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Walking across San Francisco California's famous Golden Gate Bridge doing some depth-of-field creative experiments. Not your average tourist photo...Anthony Maw
My Tamron 10-24mm broke just before that shot. I got the infamous Err01. Fortunately it's only a few months old, I still have warranty, it seems to be a common error and I don't have a need for wide angle shots within the next few weeks, so I will bring it back to the shop today to see what they say.
If you wonder why I took this photo even though the lense broke before the shot: I was able to loosen then lense from the body, so it was not screwed tight to the body.
About the photo: It's a real HDR generated from 6 RAW captures. I had tried to capture rapeseed photos for the last few years, but I always drove by the fields and ended up forgetting to take a photo. Last week, I went to explore the fields next to where I live and I found this field.
This photo has been marked as an almost perfect photo by the "Score 1 to 20 on 20" group with an average score of 15.6 and passed the 85 points markwith 88.5 points in the "Score me in Detail" group! Thank you!
Please leave a comment and let me know what you associate with this photo!
Bitte hinterlasse einen Kommentar und lass mich wissen, welche Gedanken du zu diesem Bild hast!
30 January 2021: In the week to 26 January on average 2,253 people tested positive each day. The figure is up 14% on the week. Despite that the figures don’t bode well there was also some good news yesterday. The EMA gave conditional market approval for the AstraZeneca vaccine for all age groups over 18 years old, despite the recent doubts over its effectiveness for people over 65. Also, yesterday J&J announced that its single-dose Covid-19 vaccine was 66 percent effective at preventing moderate and severe disease in a global study. While the shot was 72 percent effective in the U.S. arm of the trial, it fell to just 57 percent in South Africa, where a highly transmissible variant predominates. Overall, the company said the shot was 85 percent effective in preventing severe disease, and that protective effect increased over time. The company added that the vaccine provided complete protection against COVID-related hospitalization and death. J&J is planning to file for emergency use authorization in early February and expects to have product available to ship immediately following authorization. Net-net, all good news. Also, the Belgian vaccination campaign is slowly but surely making progress. 15% of the over 80s have received their first jab and in Flanders 82% of care home residents have been given a first dose. Whether or not the vaccination programme will continue to run to plan and all Belgians that want to be vaccinates will have received their first dose before summer is dependent on the pharmaceutical companies supplying sufficient quantities of their vaccines. Today’s shot is another vignette of Ghent during this unprecedented crisis. The mural on display was commissioned by the Elderly Care Department of the city to highlight centers where elderly people can go for services and activities – Ghent, Belgium
7 February 2021: Yesterday’s numbers show slight increases in the 7-day rolling averages for hospitalisations and people testing positive for the virus. Meanwhile the number of deaths among people with COVID-19 continues to fall. In the week to 3 February on average 2,339 people tested positive each day in Belgium. The figure is up 3% on the week. Also, yesterday, the vaccination taskforce announced that the first shipment of 443,000 AstraZeneca has been delivered. As the British-Swedish vaccine will not be administered to people over 55 years old for the time being, Belgium had to slightly adapt its vaccination strategy. The vaccine will be given to people between 18 and 55 years old of following groups: healthcare workers, residents and staff of care institutions (i.e., rehabilitation centers, psychiatric institutions, etc.), high risk groups with underlying conditions and police officers. People over 55 will receive a Covid-19 vaccine by Pfizer/BioNtech or Moderna. The government claims that it will accelerate the vaccination of the more vulnerable people but I’m still unclear what it exactly means for the timing of the roll-out of the vaccination campaign in the various age groups. I guess I should no longer worry about it and continue to enjoy documenting how life unfolds during these unprecedented times. I don’t know why this street corner in disrepair caught my attention. I decided to label it as an abstract urban composition – Rembert Dodoensdreef, Ghent, Belgium
Feel free to provide a train symbol for this train cause I couldn’t tell you for the life of me. More so happy to talk about to duo of YN2 C40-9W’s, wow what a pair to see in person. Chased these guys all around the yard and a little north, more than happy to document this with CSX currently selling off the dash 8 & 9s.
