I often think roses become even more beautiful with age!

Have a good weekend everyone :)

Redstarts are immediately identifiable by their bright orange-red tails, which they often quiver. Breeding males look smart, with slate grey upper parts, black faces and wings and an orange rump and chest. Females and young are duller. Redstarts 'bob' in a very robin-like manner, but spend little time at ground level. It is included on the Amber List of species with unfavourable conservation status in Europe where it is declining. From the RSPB website.

A pair of Steel-blue Cricket Hunter Wasps circled my yard for several days. The only place they would stop was on the orange flowers of the Butterfly Weed.

They strongly resemble Blue Mud Dauber Wasps, which have a longer pedicel (the "stalk" that connects their thorax to their abdomen).

Butterfly Weed is a native plant species, and my favorite Michigan wildflower. Ironically, I have never seen a butterfly land on the flowers, although it does attract a variety of wasps and hornets.

The Boxdorf Windmill is a former windmill built in 1849 in Boxdorf, a district of Moritzburg.

Until 1652, the Boxdorfer and the Reichenberger farmers had to grind their grain in the Plauenschen soil and in the (somewhat closer) Ockrilla Lease Mill. With the Saxon Constitution of 1831, the grinding force fell away.

The first mill at this site, a wooden pint mill, was built in 1839 by the miller Münch from Zuendorf on the Boxdorf Galgenberg (also: Gallberg). The grinding mill was able to grind eight to ten talents of flour daily. In 1847, the mill was sold to Müller Friedrich Wilhelm Seeländer from Weferlingen near Magdeburg. The mill burned down in a thunderstorm in 1849 in full operation.

Friedrich Wilhelm sold the remains to his brother Heinrich Christoph Seeländer and ran the Loschwitz watermill himself. Heinrich Christoph rebuilt the mill in 1849 as a stone, defensive-tower-like Dutch mill. This is testified by a sandstone with an engraved year above the original entrance door. Six years later Friedrich Wilhelm returned to Boxdorf in 1855 and took over the mill again from his brother. Around 1860 the house belonging to the mill was probably destroyed by arson. The existing residential building was then built.

In the German War of 1866, the Saxon Army, allied with Austria, gathered near Dresden and occupied the mill. The miller was no longer allowed to grind grain as a pressing.

Friedrich Wilhelm Seeländer died in 1877 as a result of a war suffering. Since his descendants had other professions or were too young, the mill came into foreign hands. Friedrich Hermann Müller bought the mill with three meals and a bakery for 11,100 marks. A lightning strike on 27 June 1887 did not result in a fire. Nevertheless, the roof, wings and wave were destroyed. Since in the meantime more efficient working machinery companies had taken over the business, a repair was no longer worthwhile. The mill came to a standstill.

The owner Müller was granted a concession for coffee and beer serving in 1890. Müller opened an economy and on the tower of the mill a wooden observation deck. This was replaced in 1904 by the still existing stone structure with pinnacles.

In 1921 Paul Gantze purchased the mill and had an electric grinding plant reached inside. He moved the banquet to the neighbouring apartment building. In 1927 he built a small hall. The property became a popular excursion restaurant that was in operation until the 1950s.

A beautiful hummingbird.

Their habitat is in high-altitude forests 3,900-7,500 ft ( 1,200-2,300 m). But sometimes, in search of food sources, these birds down as low as 1,600 ft (500 m).

This bird species spends most of its days in solitude. They go to great lengths just to defend a feeding territory.

Named from the similarity of their prominent proboscis that looks like the beak of a snipe. Adults can often be seen sitting on vegetation or on tree trunks waiting to catch and pounce on passing prey. Some species of snipe flies are hematophagous as adults and some are predatory of insects. Larvae develop as predators in the soil and wood detritus. Found in wet meadows, marshes and woodland margins. Can sometimes be know as the Down-Looker Fly as they have the habit of perching head-downward on tree trunks.

Dipper - Cinclus Cinclus

aka Water Ouzel

Dippers are members of the genus Cinclus in the bird family Cinclidae, named for their bobbing or dipping movements. They are unique among passerines for their ability to dive and swim underwater.

They have a characteristic bobbing motion when perched beside the water, giving them their name. While under water, they are covered by a thin, silvery film of air, due to small bubbles being trapped on the surface of the plumage.

Dippers are found in suitable freshwater habitats in the highlands of the Americas, Europe and Asia. In Africa they are only found in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. They inhabit the banks of fast-moving upland rivers with cold, clear waters, though, outside the breeding season, they may visit lake shores and sea coasts.

