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Zibska Fechin For The Salon Event
Zibska- Fechin eye makeup, Headpiece, Shoulder piece
Find them here:
maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Enchanted%20Clarity/50/138...
More stunning creations here:
maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Deep%20Chill/70/78/69
" Let's not make this complicated, I know you
Last night I had the strangest dream that you knew me too
But you need to wake up
I can't have you disappear
Just like my parent's house
I've become a visitor.. "
- OF MONSTERS AND MEN-
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bq1lpEC70Hg
Thank you so much in advance my dear friends for the faves, awards and comments. Forgive me if I cant respond sometimes. For sure and 100% I read all your comments and always so grateful for it. Take care my sweet friends. Hugs to all 💞
Yellowstone, Wyoming, US
Yellowstone National Park is a nearly 3,500-sq.-mile wilderness recreation area atop a volcanic hot spot. Mostly in Wyoming, the park spreads into parts of Montana and Idaho too. Yellowstone features dramatic canyons, alpine rivers, lush forests, hot springs and gushing geysers, including its most famous, Old Faithful. It's also home to hundreds of animal species, including bears, wolves, bison, elk and antelope.
Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 70-200mm /F2.8
Yellowstone, US
© All Rights Reserved
Amazing how in the middle of Winter the bees suddenly appear when there's a bit of sunshine and flowers to feed from.
Halsbandparkiet achter de tuin. Ik zag ze al eens overvliegen maar nu streken er twee neer in de bessenstruik achter mijn tuin. Powershot pakken en proberen maar. Gelukkig zijn ze niet echt schuw. Ik denk dat dit een vrouwtje is want ik zie geen halsband
The Black Tern is a rare visitor for our way inland area. This is either a juvenile or non-breeding adult. They both look so much alike. Far shot taken at 7:23 p.m. with the setting sun at Peace Valley Park, New Britain PA.
This little chap is a daily visitor who appears on the fence outside our kitchen door every morning when he sees us put the light on!
Thanks for the kind comments and faves on my images; they are very much appreciated.
I planted several milkweed bushes a couple of weeks ago to help Monarchs on their migration. To my delight, I've seen several stopping by. This one was shy, and every time I approached, he retreated. He appeared to watch me from a tree, waiting for me to leave him in peace. So I did.....
Over the last week I have come across a good number of redwing on my local walks. When you see one there are almost always a couple of dozen others to be found nearby. This photo was taken in the grounds of Nostell Priory where we must have seen dozens of these birds. Alas they are a little skittish so with a large lens this is as near as I could get to one.
Our next stop is one of Icelande's most impressive sites, just behind the visitor center. It looks spectacular in winter. Stay tuned, winter is coming!
Just for fun: last summer at the Stamford Nature Center, this little goat captivated me for a large portion of time. He was definitely the star of the farmyard; he was super friendly with the visitors, nibbling at the peoples sleeves and licking their hands...and even entertained everyone by running playfully about and headbutting his pen mates.
When he was suddenly tired, he walked over to a food bowl that a few fellow goats were eating out of, squeezed his way past them, settled comfortably into the bowl...the way Goldilocks settles into the Baby Bears bed...and just chilled. The other goats tried to nudge their faces under the silly goats body a few times in search of food, but our friend wouldn't budge. So they just kind of looked around and eventually sauntered off in search of something else to do.
This is an image that gives me a good chuckle anytime I come across it...silly goat :-)
This starling has been a frequent visitor in my garden for the last few days. In fact I think there are two of them although I never see them together. Maybe they have a nest somewhere in the area. I have never had starlings in my garden before. Usually I only see them on the fields or in parks. Most of the starlings in Germany are migratory birds. In Autumn they leave for warmer regions and return in Spring.
These winter visitors have left Singapore in March or early April They fatten themselves up with dragonflies, insects, butterflies etc.before making their journey back home. Safe journey and they will return in Oct/Nov 2023.