It takes 2 days driving in an all wheel drive from Nairobi to arrive in Loiyangalani on the Turkana lake shores… you have never heard about this place? And yet it’s here that they filmed « The Constant Gardener » with Ralph Fiennes.
The Lake Turkana region presents a lunar landscape, somewhat desert, covered in black volcanic rocks. It’s an extremely inhospitable environment for humans and their livestock. There is no potable water and limited pastures. The rainfall averages is less than 6 inches a year. During the day the high temperatures (up to 45°C) are come with strong winds (up to 11 meters per second), pushing dust. But it’s just a magical place on earth !
No human should be able to live in these conditions and yet 250,000 Turkana people are living here. Their territory extends to northern Kenya around Lake Turkana, and on the boundaries with south Sudan and Ethiopia. In 1975, the lake (400 km long, 60 large) was named after them.
Herders Above All Else : The importance of livestock
They are a traditionally pastoralist tribe, moving their livestock (goats, sheep, camels, cattle, and donkeys) and their homes to search water for their animals. Turkana have not been affected by western civilization yet and live in a very traditional way. The number of animals and the diversity of the herd are closely linked to a family’s status in the community. The herds are their bank account.
They depend on the rain to provide grazing for their animals, and on their animals for milk and meat. Because water is so hard to find in the area, they often fight with other tribes like Dassanech. Their main concerns are land and how to win it or to keep it!
The Turkana place such a high value on cattle that they often raid other tribes to steal animals. These razzias have become more dangerous as they now use guns. As the Turkana are one of the most courageous groups of warriors in Africa, fights are serious!
After a raid, the robbers ask some friends from neighboring villages to keep some cows. Their herd is scattered between several places to reduce the risk of being stolen the whole.
The Turkana choose their good friends as neightbors more so than people they share kinship ties with. The clans (ekitela), 28 in number, no longer have a social function. Each clan owns water wells dug in the dried river beds. Unless an explicit request is made, the community can deny water to those passing by.
Even today, the Turkana never kill their livestock to sell their meat. They only kill for celebrations. The Turkana need their animals since they use them as currency in marriage or various social transactions. If a man loses his livestock to drought, he is not only impoverished but shamed. In these cases, NGOs often help get him back on his feet but he can’t reclaim his pride until he has reestablished his herd.
The animals are given very poetic names which the owners often take on as well. It’s common to call a good friend the name of his favorite bull. The Turkana even write songs for their favorite animals. Once a young man has selected his favorite bull, he shapes its horns into bizarre forms to make it stand out. Many tribes use to do this in the area.
The Fish is Taboo for the Herdsmen
Turkana people traditionally do not fish and do not eat fish. But during the droughts, Turkana people are encouraged to fish to get some food. Fishing has been regarded as something of a taboo, a practice reserved for the very poorest in Turkana society.
Social Structure
The Turkana are organized into generational classes. All males go through three life stages (child, warrior, and elder).
To become a man, the turkana teen must go through a ceremony where he will have to kill an animal with a spear, but he must kill it in one throw! Once done, the old men will open the stomach of the animal and put the content on the body of the new adult. It is the way they bless him.
For women, the process is different. They become adult when they reach puberty. Unlike many other tribes in Kenya, the Turkana do not practice FGM and circumcision.
The Turkana live in small households. Inside live of a man, his wives !as he can marry more than one), their children and sometimes some dependent old people. The house is called « awi ». It is built with wood, animal skin, and doum palm leaves. Only the women build the houses!
Herding is a family affair. The father assigns various tasks to his children depending on their age. It’s common to see kids walking long distances with the cattle. Later they will take care of sheep and goats. The girls carry water and collect wood.
Newborns receive their names in a unique way. They take the name of a parent who has huge prestige and add the name of the most beautiful animal in the herd.
Parents learn very early to the kids the taboos: you must not lie, be coward, steal, neglect elders…
Turkana have their own justice and the revenge system is working well: if a crime is committed, the family of the victim will try to kill the murderer or someone from its close family. They also can steal to the suspect a large amount of cattle. Usually, the elders try to make a reconciliation ceremony. It is an never ending story as the family will also want to make a vandetta of the vendetta !