The high haemoglobin concentration in their blood gives them a capacity to store oxygen greater than that of other birds, allowing them to remain underwater for thirty seconds or more, whilst their basal metabolic rate is approximately one-third slower than typical terrestrial passerines of similar mass. One small population wintering at a hot spring in Suntar-Khayata Mountains of Siberia feeds underwater when air temperatures drop below −55 °C (−67 °F).

Dippers are completely dependent on fast-flowing rivers with clear water, accessible food and secure nest-sites. They may be threatened by anything that affects these needs such as water pollution, acidification and turbidity caused by erosion. River regulation through the creation of dams and reservoirs, as well as channelization, can degrade and destroy dipper habitat.

Dippers are also sometimes hunted or otherwise persecuted by humans for various reasons. The Cyprus race of the white-throated dipper is extinct. In the Atlas Mountains dippers are claimed to have aphrodisiacal properties. In parts of Scotland and Germany, until the beginning of the 20th century, bounties were paid for killing dippers because of a misguided perception that they were detrimental to fish stocks through predation on the eggs and fry of salmonids.

Population:

UK breeding:

6,200-18,700 pairs

Dipper - Cinclus Cinclus

aka Water Ouzel

Dippers are members of the genus Cinclus in the bird family Cinclidae, named for their bobbing or dipping movements. They are unique among passerines for their ability to dive and swim underwater.

They have a characteristic bobbing motion when perched beside the water, giving them their name. While under water, they are covered by a thin, silvery film of air, due to small bubbles being trapped on the surface of the plumage.

Dippers are found in suitable freshwater habitats in the highlands of the Americas, Europe and Asia. In Africa they are only found in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. They inhabit the banks of fast-moving upland rivers with cold, clear waters, though, outside the breeding season, they may visit lake shores and sea coasts.

The high haemoglobin concentration in their blood gives them a capacity to store oxygen greater than that of other birds, allowing them to remain underwater for thirty seconds or more, whilst their basal metabolic rate is approximately one-third slower than typical terrestrial passerines of similar mass. One small population wintering at a hot spring in Suntar-Khayata Mountains of Siberia feeds underwater when air temperatures drop below −55 °C (−67 °F).

Dippers are completely dependent on fast-flowing rivers with clear water, accessible food and secure nest-sites. They may be threatened by anything that affects these needs such as water pollution, acidification and turbidity caused by erosion. River regulation through the creation of dams and reservoirs, as well as channelization, can degrade and destroy dipper habitat.

Dippers are also sometimes hunted or otherwise persecuted by humans for various reasons. The Cyprus race of the white-throated dipper is extinct. In the Atlas Mountains dippers are claimed to have aphrodisiacal properties. In parts of Scotland and Germany, until the beginning of the 20th century, bounties were paid for killing dippers because of a misguided perception that they were detrimental to fish stocks through predation on the eggs and fry of salmonids.

Population:

UK breeding:

6,200-18,700 pairs

Formerly killed in huge numbers for their fur, especially during the 1920s and ’30s, koalas dwindled in number from several million to a few hundred thousand. In the southern part of their range, they became practically extinct except for a single population in Gippsland, Victoria in Australia. Some were translocated onto small offshore islands, especially Phillip Island, where they did so well that these koalas were used to restock much of the original range in Victoria and southern New South Wales, Australia.

"Double Arch takes its name because it consists of two arches that share the same stone as a foundation for both of their outer legs. Double Arch was formed by downward water erosion from atop the sandstone, rather than from side-to-side water erosion."

Utah.com

Photographed at Double Arch, Arches National Park, Utah, USA

2nd Place , Beautiful Capture Group , Week 37 contest , Oct 2012

www.flickr.com/groups/beautifulcapture/discuss/7215763165...

Bar tailed Godwit - Liomosa Laponica

Norfolk

The bar-tailed godwit is a long-billed, long-legged wading bird which visits UK shores for the winter. Most usually seen in its grey-brown winter plumage, birds in spring may show their full rich chestnut breeding plumage. In flight it shows a white patch stretching from the rump up the back, narrowing to a point. It breeds in the Arctic of Scandinavia and Siberia and hundreds of thousands of them pass through the UK, on their way further south, or stop off here for the winter.

The bar-tailed godwit breeds on Arctic coasts and tundra mainly in the Old World, and winters on coasts in temperate and tropical regions of the Old World and of Australia and New Zealand. Its migration includes the longest known non-stop flight of any bird and also the longest journey without pausing to feed by any animal.

The bar-tailed godwit migrates in flocks to coastal East Asia, Alaska, Australia, Africa, northwestern Europe and New Zealand.