A big thank you to all Flickr friends for your visits.
Thanking you in advanced for all your kind feedback & favourites.
Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend.
Keeping Smiling & Happy!
Thank you for your support on EXPLORE!
Thank you
💓💓💓💓💓
Insekten sind bei Blumen stets gern gesehene Gäste.
Insects ensure the existence in the plant world. Just because they are not petting animals, we shouldn't neglect them.
Eurasian Jay (Garrulus glandarius)
My best photos are here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/ticino-best-photos-of-southern-...
More TICINO/TESSIN Wildlife Photos (all taken in my garden in Monteggio/Ti, Switzerland): it.lacerta-bilineata.com/ramarro-occidentale-lacerta-bili...
If you're interested, you'll find a more detailed closeup here (it's the 8th photo from the top): www.lacerta-bilineata.com/western-green-lizard-lacerta-bi...
My latest ANIMAL VIDEO (it's very brief but pretty unusual: a tiny wall lizard attacks two young great tits): www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQqkSsyrm7E
THE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTO: MY LONG AND ARDUOUS JOURNEY TO BIRD PHOTOGRAPHY
If you've set yourself the challenge of exclusively shooting the wildlife in your own back yard, you might find - as I did - that bird photography is really, really hard.
It's not that reptiles are easy to photograph either, mind - but at least the ones in my garden stay (for the most part) on the ground, and one can learn how to carefully approach them with a camera. They're also clearly egoists, which from a photographer's point of view is is a great character trait: if a lizard detects a human in its vicinity, it's only interested in saving its own skin, and it won't alarm its buddies.
But birds... oh man. Over the years, my feathered friends and I have developed a lovely routine that now defines our peaceful co-existence. As soon as I as much as open a window (let alone the door), I'm instantly greeted by an eruption of panicky fluttering and hysterical shouts from my garden: "SAVE YOUR WOMEN AND CHILDREN AND FLY FOR YOUR LIVES: THE HAIRLESS, PINK MONSTER IS COMING!!! (Yes, I speak bird, and I know that this is exactly what they are shouting 😉).
Needless to say, with the exception of the redstart I already showed here, all my efforts to get the kind of detailed shots I usually strive for with my nature photography ended in complete failure and utter disillusionment. I was ready to give up on stalking the winged misanthropes in my garden altogether, but then winter came - and changed everything.
One day this past January I observed my neighbor Signora P - a kind, elderly Italian lady - putting something on the low garden wall in front of my house. At first I thought she was just putting some treat there for her cat Romeo; the young tom patrols that wall constantly (it's his favorite spot in the garden, and during the warmer months he usually lurks in the thick foliage next to it to prey on lizards).
But once I detected a lot of movement on that wall through my window, I understood she had put a little pile of bread crumbs there; she was feeding the birds who soon arrived in flocks. This was certainly well-intended on my neighbor's part, but her noble action came with a catch, and I'm afraid quite literally.
When I took a stroll through my garden the next day I discovered a suspicious amount of feathers on the ground next to the wall. Romeo had apparently switched from his low-calorie summer diet (lizard) to more energy-rich meals consisting of "fowl" (it was winter after all, so from a nutritionist's point of view this made sense).
I would find fresh traces of Romeo's victims (mostly feathers, but also the odd wing) in my garden over the following days; so my first intuition that my neighbor was feeding her cat hadn't been that far off after all, as Romeo was now clearly being "served" fresh birds on a daily basis. And although the hungry visitors seemed to be aware of the danger and became slightly more prudent, they just couldn't resist the tasty snacks Signora P put on that wall - and neither could Romeo.
It was obvious that I had to act, but talking to my neighbor - who is as stubborn as she is kind - would have been futile, I knew that much. I pondered the matter long and hard - until a light bulb went off in my head. The idea was genius. If successful, what I had in mind would not only increase the birds' chances of surviving Romeo's appetite, but also greatly benefit my own photographic endeavors.
