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Sorry for posting SO many photos today! I think it's the only way I will ever get through all the images from this Texas trip.
On Day 6 of our birding holiday in South Texas, 24 March 2019, we left our hotel in Kingsville, South Texas, and started our drive to Mission, where we would be staying at La Quinta Inn & Suites for three nights. On the first stretch of our drive, we were lucky enough to see several bird species, including a Golden-fronted Woodpecker, Hooded Oriole, Red-tailed Hawk, Crested Caracara, Harris's Hawk, Pyrrhuloxia male (looks similar to a Cardinal) and a spectacular Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. I'm not sure if this stretch is called Hawk Alley.
We had a long drive further south towards Mission, with only a couple of drive-by photos taken en route (of a strangely shaped building that turned out to be a deserted seed storage building). Eventually, we reached our next planned stop, the National Butterfly Centre. This was a great place, my favourite part of it being the bird feeding station, where we saw all sorts of species and reasonably close. Despite the name of the place, we only saw a few butterflies while we were there. May have been the weather or, more likely, the fact that I was having so much fun at the bird feeding station. We also got to see Spike, a giant African Spurred Tortoise. All the nature/wildlife parks that we visited in South Texas had beautiful visitor centres and usually bird feeding stations. And there are so many of these parks - so impressive!
nationalbutterflycenter.org/nbc-multi-media/in-the-news/1...
"Ten years ago, the North American Butterfly Association broke ground for what has now become the largest native plant botanical garden in the United States. This 100-acre preserve is home to Spike (who thinks he is a butterfly) and the greatest volume and variety of wild, free-flying butterflies in the nation. In fact, USA Today calls the National Butterfly Center, in Mission, Texas, 'the butterfly capitol of the USA'." From the Butterfly Centre's website.
The Centre is facing huge challenges, as a result of the "Border Wall". The following information is from the Centre's website.
www.nationalbutterflycenter.org/about-nbc/maps-directions...
"No permission was requested to enter the property or begin cutting down trees. The center was not notified of any roadwork, nor given the opportunity to review, negotiate or deny the workplan. Same goes for the core sampling of soils on the property, and the surveying and staking of a “clear zone” that will bulldoze 200,000 square feet of habitat for protected species like the Texas Tortoise and Texas Indigo, not to mention about 400 species of birds. The federal government had decided it will do as it pleases with our property, swiftly and secretly, in spite of our property rights and right to due process under the law."
"What the Border Wall will do here:
1) Eradicate an enormous amount of native habitat, including host plants for butterflies, breeding and feeding areas for wildlife, and lands set aside for conservation of endangered and threatened species-- including avian species that migrate N/S through this area or over-winter, here, in the tip of the Central US Flyway.
2) Create devastating flooding to all property up to 2 miles behind the wall, on the banks of the mighty Rio Grande River, here.
3) Reduce viable range land for wildlife foraging and mating. This will result in greater competition for resources and a smaller gene pool for healthy species reproduction. Genetic "bottlenecks" can exacerbate blight and disease.
IN ADDITION:
4) Not all birds can fly over the wall, nor will all butterfly species. For example, the Ferruginous Pygmy Owl, found on the southern border from Texas to Arizona, only flies about 6 ft in the air. It cannot overcome a 30 ft vertical wall of concrete and steel.
5) Nocturnal and crepuscular wildlife, which rely on sunset and sunrise cues to regulate vital activity, will be negatively affected by night time flood lighting of the "control zone" the DHS CBP will establish along the wall and new secondary drag roads. The expansion of these areas to vehicular traffic will increase wildlife roadkill.
6) Animals trapped north of the wall will face similar competition for resources, cut off from native habitat in the conservation corridor and from water in the Rio Grande River and adjacent resacas. HUMANS, here, will also be cut off from our only source of fresh water, in this irrigated desert.
Think I might have gone Darter crazy this weekend lol taking over 200 shots.
On my Knees in Nettles here in shorts and Sandals lol, Spent the next few minutes looking for dock leaves :)
Although I would like to think that I have become a better photographer over time, I am confident that I have become better at processing my digital pictures. Part of this is thanks to new and more sophisticated software, and part of this is refined technique and practice.
As opposed to the Old Days of slides, negatives and prints, modern digital files don’t “go bad” just sitting around, and they are (or should be) easy to locate and easy to re-process. One of my New Year’s jobs is to do some file management, insure that my backups are up-to-date and start a new storage “catalog” for the new calendar year. In preparation for this year’s turn-over, I am going back through some old digital photo catalogs and reprocessing some interesting ones.