If the homicide was an accident, it can be solved by giving a daughter in marriage.
Marriage
When a man wants to marry a girl, he must ask his own parents if they agree. His mother will have to check if the girl he wants is a good worker! The blood relationship between the families is forbidden, so the elders will check the family links before any agreement.
The man must pay the bride parents (30 cattle, 30 camels and 100 small stock minimum, sometimes a gun is added). It means that a man cannot marry until he has inherited livestock from his dead father. It also means that he collects livestock from relatives and friends. This strengthens social ties.
Daily life
Cattle dungs are used as fuel to cook the food, the urine is used as soap for washing when chemical soap is not available. I saw people using the urine to wash the milk containers, so I always refused to drink milk!
Camels are used for transportation of goods and are well adapted to the very arid climate of Turkana and the lack of water. They are also used in transactions for weddings, or economics deals.
Donkeys have a special status in Turkana tribe: the people do not drink its milk. They use them to carry their houses when they move or weak people with a special wood saddle. But even if donkeys are very useful, they are mocked by the turkana people. Donkey meat is eaten only in the Turkana, where it is savored as a delicacy while others tribe hate it!
They like chewing tobacco and often walk around with a chewed up ball of it on their ear. They also like snorting powdered tobacco.
Danses and songs are important in the social life. Dances allow the people to meet and to flirt. Circle dances are are performed by group of young unmarried girls. The men and young girls join hands and the circles move around. The men may then jump into the centre of the circle raising their arms to imitate the cow horns.
Spirituality, Superstitions, Beliefs
In 1960, a famine started in Turkana area, and so the « Africa Inland Mission » established a food-distribution centre in Lokori, bringing also christianity. But conversion did not meet a huge success (5 % may be converted) as Turkana are nomadics and still have strong believes in their own god. Some Turkana elders even told me :
« I wear a christian cross around my neck and go to the church to get an access to the help provided by the the missionaries for food and clothes! »
The majority of the Turkana still follow their traditional religion. There's one supreme God called Akuj, who is associated with the sky. If God is happy, he will give rain. But if he is angry with the people, he will punish them. In the old believings, giraffes were supposed to tickle the clouds with their high heads, and make the rain come !
Four million years ago, the Lake Turkana bassin may have been the cradle of mankind. You can spot some very nice engraving sites showing a mixture of giraffes and geometrics patterns made around 2000 years ago close to the lake.
Deviners, called the « emuron » are able to interpret or predict Akuj's plans through their dreams, or through sacrificed animal's intestines, tobacco, and through the tossing of …sandals ! Sandals are very important for the oracle. He blesses the sandals by spitting on them. He throws them up into the air and gives a meaning to the patterns they create when they fall on the ground.
When someone dies, the Turkana only hold funerals and burry the body. In the old times, people were were not given a burial, but were abandoned to hyenas.
As I was taking pictures of an old Turkana lady, after 3 pictures, she asked me to stop, and started to shout : « You’re sucking my blood, you make me feel weak » and she left. I was explained by a young boy that the old people believe that pictures are taking their blood away.
Medecine
Scarifications on the belly are made by traditional doctors to cure ill people: it is a way to put out the illness from the body. Scarification is practiced for aesthetic reasons too. Scars are a sign of beauty or to show how many people he has killed, if he is a man.
The skin is cut with an acacia or a sharp razor blade that may be shared by the people and bring diseases.
Turkana believe that a person who experienced illness and recovered from it can treat someone else who’s suffering from the same illness. This means that everybody can be a doctor ! If this does not work, they say that the animal slaughtered was the wrong one.
A good Turkana tip : if you suffer from a severe headache, you just have to take out the brain from a living animal, like a goat, and put it on your head !
Or, another solution : to lift a sheep over the patient, to cut the throat so that the blood strickles on the patient’s head.
The Turkana have the highest instance in the world of echinoccocus (7%) due to their proximity with dogs, who live and defecate everywhere. The dogs lick up blood and vomit and the women use the dog’s excrement as a lubricant for the necklaces that touch their neck.
