View allAll Photos Tagged average
Our average temperature for the whole month of January in this part of Northeast Ohio has been 21.6° (–5.5°C). Winter's not been here for a month yet, and it can already be called the coldest in about the last 5 years. These two northern cardinals don't seem to mind the frigid conditions. Male in foreground and female in back.
Ulaanbaatar, just your average 30 foot long can of coke meandering down the street. Well, not really. From my hotel window view, the perspective down on the main street shows the outside of the under-street tunnel entrance that was painted as a coca cola can. Safety of pedestrians crossing the street is greatly improved when using the crossover/under tunnel. Well lighted and clean, a few vendors also peddle wares down below!
To read more about my recent trip to Mongolia in 2019, follow the link to:
The altiplano is located at an average altitude of 3600 m and covers an area of about 170,000 km². In the north of the Altiplano lies Lake Titicaca, the largest high mountain lake in the world.
The average female Praying Mantis lays three egg masses with an average of 50 eggs per mass. The mass is a sticky fluid that dries soon after the eggs are laid and is similar to styrofoam as it insulates her eggs through the cold winter, then hatch in mid spring when temperatures are ideal.
Newfoundland
Cape St Mary's is home to one of the largest sites in North America for nesting gannets, kittiwakes, murres and other seabirds. It is surrounded by sub-arctic tundra. It is also famous for being foggy averaging more than 200 dyas of fog per year.
Our daily average temperature has been dropping since July and hit rock-bottom a few days ago. Today the tide turned and we inched up a degree if this were a "normal" year. To celebrate, here's a look back at those balmy summer days. The orange sulphur is sometimes called the alfalfa butterfly because its caterpillars like to eat alfalfa leaves. However, the caterpillars also eat the leaves from a variety of other legume plants. Females have light-colored spots that break up the solid black bands that form a border on their dorsal wing surface, visible in this backlit view. Male orange sulphurs would be all black along that wing border.
Fallow deer are a medium to large sized deer. Fully grown males (bucks) stand at around 0.84 to 0.94m tall at the shoulder and weigh between 46 to 93kg.
Fully grown females (does) are 0.73 to 0.91m at the shoulder and weigh between 35 to 56kg. By comparison, an average adult man in Britain is 1.77m high and weighs 79kg.
Fallow deer have four main variations of coat:
Common – tan/fawn, with white spotting on flanks and white rump patch outlined with black horseshoe shaped border. Coat fades to a general grey colour during the winter
Menil – paler colouration with white spots year-round and a caramel horseshoe shape on rump
Melanistic – black, almost entirely black or chocolate coloured
White – white to pale sandy-coloured turning increasingly white with age (this is a true colour and not albino).
Fallow deer often have a distinctive black inverted horseshoe shape on their rumps, and a black stripe on their tails which are the longest of all British deer.
The Fallow deer is the only species in Britain with palmate antlers. These become full-sized after the deer are three/four years old and can reach up to 0.7m in length. Facially, their head is more elongated than some species with large angular ears.
Does and their young give short barks when alarmed. Bucks groan loudly during the breeding season.
Fallow deer leave large hoof prints (slots), about 6cm long in soft ground. Their feet are more elongated than Roe deer and are heavier, creating deeper prints
Posting a series of 2018 photos taken during a flickr meetup with Rod.
I can't remember what this is about. Let me ask Rod again.
Getwrapped.ca
391 Marwood Drive, Unit 2
Oshawa
(Platycercus caledonicus)
Adventure bay - Bruny Island -Tasmania
Austrália
I had high expectations for opportunities to photograph this species, endemic to Tasmania. I’d even seen photos on Google Maps taken with a phone at a campsite in Port Arthur. We went there, but it turned out to be almost a wasted trip.
This photo was taken in the tiny garden of our accommodation and was the best I could manage. We saw them a few more times, but they were always far away, perched behind branches and leaves, or out in the open against a dull sky.
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All my photos are now organized into sets by the country where they were taken, by taxonomic order, by family, by species (often with just one photo for the rarer ones), and by the date they were taken.