It was shown in 2007 to undertake the longest non-stop flight of any bird. Birds in New Zealand were tagged and tracked by satellite to the Yellow Sea in China. According to Dr. Clive Minton (Australasian Wader Studies Group): The distance between these two locations is 9,575 km (5,950 mi), but the actual track flown by the bird was 11,026 km (6,851 mi). This was the longest known non-stop flight of any bird. The flight took approximately nine days. At least three other bar-tailed godwits also appear to have reached the Yellow Sea after non-stop flights from New Zealand.

One specific female of the flock, nicknamed E7 flew onward from China to Alaska and stayed there for the breeding season. Then on 29 August 2007 she departed on a non-stop flight from the Avinof Peninsula in western Alaska to the Piako River near Thames, New Zealand, setting a new known flight record of 11,680 km (7,258 mi).

Turtles are unable to regulate their body temperatures independently, so they are completely dependent on the temperature of their environment. For this reason, they need to sunbathe frequently to warm themselves and maintain their body temperatures.

The red-eared slider gets its name from the small, red stripe around its ears, or where its ears would be, and from its ability to slide quickly off rocks and logs into the water.

Red-eared sliders are native to the Southern United States and northern Mexico, but have become established in other places because of pet releases, and have become an invasive species in many areas where they outcompete native species.

The carapace of this species can reach more than 40 cm (16 in) in length, but the typical length ranges from 15 to 20 cm (6 to 8 in). The females of the species are usually larger than the males. They typically live between 20 and 30 years.

- Wikipedia

(Nikon, 500 mm, 1/200 @ f/8, ISO 400)

Sandhill cranes (Grus canadensis; Antigone canadensis) live in North America and Eastern Siberia. However, a few sandhill cranes stay in Izumi, Japan during winter due to straying. In 2019, 7 visitors came. Among them 4 were members of a family. They appeared to be quite relaxed. I wished their safe return to their home in the coming spring.

カナダヅルは迷鳥として渡来します。出水で出会ったカナダヅルのファミリーは環境がいいのか、とてもリラックスしていました。

Stoke Park, Bristol.

Their return is getting closer

... but still a joyful sight ;-))

(even after these unbearably hot months of summer)

Japanese Anemones / Herbstanemonen (Anemone japonica)

in Botanical Garden, Frankfurt

If you love them like I do, you'll find more anemones in my personal "from-spring-to-autumn" Anemone Collection.

Iceland's Westfjords with their iconic mountains and fjords offer plenty of opportunities to enjoy unspouilt landscapes, stillness, beauty and solitude.

PX500 | BR-Creative | chbustos.com

Yesterday felt like my graduation

Now some of those kids have got their own

Been a while since I took a vacation

It's been a while since I really let go

Don't wanna look back

Thinking I could've done this, or I could've tried that

Don't wanna look back

'Cause it's going by fast

I'ma call my mother

It's been a while since I've been home

Take a trip in the summer

See all the lights in Tokyo

Get lost in the desert

Just to see what I can find

So when it's my time, I

I'm smiling when I die (when I die, when I die)

I'm smiling when I die (when I die, when I die)

Yesterday felt like my first day working

Now I'm not the youngest on the clock

Been a while since days were just for burning

It's been a while since I threw back a shot

Don't wanna look back

Thinking I could've done this, or I could've tried that

Don't wanna look back

'Cause it's going by fast

I'ma call my mother

It's been a while since I've been home

Take a trip in the summer

See all the lights in Tokyo

Get lost in the desert

Just to see what I can find

So when it's my time, I

I'm smiling when I die (when I die, when I die)

I'm smiling when I die (when I die, when I die)

There's been a couple times that I fell in love

But a couple times just ain't enough

There's been a couple joints that I couldn't share

But I guess I gotta start somewhere

I'ma call my mother

It's been a while since I've been home

Take a trip in the summer

See all the lights in Tokyo

Get lost in the desert

Just to see what I can find

So when it's my time, I

I'm smiling when I die (when I die, when I die)

I'm smiling when I die (when I die, when I die)

I'm smiling when I die (when I die, when I die)

I'm smiling when I die (when I die, when I die)

I'm smiling when I die (when I die, when I die)

Tune-Listen

At the very end of the dunes stands the old watchman who do feels the tension and the unrest while he looks the surrounding at ease.

At his feet the tide is rising and the sea lips and murmurs slowly through the sand.

In the distance he hears the growling waves appoaching..........

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Inland the wind picked up and it was as if the heaven leaden sky would compress everything in its way.

The reed bent so far as if it were trying to break free from the earth to flee.

The last rays of the sun would soon give way to a macabre darkness........

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

One more of our two cousins watching the gate of their safely enclosed garden.