This parasite has three hosts : sheep, dogs, and humans. In Turkana, these three species live very close, surrounded by little else in the vast desert, ideal conditions for the proliferation of the parasite. The diease causes huge cysts that can be removed by surgery. The locals believe that this "disease of the large belly" is due to a spell cast by the neighboring enemy tribe: the Toposa.
Beauty
Turkana girls and women love to adorn themselves with a lot of necklaces. Beads can be made of glass, seeds, cowry shells, or iron. They never remove them! This can only happen when they are ill or during a mourning time. It means they sleep with those huge necklaces… A married Turkana woman will also wear a plain metal ring around the neck. This is a kind of wedding ring (alagama). A Turkana man will do all he can to make sure that his women folk are dressed in beads of class. Even if some are not able to take their girls to school, they will still ensure that they have beads. By the quantity and style of jewelry a woman wears, you can guess her social status.
Beads colors have specific meaning. Yellow and red beads are given to girl by a man when they are fiancé. If a woman wears only white beads, it means she is a widow. Little girls wear few beads, usually given to them by their mothers, but the older ladies and women wear many, which are in sets rows.
A woman who cannot move her neck is envied! The big necklaces are heavy, like 5 kilos.
A woman without beads is bad, men will ignore her. « You look like an animal without beads! »
Young children only wear a simple strand of pearls. Adolescents wear small articles of clothing to cover their sex. These articles are often decorated with mulitcolored pearls or ostrich egg shells. They wear more and longer clothing as they approach puberty.
NakaparaparaI are the famous ear ornaments. They are made by the men of the tribe in aluminium most of the time and look like a leaf.
Men love to make an elaborate mudpack coiffures called emedot. It is a kind of chignon: the hairstyle takes the shape of a large bun of hair at the back of the head. They decorate it with ostrich feathers to show they are elders or warriors. 2 ostrich feathers costs 1 goat.
Men use a wood pillow (ekicolong) to sleep on it and protect the bun. It can last 2 months and must be rebuild after.
Tattooing is also common and usually has special meaning. Men are tattooed on the shoulders and upper arm each time they kill an enemy — the right shoulder for killing a man, the left for a women.
Lower incisors are removed in childhood, with a tool called « corogat », a finger hook. The origin of this practice was against tetanus, as people are lock-jawed, so they can feed them with milk through the hole. It is also a way to force the teeth at the top to stand out and not interfere with the labret many put on the lower lip. The is useful to spit through the gap of the teeth, without even opening the mouth. The Turkana enjoyed to have labrets, but nowadays, only the elders can be seen with on. They used to put an ivory lip plug, then a wood one, and for some years, they use a lip plug made of copper or even with plaited electric wires.The hole between the lower lip and chin is pierced using a thorn.
The finger hook is also used as a weapon, for gouging out an ennemy’s eye !
Hygiene
Since water is so rare, it’s used only for drinking, never for washing. The Turkana clean themselves by rubbing fat all over their skin.
Turkana women put grease paint on their bodies which is made from mixing animal fat with red ochre and the leaves of a tree to have nice perfume. They say it is good for the skin and it protects from the insects.
Women also put animal fat all around their neck and also on their huge necklaces to prevent from skin irritation.
They also use dog shit as a medicine and lubrificant for their neck.
Both men and women use the branch of a tree called esekon to clean their teeth. You can see them using it all day long…The Turkana people have the cleanest bill of dental health in the country.
For long, Turkana people did not use latrines because it is a taboo for men and women to share same facilities like a latrine. Campaigns have now been initiated to sensitize people on the importance of using latrines for hygiene.
Animal fat is considered to have medicinal qualities, and the fat-tailed sheep is often referred to as "the pharmacy for the Turkana. »... when they do not grill it to eat it!
Futur
Recently, oil has been found on their territory… many fear Turkanas people may loose their traditions, but the Turkana succeeded in maintaining their way of life for centuries. Against all odds they manage to raise livestock in the confines of the desert. Their knowledge allows them to live where most humans could not.
The recent discovery of massive groundwater reserves in the ground (3 billion cubic meters, nearly three times the water use in New York City) could allow them to keep their traditions for a long time.
© Eric Lafforgue
Fotografada em Brasília, Brasil.