So, you may find:
- All the photos for this trip Austrália (2024) (309)
- All the photos for this order PSITTACIFORMES (110)
- All the photos for this family Psittaculidae (Psitaculídeos) (52)
- All the photos for this species Platycercus caledonicus (1)
- All the photos taken this day 2024/11/21 (23)
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A view of the harbour of the town of Portofino (Provincia di Genova / Province of Genoa, Liguria, northwestern Italy), during a walk on a mid-April day in 1989.
This Ligurian fishing port is located towards the tip of the Portofino Peninsula; it is well known as a resort, a haven of the rich and famous, where yachts are berthed along with fishing boats. The multi-coloured buildings are characteristic of the Ligurian coast.
While we walked to Portofino and enjoyed seeing it in its beautiful setting, we appreciated staying in the town of Santa Margherita Ligure at the base of the peninsula, where we encountered more "average" Italians going about their business or enjoying a stroll in the fresh sea air.
(From the "archive" -- 1989. Please forgive the technical quality limitations of this image, which was scanned from an old slide. I hope that you will still be able to gain some sense of how lovely this spot was.)
[Portofino harbor buildings 1989 apr 21 dig 47-038; 47-038]
An average adult American alligator's length is 4 m (13 ft). Adult alligators are black or dark olive-brown with white undersides, while juveniles have strongly contrasting white or yellow marks which fade with age.
This one about 1 m long including the tail.
The photo was taken in a city park, not in a zoo.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_alligator
Central Park, Ormond Beach
03-November-2023
It happens on average every 15 years, now around 20, that the south-westerly wind blows strong and prolonged into the Gulf of Trieste coming from northern Romagna.
The gulf is very windy, but there are also long periods of calm, but no wind, even the strongest one, Bora, can create high waves, given that within this stretch of sea the maximum distances between the coasts are around 30km.
The only exception is provided by the wind that comes from the south-west in the wind rose and enters the only opening towards the rest of the Adriatic between the Grado peninsula (FVG, Italia) and tip/rt Savudrija (Istra, Hrvatska).
Through this passage the wind fishes on approximately 250km of sea surface and manages to generate waves of up to 3/4m (sea force 4/5 on the Douglas scale) which are decidedly important values for the area.
This is what happened on Friday 3 November 2023, due to a strong Atlantic front generated by the extratropical storm called "Ciaran" to which a strong high tide was added, flooding the adjacent State Road 14 (viale Miramare) in the Barcola section and where wood, branches, porphyry cubes, concrete blocks dragged for meters and metres, algae, sea stones'n'gravel and seafood were found.
The road surface is approximately 6m above the sea level.
The photos were taken in reportage style, so point and shoot without paying too much attention to the composition and limiting the image quality to have a quick shot with very short times.
The purpose is not that of likes, obviously, but to document an event which for those who know these little waves areas was very significant.
The precedents of the last 70 years are very few (1957, 1969, 1984 and 2003) and each time the seafront and the popular bathing establishments have been strengthened so, from the significant damage that occurred, it can be argued that it could have been the strongest storm ever or, at least, among the strongest for this area.
One source says the Nyenchen Tanglha Mountains range is about 1,000 km (620 mi) in length. Its highest point is 7,090 m (23,260 ft) located 100 km (62 mi) to the northwest of Lhasa. The range is parallel to the Himalayas in the Transhimalayas, and north of the Brahmaputra River. [3] Another source says the Nyenchen Tanglha Mountains extend 460 miles (740 km) from Nyêmo County in the west to Ranwu County (the southwestern part of Baxoi County) in the east.
Its highest peak is Mount Nyenchen Tanglha (Nyainqêntanglha Feng) at 7,162 metres (23,497 ft).[4]
The southern side of the Nyenchen Tanglha Mountains is precipitous, and falls by around 2,000 metres (6,600 ft), while the northern side is fairly level and descends about 1,000 metres (3,300 ft). Most of the mountains are below 6,500 metres (21,300 ft).[5] They contain 7080 glaciers covering an area of 10,700 square kilometres (4,100 sq mi).[4]
The Nyenchen Tanglha Mountains have an average latitude of 30°30'N and a longitude between 90°E and 97°E. Together with the Gangdise Shan located further west, it forms the Transhimalaya [a] which runs parallel to the Himalayas north of the Yarlung Tsangpo River.