Dushara Cathal Caithlin & Dushara Tatters and Rags (Somali cats), 11.05.2023.

Olympus OMD EM5 Digital Camera

their eyes don't light up when you walk through the front door :-)

Robert Brault

rose, little theater rose garden, raleigh, nirth carolina

Their legs almost glow on their own

Chinese palaces, temples and mansions have on their roofs a special kind of ornaments called wenshou or zoomorphic ornaments, some on the main ridges and some on the sloping and branch ridges.

The monstrous thing at either end of the main ridge, called chiwen, appears roughly like the tail of a fish. Fierce and formidable, it looks as if it were ready to devour the whole ridge; so it is also known as tunjishou or the ridge-devouring beast. It is, according to Chinese mythology, one of the sons of the Dragon King who rules the seas. It is said to be able to stir up waves and change them into rains.

So ancient Chinese put a chiwen at either end of the main ridge for its magic powers to conjure up a downpour to put out any fire that might break out. But for fear that it might gobble up the ridge, they transfixed it on the roof with a sword.

At the end of the sloping and branch ridges there are often a string of smaller animals, their sizes and numbers being decided by the status of the owner of the building in the feudal hierarchy.

These small animals were also believed to be capable of putting out fires. While this can be easily dismissed as superstition, they do add to the grandeur and magnificence of the imperial buildings.

For Memorial Day.

Thanks to FOCUS Magazine for including this pic in your amazing edition June 2021 as winner in the contest "The Military".

Mechelen - Zandpoortvest

Copyright - All images are copyright © protected. All Rights Reserved. Copying, altering, displaying or redistribution of any of these images without written permission from the artist is strictly prohibited.

” Their hands steady on my shoulder as I ride for them. Though they not know that when I ride it isn’t for show ….. I ride for the escape, to flee my chains, To ride the wind and outrun the rain I ride for being grateful I am still alive ”

Amsy Blog

Blog Tune

Rest hope you all enjoy amsy work as always ^^

Amsy ♡

Nikon micro-nikkor 55mm f2.8 AI-S @ f11

Credit to mum & dad for use of their lawn, and to my brother for holding the lighting rig.

This was the first male Eastern Towhee of the year. Bucks Co. PA.

Sunflowers follow poppies. As I could see this morning, these have also completely faded in the meantime. Here they are still in their full splendor and glory.

Auf den Mohn folgen die Sonnenblumen. Auch diese sind, wie ich heute früh sehen konnte inzwischen komplett verblüht. Hier zeigen sie sich noch in voller Pracht und Herrlichkeit.

more of this on my website at: www.shoot-to-catch.de

The cliffs at Hunstanton, Norfolk are famous for their colour bands and revealed geology.

The lowest dark brown level was laid down in shallow warm seas 70 million years ago during the Cretaceous. It is a 'Carstone' composed of sand and iron compounds and used as a local building material.

The younger much thinner 'red rock' layer is chalk coloured with iron pigments. Above that is a thick layer of white chalk. All have fossils but frequent rock falls make it dangerous to be too close.

The wreck is the remains of a 130ft long trawler 'S T Sheraton'. Built in 1907 it saw additional duty in WW1 and WW2 for minesweeping and anti-submarine patrols. If five years of war was not enough, she was then selected for bombing practice! She escaped that ignominy by breaking her moorings and going aground for a peaceful life (including providing a nice foreground for photographers) under the cliffs.

Two of the many puffins that I saw on the Farne Islands last summer during a short visit.

Great Egret Juvenile - Explored

From Egret.Org:

....egrets feed their newly hatched young by regurgitating food into the nest and the chicks pick it up and gulp it down. As the chicks increase in size and strength they seize their parents' bills on their own at feeding time and try to pull them down into the nest perhaps hoping to hasten the delivery of food.

After egret chicks are large enough to grasp their parents' bills in this way, food goes directly into the mouths of the young instead of being deposited in the nests.

Not all chicks survive to independence. In broods of 3 or 4, the chicks that hatch later are smaller and weaker than their older nest mates. Older chicks aggressively peck the younger ones at feeding time and force them away from the food. When the adults bring plenty of food all the chicks in the brood survive, but if food is limited, the younger chicks die.

Successful adults usually raise 2 young, sometimes 3 and rarely 4.

I haven't taken new pics since weeks u_u hope I get my strength back this weekend :p

ماشاءالله*

Like a butterfly;

fly. Fly back and forward.

Like their wings; a tiny move can bring a whole new world.

Fly. Fly around and collect your memories. All will fly away. Away.

Just the pictures stay.

In my head.

