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On a small island, in a small lake, there is this nearly dead tree, and on this tree, there are dozens of Cormorant nests. Additionally, there are at least three Great Blue Heron nests (not shown in the picture). All of those birds eat fish. It's hard to imagine that the small lakes in a Denver, Colorado suburb can support so many large birds, but these nests have been in use every year that I have visited in the last eight years.
This section of Iguazu Falls is known as Devil's Throat. It is most easily seen/accessible from the Argentine side of the falls via a 1200-yard footbridge after getting off of the Jungle Train at Devil's Throat Station. I took this photo from the balcony at the end of the footbridge. The rushing water of the falls is so loud on the balcony that you almost can't hear anything else, and I got very wet from the misty overspray created by the falls. On the footbridge while walking to and from the falls we saw lots of animals and birds including Coatis and Plush Crested Jays.
Quote of the Day:
"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing." (Helen Keller)
The sea is a melting pot of dreams that absorbs and digests the dreams of the whole world
H θάλασσα είναι ένα χωνευτήρι ονείρων που απορροφά και χωνεύει τα όνειρα όλου του κόσμου
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This is another summer shot which I didn't upload because it's not perfect. More specifically, I think that the Rudbeckia in focus is not enough separated from the other ones which gives the whole image a chaotic feeling. Hence, I entitled it "Bokaos" which stands for bokeh and chaos ;-) I hope you like it!
“Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.”
~Saint Francis de Sales
A brief description of this photo:
A while ago, someone who shall remain nameless, had put out a photo with a catchy description, inviting participation. That said, I took part in said event only to suffer multiple injuries, the only one of which that I made known was the damage done to my hand by their apparatus. With that said, I was kindly rebuked in my mentioning of my injured hand. Then...in another encounter with said individual, I was told to send them my medical bill...well, since they offered. I took them up on it and on my way to mailing my bill to them, since it was tax season and they could afford my medical BILLS...ahem. I went to my mailbox to submit my envelope and tripped over another ill kept SL sidewalk, thus causing me to lose my balance and my crutch and in doing so, my envelope was taken away by a strong wind... a suspicious wind, mind you but nonetheless..my envelope was lost as well as my medical BILLS, that they were going to pay. The only proof of this, is one of the many CCTV that SL has in our cities.
If the person who is responsible for my broken hand sees this, my bill is forthcoming either by SL Postal Carrier or a strong Windlight wind!!!!
Now I'm off to pop some Oxy, as all this typing aggravated my hands, both good and broken!!!!
PS If anything is misspelled or is seen as an incomplete thought... I was in extreme pain typing this and reliving the whole experience.
Our legs are not short Terry. The boss needs to buy a proper lawn mower.
Yeah Trev let's leave our mark on his old mower till he gets the message.
A poem "A Dog is a Dog" by T.S. Eliot begins:
"Now dogs pretend they like to fight;
They often bark, more seldom bite;
But yet a Dog is, on the whole,
What you would call a simple soul."
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 😊
With bitter temperatures overnight the whole weekend, the nightly snowfalls that came left Northern Michigan covered with a powdery dusted landscape. Coming south just north of Temple, the GLC CSTN leaves a dusty wake as they cruise along with a decent train for Clare.
Coyote Lake, Gilroy CA
Tom spotted this Double-crested Cormorant with a very large fish. We thought that it might need to bash the fish around a bit, to make it more edible. Nope. It just grabbed the head, flung it upright, and swallowed the whole thing down. Fast. I just do not even understand how that works!
Whole lot of chattering gong on this morning from these angry sounding birds.
Also for #34 Disgruntled: 119 pictures in 2019.
Single exposure Light Art Photography
Laowa 12/2,8 @f11 & f5,6
Emisar D18 & AOAM RGB Critter
Find the whole story on HIVE: Even more Mirrors
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Well, you might as well hear the whole story on this guy. I was yanking up spent poppy plants in my yard and lo and behold a perfect green Monarch pupa dropped to the ground. I was horrified. There was some hope though - a tiny threadlike piece was still attached to the pupa top. My old mind started working. I can tie it back onto a plant of my choice. With what? Kitchen twine was the only thing that came to my panicked mind. So first I tied it to the pupa thread, and then onto a milkweed stem. It looked really beautiful and healthy. In fact, by the next day the transformation started as the color pigments inside began to show. I knew it would eclose the next morning and I began to visualize how I would photograph the tiny spectacle. I checked the next day early, inspected for a chink in the pupa, and decided I had time for breakfast and filling the bird feeder. Duties done, I gathered my camera gear, and expected I would settle onto a low stool and watch the wondrous show. Here's the "worst of times" part 2. It was already out. I missed probably by 10 minutes since the wings were already straightened out. He (yup, another boy) was hot to trot too - gone within another hour or so. To quote another piece of literature: "All's well that ends well."
I'm on a whole 'nother level, these bitches is out of they league
These bitches ain't battin' like me
You bitches ain't badder than me
You bitches don't count and these bitches can't count
I am not the one, two, or the three
You bitches look up to me
You said you look up to her, but really you look up to me