The Drukla Chu river rises in the Nyenchen Tanglha Mountains, where it is called the Song Chu river, and joins the Gyamda Chu river. The combined rivers run about 100 kilometres (62 mi) southeast to the Yarlung Tsangpo river.
average number of birthdays celebrated everyday, worldwide. september 9th is the date with the most birthdays. mine is off by one day. thank you, new years eve. happy birthday, somebody.
The Blue Lagoon was spared in the latest volcanic eruption on the Reykjanes peninsula, but it was close. A high earthen wall has risen around Blue Lagoon to hold back the lava. To reach Blue Lagoon, a road has been built over the fresh pitch-black lava. It all looks rather eerie.
The Blue Lagoon is a geothermal spa in southwestern Iceland. The spa is located in a lava field 5 km (3.1 mi) from Grindavík and in front of Mount Þorbjörn on the Reykjanes Peninsula, in a location favourable for geothermal power, and is supplied by water used in the nearby Svartsengi geothermal power station. The Blue Lagoon is approximately 20 km (12 mi) from Keflavík International Airport, and is one of the most visited tourist attractions in Iceland.
The water's milky blue hue is due to its high silica content. The silica forms soft white mud on the bottom of the lake which bathers rub on themselves. The water is also rich in salts and algae.
The water temperature in the bathing and swimming area of the lagoon averages 37–39 °C (99–102 °F).
Oconaluftee River
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
North Carolina
This is the Oconaluftee River that flows next to HWY 441 on the North Carolina side of the park. This is just a short distance past the Oconaluftee Visitor Center if you enter the park from Cherokee, NC.
The high country of the park receives 85" of annual rainfall, on an average. This feeds into over 2,100 miles of streams and rivers in the park. The moisture in the park provides a natural habitat for over 1,600 flowering plants, 100 native tree species, and over 100 native shrub species.
(Bubo ascalaphus)
Imider
Marrocos
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All my photos are now organized into sets by the country where they were taken, by taxonomic order, by family, by species (often with just one photo for the rarer ones), and by the date they were taken.
So, you may find:
- All the photos for this trip Marrocos (2024) (89)
- All the photos for this order STRIGIFORMES (66)
- All the photos for this family Strigidae (Estrigídeos) (61)
- All the photos for this species Bubo ascalaphus (3)
- All the photos taken this day 2024/05/06 (16)
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How about some more WATCO? This time in the flat lands of Central Illinois. I came down here last year hoping for one of their new GP59s or WSOR geeps leading. Close, but no cigar. That said, I wasn't going to waste good light. So I gave chase to Tuscola and went looking for other things. All told this was a pretty average day down here last year.
Average of 9 consecutive shots plus 2 for the ship. Nikon D800 full spectrum Nikkor AIS ED IF 300mm (x2 teleconverter, equiv. 600mm), UV/IR cut plus Baader solar film
The greylag goose is a species of large goose in the waterfowl family Anatidae and the type species of the genus Anser. It has mottled and barred grey and white plumage and an orange beak and pink legs. A large bird, it measures between 74 and 91 centimetres in length, with an average weight of 3.3 kilograms.
The bottlenose dolphin weighs an average of 300 kg (660 lb), but can range from 150 and 650 kg (330 and 1,430 lb). It can reach a length of just over 4 m (13 ft). Its color varies considerably, is usually dark gray on the back and lighter gray on the flanks, but it can be bluish-grey, brownish-grey, or even nearly black, and is often darker on the back from the rostrum to behind the dorsal fin. This is called countershading and is a form of camouflage. Older dolphins sometimes have a few spots.
Bottlenose dolphins can live for more than 40 years. Females typically live 5–10 years longer than males, with some females exceeding 60 years. This extreme age is rare and less than 2% of all Bottlenose dolphins will live longer than 60 years. Bottlenose dolphins can jump to a height of 6 metres (20 feet) in the air.