I started to enact my master plan the very next day by buying a giant bag of bird feed (consisting mainly of sunflower seeds) from the store. Then I dragged a huge piece of a tree trunk (approx. 120 cm in height) that we normally chop firewood on in the shed out into the garden and emptied almost half of the bag's content on top of it. Signora P's buffet for birds (and cats) was about to get some serious competition 😊.
My reasoning was as follows: not only would the birds be lured away from the fatally low garden wall to a place where they were safe from the cat - there was nothing around that tree trunk that provided cover for a predator, and the birds had a nice 360° view around it at all times - but I was also able to photograph them while hiding in the shed.
However, in order for my plan to work there was one little extra measure I had to take, and it was one that risked lowering my own life expectancy considerably once the owner of the property - my mom - discovered it. You see, our shed is completely windowless, so if I wanted to use it as a blind, I had no choice but to cut a hole into one of its wooden walls... which I promptly did (I figured all's fair in love - and photography 😉).
Granted, I have absolutely zero carpentering skills, and it showed. That hole was an ugly mess: the shed's wall seemed to have had an encounter with Jack Nicholson's ax-wielding lunatic character from the film 'The Shining'. Needless to say, I was incredibly proud of my work (I mean, come on: there now was a hole where before there wasn't a hole, and it was big enough for the lens of my camera to peek through, so it was mission accomplished as far as I was concerned).
Now all I had to do was wait for the birds to discover the tree trunk. In the meantime I started to mentally prepare myself for the inevitable confrontation with my mom and go through possible explanations for that splintering hole in the wall (it was either gonna be a rabid woodpecker attack or an emergency rescue mission with a feeding tube for a little kid that had accidentally locked himself inside the shed - both seemed valid options, though I slightly preferred the locked-in kid due to the involved drama and heroism 😉).
A whole day went by, and not a single bird visited the sunflower seeds. I had expected that it might take a few hours until the first of the ever curious great tits or blue tits would show up, but given how tiny my garden is, an entire day seemed excessive. Then another day came and went: the birds kept flocking to the bread crumbs on the wall, and my tree trunk kept collecting dust. To add injury to insult, a few fresh feathers on the ground were proof that Romeo was still feasting.
It was incredibly frustrating: I provided my winged guests with a much better view - plus a higher chance of surviving the cuisine - than Signora P's place; I risked (almost) certain death at the hands of my own mother (OK, the act of vandalism on the shed I had committed for my own benefit, but still), yet the birds kept ignoring me.
Then, after three days, just before sunset, I spotted a single blue tit on the tree trunk picking away at the sunflower seeds.
When I got up the next morning I immediately realized that the loud noise that accompanies each and every tit activity had shifted from the wall to the shed. At last the dam had broken: there was a flurry of movement around the tree trunk, and I counted at least 5 different species of birds feasting on the sunflower seeds.
From day 4 onward my plan worked beautifully: the birds now indeed mostly ignored Romeo's "snack wall" and kept to the tree trunk. And yes, I was able to play peeping tom from behind the shed's wall and photograph them!! 😊
Thus, dear readers, I finally managed to produce some acceptable bird photos, and I had even saved my feathered friends from a deadly foe in the process. All through winter and spring I took advantage of my new bird hide, and in late May I started mixing some cherries with the sunflower seeds. The idea was to attract a Eurasian jay (Garrulus glandarius), and as you can see, it worked!
It took me almost three weeks and more than a few tricks to capture that clever fella, but given how long I've been rambling here already, that's a story for another day. As for my mom, she still doesn't know about the hole in the wall, so please don't snitch! 😉.
I hope you like the photo and wish you all a wonderful weekend! Many greetings from Switzerland, and as always: let me know what you think in the comments 🙏 😊 ❤!
P.S. if anyone has their own funny tale about the obstacles we photographers are prepared to overcome for a desired photo, please write it in the comments: I love such stories 😊