem durchfahrenden Zug.

Die Bahnhofswände wurden abgeschrägt, um den Flächenverbrauch an der Oberfläche während der Bauarbeiten zu reduzieren. Die unbearbeiteten Bohrpfähle bilden die Hintergleiswände. Die Bahnhofsbeschriftung ist in Rot gehalten, ebenso die Lampenschirme. Eine Aluminiumkonstruktion reflektiert das Licht der Lampen und verteilt es so im Bahnhof. An Gleis 2 ist ein Kunstwerk angebracht, das auf die Mangfall und ihre Funktion als Trinkwasserlieferant für München verweist. Gestaltet wurde der Bahnhof von Paolo Nestler.

Das wusste Wikipedia.

Photographed with a passing train.

The station walls were bevelled to reduce the amount of space used on the surface during construction. The unprocessed bored piles form the back track walls. The station lettering is in red, as are the lampshades. An aluminum construction reflects the light from the lamps and distributes it in the train station. A work of art is attached to track 2, which refers to the Mangfall and its function as a drinking water supplier for Munich. The station was designed by Paolo Nestler.

Wikipedia knew that.

Please don't use this image on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit permission. © All rights reserved

NO GROUP INVITES

The lion (Panthera leo) is a species in the family Felidae; it is a muscular, deep-chested cat with a short, rounded head, a reduced neck and round ears, and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. It is sexually dimorphic; adult male lions have a prominent mane, which is the most recognisable feature of the species. With a typical head-to-body length of 184–208 cm they are larger than females at 160–184 cm. It is a social species, forming groups called prides. A lion pride consists of a few adult males, related females and cubs. Groups of female lions usually hunt together, preying mostly on large ungulates. The lion is an apex and keystone predator, although some lions scavenge when opportunities occur, and have been known to hunt humans, although the species typically does not. Typically, the lion inhabits grasslands and savannas, but is absent in dense forests. It is usually more diurnal than other big cats, but when persecuted it adapts to being active at night and at twilight. African lions live in scattered populations across Sub-Saharan Africa. The lion prefers grassy plains and savannahs, scrub bordering rivers and open woodlands with bushes. It is absent from rainforest and rarely enters closed forest. 26948