This image was taken on a Dolphin and Whale Watching boat called "Flipper" from the port of Tazacorte on La Palma, in the Canary Islands
The Moon.........Hand held photo.
Here's a thought. The Moon has about the same size diameter as Australia or USA at our widest point coast to coast.
(Wikipedia)
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It orbits at an average distance of 384,400 km (238,900 mi), about 30 times the diameter of Earth. Tidal forces between Earth and the Moon have synchronized the Moon's orbital period (lunar month) with its rotation period (lunar day) at 29.5 Earth days, causing the same side of the Moon to always face Earth. The Moon's gravitational pull—and, to a lesser extent, the Sun's—are the main drivers of Earth's tides.
In geophysical terms, the Moon is a planetary-mass object or satellite planet. Its mass is 1.2% that of the Earth, and its diameter is 3,474 km (2,159 mi), roughly one-quarter of Earth's (about as wide as the United States from coast to coast). Within the Solar System, it is the largest and most massive satellite in relation to its parent planet, the fifth largest and most massive moon overall, and larger and more massive than all known dwarf planets. Its surface gravity is about one sixth of Earth's, about half of that of Mars, and the second highest among all Solar System moons, after Jupiter's moon Io. The body of the Moon is differentiated and terrestrial, with no significant hydrosphere, atmosphere, or magnetic field. It formed 4.51 billion years ago, not long after Earth's formation, out of the debris from a giant impact between Earth and a hypothesized Mars-sized body called Theia.
The lunar surface is covered in lunar dust and marked by mountains, impact craters, their ejecta, ray-like streaks, rilles and, mostly on the near side of the Moon, by dark maria ("seas"), which are plains of cooled lava. These maria were formed when molten lava flowed into ancient impact basins. The Moon is, except when passing through Earth's shadow during a lunar eclipse, always illuminated by the Sun, but from Earth the visible illumination shifts during its orbit, producing the lunar phases. The Moon is the brightest celestial object in Earth's night sky. This is mainly due to its large angular diameter, while the reflectance of the lunar surface is comparable to that of asphalt. The apparent size is nearly the same as that of the Sun, allowing it to cover the Sun completely during a total solar eclipse. From Earth about 59% of the lunar surface is visible over time due to cyclical shifts in perspective (libration), making parts of the far side of the Moon visible.
The Moon has been an important source of inspiration and knowledge for humans, having been crucial to cosmography, mythology, religion, art, time keeping, natural science, and spaceflight. The first human-made objects to fly to an extraterrestrial body were sent to the Moon, starting in 1959 with the flyby of the Soviet Union's Luna 1 and the intentional impact of Luna 2. In 1966, the first soft landing (by Luna 9) and orbital insertion (by Luna 10) followed. On July 20, 1969, humans for the first time stepped on an extraterrestrial body, landing on the Moon at Mare Tranquillitatis with the lander Eagle of the United States' Apollo 11 mission. Five more crews were sent between then and 1972, each with two men landing on the surface. The longest stay was 75 hours by the Apollo 17 crew. Since then, exploration of the Moon has continued robotically, and crewed missions are being planned to return beginning in the late 2020s.
Trumpeter Swans are impressively large—males average over 26 pounds, making them North America’s heaviest flying bird. To get that much mass aloft the swans need at least a 100 meter-long “runway” of open water: running hard across the surface, they almost sound like galloping horses as they generate speed for take off.
Starting in the 1600s, market hunters and feather collectors had decimated Trumpeter Swans populations by the late 1800s. Swan feathers adorned fashionable hats, women used swan skins as powder puffs, and the birds’ long flight feathers were coveted for writing quills. Aggressive conservation helped the species recover by the early 2000s.
from allaboutbirds.org
Colder than average temperatures this March has meant that the frogspawn has been slow to develop. Now that a few pioneering individuals are out of the jelly, albeit still sporting their embryonic external gills, the weather has turned very icy indeed with a freezing Arctic wind dominating the scene. Good luck, little brave ones, you'll need it !