My personal Faves in this Photo

TATTOO | IVY - BLUE LIGHT (tokyo zero)

SHOES & STOCKINGS | AVEC TOI - Wendy O Stilettos & Stockings (FaMESHed X)

MOTH | Void + Minttea - Elysian Blinking Moth

EAR GLOW | Void - Luminous Fae Ears

DESSOUS | Violent Seduction - Apollo

Photographed at my NEW Store:

HIDDEN

... towards the long weekend - TGIF !

African Elephants / Afrikanische Elefanten (Loxodonta africana)

with Cattle Egrets / Kuhreiher (Bubulcus ibis) in morning light

in Amboseli Game Reserve, Kenya, Africa

One more from the Bronze frieze at St Pancras International Station .

With the Easter holidays approaching it is a time all over the country to get the railway tracks and works done ..so if you are travelling after this evening be prepared for massive delays and cancellations !!

As for this title , next year in January , the tracks under the Mersey Tunnel are due for replacing ,so hopefully the Mersey Ferries will be geared up for extra passengers ,as for the road tunnels, well it will mean congestion most of the time I would think ....

CPKC is really pushing the limits of their mainline in the Mississippi River floodwaters in downtown Davenport, IA as an empty ballast train heads north with KCS 3967 and KCS 4405.

Another northbound would follow the ballast train 1.5 hours later and the mainline will possibly shut down yet today with floodgates closing at Waterworks.

April 29, 2023.

No digital work

Cover of week in Minimalisme Gold 2021

Some interesting facts about the Black-Necked stilt:

They feed in both salt and fresh water on half webbed feet that allow them to swim, although they rarely do.

They have the second-longest legs in proportion to their bodies of any bird, exceeded only by flamingos.

-Himantopus mexicanus

The last light of day illuminates their golden manes.

Their job is it to keep the bamboo-house free from scorpions & Co

At Night in the Rain

Green Leaves awake again

Rain Drops keep falling on their Heads

And even kiss the Flower Beds

Droplets are dancing on their green

Reflecting in the Starlight Sheen

(Caren)

😄 Happy Sliders Sunday 😄

Taken in a Wild Garden in West Wales (Ceredigion), processed saturation, reduced brightness and uploaded for

Sliders Sunday

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200

ƒ/2.8

4.5 mm

1/80 Sec

ISO 100

[Dedicated to CRA (ILYWAMHASAM)]

[Text and image copyright Caren (©all rights reserved)]

please respect my ©copyright : Do not use any image or text without my previous written authorization, NOT even in social networks. If you want to use a photograph, please contact me!

Bitte mein ©Copyright beachten!

Meine Fotos und Texte sind ©copyright geschützt (alle Rechte vorbehalten) und dürfen ohne meine vorherige und schriftliche Zustimmung NICHT von Dritten verwendet werden, auch nicht in sozialen Netzwerken. Falls Interesse an einem Foto besteht, bitte ich um Kontaktaufnahme!]

With their nocturnal habit and owl-like appearance, Tawny Frogmouths are often confused with owls, but are actually more closely related to the nightjars. Their feet are weak however, and lack the curved talons of owls.

The Tawny Frogmouth is found throughout Australia.

The bulk of the Tawny Frogmouth's diet is made up of nocturnal insects, worms, slugs and snails. Small mammals, reptiles, frogs and birds are also eaten. Most food is obtained by pouncing to the ground from a tree or other elevated perch."

Photographed Maleny, Queensland, Australia.

Steve Hitchcock © All rights reserved

Three pelicans attend to their feathers at sunrise...

A few of their buddies are swimming in the background :)

Seagulls are quite chatty. They have no problems squawking and letting their voices be heard.

Gulls are social creatures and will communicate with other birds flying above, this was very loud at the harbor, perhaps was complaining about the water being frozen:-)

Their return is a sure sign of fall.

We know rainbows for their renowned beauty and for the fact that they form when the sun hits water particles in the sky at 22 degrees usually in mid morning or late afternoon. But, there is a whole lot more to a rainbow than what many may know. It is a symbol to remind the world that God would never flood the whole earth ever again. We know the science behind a rainbow and many other natural wonders that leave us breathless. What we don't realize is that creation responds to its Creator. Rainbows form across the sky as a reminder and a promise. Winds come to a calm by a word from the mouth of Jesus. The whole Earth and everything it contains was formed by a word spoken from its Creator, the LORD of all of heaven and earth. What is so special to me about rainbows is that they truly have symbolized promises made to us and answered prayers from God. I asked for a rainbow on my engagement day and there was a rainbow, I asked for a rainbow over a lake on the day of our wedding shower and there was a rainbow over a lake on our wedding shower as a promised reminder of the covenant to come.