This is something that I took in 2004, about a month after I bought my first digital SLR; a Canon 10D with a consumer-grade 28-135mm zoom lens. The company that I worked for at the time was French, and we “had” to take business trips to France from time-to-time. Of course, we always took an extra few days off after the meetings to wander around Paris (or wherever).
This is a portion of the Notre Dame cathedral. I got this surrealistic effect by converting the original image to B&W in NIK Silver Efex Pro-2, and then I brought both the B&W version and the original color version into Photoshop as layers and blended them together. Something similar could probably be achieved with a polarizing filter, but I didn’t have one at the time.
Canon 10D; EF28-135mm; ISO-100; 50mm; f10; 1/250-sec; 0ev
4 Courtyard houses Zumikon
Zumikon, Switzerland
Architect: Think Architecture AG, Zürich
Category: Housing, Interior, Exterior
Photographer: Radek Brunecky architectural photography Zürich
© 2013 [ATELIER BRUNECKY]
more photos:
I think this is an accidental, triple or perhaps a 'fourble' exposure. I get a bit confused sometimes when I am using a digital camera, a pinhole and a folder. This was taken with a Kershaw folder. FP4 developed in Ilfosol 3. Scanned via a Canonscan 8400f. Shot in Newcastle on Tyne.
I think this is the first time that I have ever posted a photo of shoes on Flickr. However, when I saw these shoes while photographing a track meet, I couldn't resist. The young man who owned the shoes had put on his track shoes and was getting ready for the race. They just looked like a perfect subject at the time.
I'm going to be shooting a lot of hoops very shortly - not actually playing myself, but photographing it! :)
She thinks to herself, damn that effing pollution...
This was taken at the Bentham forest btw.
And I used this texture as an overlay: www.flickr.com/photos/8078381@N03/4161684951/in/set-72157...
Once upon a time
Along came a saucy little spider
His name was Socrates
His beady little eyes
As empty as the sea
I gave him a spot of tea
Rubbed a bit of strawberry preserves across his toast
Asked him to pop a squat
He told me a story
And this, this is how it goes...
‘In a land far, far away
Lived a beautiful girl, with a beautiful soul
Locks of silk basking in the wind
Milky skin tempting as a christmas buffet
There was a day, long ago
She could have been mine
I weaved her in my web
Told her sweet nothings
Whispering the ways of life
Poems filled with gumdrops
Sizzling sweet to the sensations
Couldn’t have seen a day without her
But maybe I shouldn’t have swept her up
Because before I knew it
The light began to fade
Tears filled her precious, tender eyes
Oh, beautiful girl
Where did you go?
I peaked over the ledge
Her trembling hands clutching her soul
Depths untold...’
His voice folded, darkness engulfing
For a moment I wondered aloud
“Oh spider, what did you do?”
Steal her spirit
Life and mind
“I suppose she may have let you
But didn’t her cries
Along the way
Beseech you in the least?”
The spiders head hung low
Not shame, nor embarrassment
But a grin
A toothy, lifeless grin
Reaching across his terribly, tiny face
He muffled his wispy fangs
Winked at me and turned to tumble away
As he trickled off into the abyss
I shuddered with a wave of terror
The moral of the story
I suppose
‘A spider’s a spider, don’t ever trust them, not ever’
Rough edit and bad proportions, but its just an experiment :)
SB-80DX through umbrella, left on full image, right on the 'mirrored image'
SB-900 as rim light, left on 'mirrored image'
x
The frigid air in Michigan is making it tough right now ... but I sure as heck WANT to think SPRING!
Taken last weekend at the Foellinger-Freimann Botanical Conservatory in Fort Wayne, IN with my Tamron 18-270 VC "all in one" lens.
I think this is he 3rd time I've redone this bulletin board. Once was to white crackle with a black base, then to dark purple both with a medium purple fabric. Now it is a light pink with undertones of white and pale green. The fabric is a sheet. The ribbon is a pale green like the walls and the buttons are hot glued to tacks.
blogged at sewpixie.tinfoildreams.com/blog
today was just lovely. I am so happy because I don't think I have to take my physics final because I did so well on the other tests that she will give me a 90% on the final. :) So basically I have a math final, a fencing final(we get to watch a bunch of crazy fencers scream at each other! it is super fun!), and some not very hard school work left. oh yeah, and some sats. ugh. anyway, yippeeee!!!!! it is summer!!
anyway today me and felicia had a lovely picnic even though most of the time we were adjusting our cameras. ahah so you shoul go and check out her pictures here
happy birthday rahee!!! i hope your day was wonderful!
A poster design announcing a competition targeting social entrepreneurs / SMEs.
The goal is to come up with a program addressing poverty alleviation through an entrepreneurial endeavour.
More info at: www.breakthroughinnovationgrant.com/