The Kiang is the largest of the wild asses, with an average shoulder height of 13.3 hands (55 inches, 140 cm). It has a large head, with a blunt muzzle and a convex nose. The mane is upright and relatively short. The coat is a rich chestnut colour, darker brown in winter and a sleek reddish brown in late summer, molting its woolly fur. The summer coat is 1.5 centimeters long and the winter coat is double the length. The legs, undersides and ventral part of the nape, end of the muzzle, and the inside of the pinnae are all white. A broad, dark chocolate-coloured dorsal stripe extends from the mane to the end of the tail, which ends in a tuft of blackish brown hairs. Kiang have very slight sexual dimorphism.
The only real predator other than humans is the wolf. Kiangs defend themselves by forming a circle and, with heads down kick out violently. As a result wolves usually attack single animals who have strayed from the group.
Not your average 10-pin
Hi all,
I’m adding my soapbox to this post.
Currently I am avoiding groups with big gaudy awards — IMHO, they could be adequately replaced by just the name of the group, maybe in bold and a colour. Those big graphics take up a lot of space in the comments, are distracting, and most likely chew up too much bandwidth. (How about a movement to rid Flickr of them ?)
Also, I am not posting to groups where you have to award x number of other posts for every one of yours. This just creates situations where one is making awards just to fill a quota. I rather award images that I find appealing and that I admire.
Would love to hear comments of others.
PLEASE: Do not post any comment graphics.
This bridge is located in the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve near Fayetteville, W.V. The 3030 feet long bridge stands 876 feet above the river. In 1977 when completed, it was the tallest regular car carrying bridge in the world. The bridge averages over 16,000 vehicles per day.
To an engineer, the material somewhat reveals itself by its rusty color. The bridge is made of Cor-Ten steel which was developed by United States Steel Corporation. The chemical make-up oxidizes as it ages, resulting in a layer of naturally protective material which also does not require painting. The steel was made by SSAB (Svenskt Stal AB; Swedish Steel Corporation), under license from the USS.
Peaking out. We're still not finished with winter here though. There is much prediction of when the last frost will appear. The earliest last frost dates range from Feb 5 to 16. The last frost dates range from Apr 23 to 25. The average last frost date for this area is around March 30. Some predict it as March 23. Much confidence and much inaccuracy.
The American pika is the smallest member of the rabbit family, landing somewhere between a hamster and a Guinea pig in appearance and size. Unlike most rabbits and hares, their large ears are rounded, bringing to mind nothing so much as Mickey Mouse. Their obligate habitat is high mountain boulder fields at or above tree-line. This makes the region around the 10,947 foot summit of the Beartooth Highway (US 212) the ideal place to look for them. In one particular spot they enjoy the shelter and forage found among sparkly, colorful granite rocks. They eat grasses and other plants and also harvest them to tuck in their dens deep within the rocks to eat, hay-like, during the long, high alpine winters rather than hibernating like so many other animals do to survive the lean months.
When the photographer arrives and sets up, they retreat to crevasses among the boulders, then gradually venture into the open again. Once they conclude the photographer is no threat, they hop around among the rocks, posing momentarily between mouths-full of forage, sometimes coming so close the long telephoto can’t handle it. Their cuteness factor is very high, especially when they make their little squeaky-toy calls.
However, the most important thing to know about pikas is that they are climate change indicator species. As the landscape warms, they need to move to ever-higher, cooler elevations, and if the plants they live on don’t also move to higher ground, they cannot survive. While for the moment they seem to be thriving in the Wyoming-Montana highlands, in some parts of the U.S. they have already disappeared due to rising average temperatures.
Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, Custer-Gallatin National Forest
For a subdivision that offers quite the views as a photographer, the Oregon Trunk sub in Central Oregon can also test the patience of photographers as train traffic averages less than 5 in a 24 hour period. With the lack of train traffic, the remoteness of this route between Wishram, Washington and Chemult, Oregon also gives negative affects to photographers as it's difficult to access most points because of private and tribal land along the 200+ mile route. If you're lucky to find one in the day time it sure can be a rewarding show to watch as they climb out of the Columbia River Gorge in Wishram, Washington to Chemult, Oregon which is the highest point of the line at 4765ft above sea level. Here a Pasco to Fresno, California manifest crosses the Crooked River just north of Redmond, Oregon enroute to Bend, Oregon for a crew change.
Granada is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence of four rivers, the Darro, the Genil, the Monachil and the Beiro. Ascribed to the Vega de Granada comarca, the city sits at an average elevation of 738 m (2,421 ft) above sea level, yet is only one hour by car from the Mediterranean coast, the Costa Tropical. With a population of 233,532 as of 2024, it is the 20th-largest city in Spain.
Nearby is the Sierra Nevada Ski Station, where the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 1996 were held. Its nearest airport is Federico García Lorca Granada-Jaén Airport.
The area was settled since ancient times by Iberians, Romans, and Visigoths. The current settlement became a major city of Al-Andalus in the 11th century during the Zirid Taifa of Granada. In the 13th century it became the capital of the Emirate of Granada under Nasrid rule, the last Muslim-ruled state in the Iberian Peninsula. Granada was conquered in 1492 by the Catholic Monarchs and progressively transformed into a Christian city over the course of the 16th century.
The Alhambra, a medieval Nasrid citadel and palace, is located in Granada. It is one of the most famous monuments of Islamic architecture and one of the most visited tourist sites in Spain. Islamic-period influence and Moorish architecture are also preserved in the Albaicín neighborhood and other medieval monuments in the city. The 16th century also saw a flourishing of Mudéjar architecture and Renaissance architecture, followed later by Baroque and Churrigueresque styles. The University of Granada has an estimated 47,000 undergraduate students spread over five different campuses in the city. The pomegranate (Spanish: granada) is the heraldic device of Granada.
They are 150 metres (490 ft) wide and 23 metres (75 ft) high. In the winter months, the average water flow is 250 m3/s (8,800 cu ft/s), while in the summer, the average water flow is 600 m3/s (21,000 cu ft/s). The highest flow ever measured was more than 1,250 cubic metres per second (44,000 cu ft/s) in 1999, and the lowest, 95 cubic metres per second (3,400 cu ft/s) in 1921.
The falls cannot be climbed by fish, except by eels that are able to worm their way up over the rocks.
The Rhine Falls were formed in the last ice age, approximately 14,000 to 17,000 years ago,
by erosion-resistant rocks narrowing the riverbed.
The first glacial advances created today's landforms approximately 500,000 years ago.
Up to the end of the Wolstonian Stage approximately 132,000 years ago, the Rhine flowed westwards
from Schaffhausen past Klettgau. This earlier riverbed later filled up with gravel.
About 132,000 years ago the course of the river changed southwards at Schaffhausen and formed a new channel,
which also filled up with gravel. Part of the Rhine today includes this ancient riverbed.
Text from:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhine_Falls
More:
Front View
1911 Baker Electric Special Extension Coupe, Model V
In the first decades of the 20th century, electric vehicles seemed poised for primacy. Early internal-combustion engines were rudimentary, dangerous, and difficult to operate, requiring all sorts of pump priming and starter torqueing. Those tasks were uncouth for the wealthy gentlemen who were the automobile’s first customers and downright risky for the era’s women, clothed in voluminous, billowing Edwardian dresses and patriarchal notions of competence. Electric cars, on the other hand, were extremely simple to use. So long as the heavy batteries were maintained and charged, all one had to do was click the on switch, twist the go lever, and roll.
Having founded the American Ball Bearing Company in 1895, Midwestern engineer Walter C. Baker understood the basics of carriage production. This background gave him faith that he could make the leap into car building. Teaming up with his father-in-law and brother-in-law, he started the Baker Motor Vehicle Company in Cleveland in 1899. Seeing the aforementioned advantages inherent in electric vehicles, Baker decided to place his faith in this powertrain.
“Number one, it’s comfortable, and it’s not terribly difficult to drive,” said Stew Somerville, a volunteer mechanic at the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome museum in upstate New York, which holds a 1911 Baker in its eclectic collection. “But part of the attraction of the electric automobile was the fact that it did not emit gasoline fumes, you didn’t have to crank-start the engine, there was no big wheel to wrestle with. It was a very smooth-handling automobile. You didn’t even have a loud, offensive horn. There’s a dainty little bell to warn of its coming.” Period ads were frequently, although not exclusively, pitched directly at women.
Baker’s first car to market was a two-seater, the Imperial Runabout. Priced at a competitive $850, it was first shown in New York at the city’s (and nation’s) first auto show. It attracted a number of notable buyers, including Thomas Edison, who purchased one as his very first car. (Edison designed the long-lived nickel-iron batteries used in some Baker vehicles.) By 1906, Baker was, briefly, the world’s top producer of electric vehicles.
But like many of his cohort in the emergent automotive industry, Baker wasn’t just in it for the business. He was in it for the speed. As his company was enjoying success in the consumer market, he was pursuing his dream by developing a series of advanced, record-setting racing cars. His first, the Torpedo, was built in 1902, at great personal expense to Baker. With its 11 batteries, 14-hp mid-mounted motor, outrageously low-slung 48-inch height, streamlined and lightweight white-pine and oilcloth body, and bizarre webbed canvas seat restraints, it seemed poised to set a world land speed record.
Sadly, in that year’s Automobile Club of America speed trials on Staten Island, the car was involved in a disastrous crash. After crossing the 1-kilometer (0.6 mile) mark in just over 30 seconds, Baker and his co-driver lost control and crashed into a group of spectators. One person died at the scene, and another died later from injuries. The drivers were both arrested and charged with manslaughter but were freed when it was determined that the crowd had pushed past protective barriers and onto the course. (Baker’s innovative safety harness likely protected the car’s occupants from serious injury.)
Further attempts with two smaller, single-seater race cars he named Torpedo Kid were also employed in pursuit of the land speed record but were subsequently abandoned following another, nonlethal spectator crash in 1903. Baker has often been noted as the first person to cross the 100-mph barrier, although his records weren’t official due to these wrecks.
Given this peril, Baker decided to forgo his quest for top speed. As gasoline-powered vehicles increased in popularity and gained infrastructural support, he shifted his attention instead to diminishing the electric car’s liabilities, particularly their limited range. He worked diligently on new battery designs, shaft drives, and other componentry. In 1910, Baker’s new chief engineer, Emil Gruenfeldt, set a record for distance driven on a single charge, taking a Baker Victoria for a 201-mile trip at an average speed of 12 mph. Not exactly Ludicrous speed, but an impressive feat nonetheless.
Baker’s successes gave the company prominence among the elite, and the company capitalized on this publicly. In advertisements around 1909, the brand boldly boasted about the King of Siam owning a Baker. The company made a similar splash in American politics when President William H. Taft’s administration purchased a 1909 model as one of the White House’s first automobiles. (A steam-powered White and two gasoline-powered Pierce-Arrows were also included, Taft hedging his bets on how the battle of the powertrains was going to play out.) Taft later added a 1912 Baker Victoria that went on to be driven by five First Ladies. The Baker brand maintains some celebrity allure today, with car-collecting comedian Jay Leno holding a 1909 model in his expansive collection.
As a means of offsetting some of the powertrain’s inherent shortcomings, Baker made investments in battery-charging infrastructure. The brand announced plans to open stations at every major intersection in Cleveland and to grow the network from there, although this effort became cost prohibitive and never came to fruition. Expansion into the production of electric trucks, police patrol wagons, and even trucks and bomb handlers for the U.S. Army during World War I was not enough to fend off the rising dominance of the internal-combustion engine, especially after the proliferation of the electric starter, first available on the 1912 Cadillac, significantly increased safety and convenience. By 1915, the Baker company was defunct.
By Brett Berk, Car and Driver
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tavar_Zawacki Ontario, Canada- (Correction- this building possibly near Buffalo, NY, USA- thanks for your input and comments) I could find no listing or documentation validating this installation (in Canada) but the work certainly looks like his style. This is my first encounter with this fascinating artist who I may begin to embrace. buffaloah.com/a/main/1665/1665.html
While a lot of focus is on the Cascade Green in Brantford, CN has multiple BNSF GP38-2s running around their system right now. In Oakville, BNSF 2968 (H4) is paired up with CN 4125 (Zebra), making for a very unique duo!
This is a sunrise from my third and last session at Milano Marittima - the one that taught me that even a clean sky can still offer a photogenic sunrise.
I captured this scene at the Canalino of Cervia (= the little canal of Cervia). It is a peculiar canal, since it flows in contrary motion: indeed, it has been built to feed sea water into the saltpans of Cervia (see my Reflections from the past for basic information about them). Where the canal meets the sea there are banks protruding into the sea. At the end of the other bank there is a steel sculpture of the Madonna of the Sea by the architect Alessandro Savelli (2009).
There was a company of guys and girls sitting on the rocks behind my back who were watching the sunrise after a long white night - if you concentrate enough you should be able to hear their soft chattering - and a quiet couple were cuddling at the base of the sculpture. To be honest I tried to clone them out, albeit with unsatisfactory results - the curvy lines of the sculpture in the background were too messed up. At last I decided to leave them in the frame, hoping that they keep cherishing the memory of that moment, unaware that I have captured them with my wide Samyang 14 mm, making their tender moment last along with the magic of dawn.
The sea and the sky were pretty uneventful, bordering on the boring side, but dawn has (more than) a few strings to her bow to help enlivening the most boring scene, so… there it is, I hope that you like it - that it can arouse positive feelings.
Contrary to my habit, this is not an exposure bracket: I decided to try the image averaging technique: 25 identical photos stacked and averaged. In itself this technique is not fun at all: just shoot a bulk of identical photos, then feed it into the software and get the averaged image (the Gimp lacks an "average" blending mode, so one cannot even fiddle with the weights of the averaging stacked layers). Oh well, and you need a lot of patience, since the operation is definitely not instantaneous. I tried three different softwares: G'mic for the Gimp, Chasys Draw IES Artist (which, interestingly, implements several techniques usually confined to astrophotography), and Image Magick. G'mic was by far the slowest software to process the stack (more than 40 minutes, plus out-of-memory issues), while, not unexpectedly, Image Magick was by far the fastest one. Chasys Draw and Image Magick gave similar but not identical results, while I threw away the image from G'mic.
However this technique has several benefits: it reduces noise while at the same time enhancing detail in a very natural way; it removes unwanted passing elements (present in one photo only or moving through the scene*); and, last but not least, it can simulate a long exposure effect even in broad daylight, which was my main aim here. I must say that, on the whole, it has been an interesting experiment; I hope to get comments about the technique and how to further my grasp of it.
* I tried this technique just once before now, in one of my fireflies shots from the Summer 2020, In the blink of an eye: I was trying to denoise and better the night landscape against which the fireflies were weaving their love dances. It was a success: 15 images stacked and averaged gave me a more than decent background completely devoid of fireflies because the averaging process did not keep the occasional elements present only in a single photo.
(Northiella haematogaster)
Wanganella - NSW
Austrália
This was the occasion when we were closest to them! About 60m (200 feet)
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All my photos are now organized into sets by the country where they were taken, by taxonomic order, by family, by species (often with just one photo for the rarer ones), and by the date they were taken.
So, you may find:
- All the photos for this trip Austrália (2024) (309)
- All the photos for this order PSITTACIFORMES (110)
- All the photos for this family Psittaculidae (Psitaculídeos) (52)
- All the photos for this species Northiella haematogaster (1)
- All the photos taken this day 2024/11/25 (30)
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Six months ago, a female Little owl I got to know very well disappeared from the place I always saw her. As she had surpassed the typical 3-year average wild lifespan, and I didn't see her for months, I feared the worst. This weekend I finally saw the pictured individual in the same spot, but I can't tell whether it's a new bird that has moved into the territory, or my old friend back again. Either way I'm happy!