A text, in english, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
The Burrowing Owl (Speotyto cunicularia) (ex-Athene cunicularia) is a small, long-legged owl found throughout open landscapes of North and South America. Burrowing owls can be found in grasslands, rangelands, agricultural areas, deserts, or any other dry, open area with low vegetation (Lewis 2005). They nest and roost in burrows, such as those abandoned by prairie dogs. Unlike most owls, burrowing owls are often active during the day. However, most hunting is done at dusk or at night.
Burrowing owls are able to live for at least 9 years in the wild and over 10 years in captivity.[citation needed] They are often killed by vehicles when crossing roads, and have many natural enemies, including badgers, coyotes, and snakes. They are also killed by both feral and domestic cats and dogs.
Burrowing owls have bright yellow eyes. The bill can be yellow or greenish depending on the subspecies. The legs are incompletely feathered, and the toes are grayish in color. They lack ear tufts and have a flattened facial disc. The owls have prominent white eyebrows and a white "chin" patch which they expand and display during certain behaviors.
Adult owls have brown upperparts with white spotting. The breast and belly are white with variable brown spotting or barring. Juvenile owls are similar in appearance, but they lack most of the white spotting above and brown barring below. Also, the young owls have a buff bar across the upper wing and their breast may be buffy rather than white.
Males and females are similar in size and appearance. However, adult males sometimes appear lighter in color because they spend more time outside the burrow during daylight, and their feathers become sun-bleached. The average adult is slightly larger than an American Robin, at 25 cm (10 inches) length, 53 cm (21 inches) wingspan, and 170g (6 oz) weight (Lewis 2005).
The typical "who who" call of a burrowing owl is associated with territory defense and breeding, often given by adult males to attract a female to a promising burrow. They also make other sounds, which are described as chucks, chattering, and screams. These sounds are usually accompanied by an up and down bobbing of the head. When alarmed, young birds will give a hissing call - a case of acoustic Batesian mimicry - that sounds like a rattlesnake (Haug et al. 1993).
Before European colonization, burrowing owls probably inhabited every suitable area of the New World, but they have experienced some restrictions in distribution since. They range from the southern portions of the western Canadian provinces through southern Mexico and western Central America. They are also found in Florida and many Caribbean islands. In South America, they are patchy in the northwest and through the Andes, but widely distributed from southern Brazil to Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego.
Burrowing owls are year-round residents in most of their range. Birds that breed in Canada and northern USA usually migrate south to Mexico and southern USA during winter months.
The burrowing owl is endangered in Canada[1], threatened in Mexico, and a species of special concern in Florida and most of the western USA. It is common and widespread in open regions of many Neotropical countries, where they sometimes even inhabit fields and parks in cities. In regions bordering the Amazon Rainforest they are spreading with deforestation. It is therefore listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List.
The major reasons for declining populations in North America are control programs for prairie dogs and loss of habitat, although burrowing owls readily inhabit some anthropogenic landscapes, such as airport grasslands or golf courses (Korfanta et al. 2005).
Burrowing owls are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in Canada, the United States, and Mexico. They are also included in CITES Appendix II.
Genetic analysis of the two North American subspecies indicates that inbreeding is not a problem within those populations (Korfanta et al. 2005).
The nesting season begins in late March or April in North America. Burrowing owls are usually monogamous, but occasionally a male will have two mates (Lewis 2005). Pairs of owls will sometimes nest in loose colonies. Their typical breeding habitat is open grassland or prairie, but they can occasionally adapt to other open areas like airports, golf courses, and agricultural fields. Burrowing owls are slightly tolerant of human presence, often nesting near roads, farms, homes, and regularly maintained irrigation canals.
The owls nest in an underground burrow, hence the name Burrowing Owl. They use burrows created by other burrowing animals such as prairie dogs, ground squirrels, or badgers (Holt et al. 1999). If burrows are unavailable and the soil is not hard or rocky, the owls may excavate their own. Burrowing owls will also nest in shallow, underground, man-made structures that have easy access to the surface.
The female will lay as many as 8-12 eggs over a two week period. She will then incubate the eggs for three to four weeks while the male brings her food. After the eggs hatch both parents will feed the chicks. Four weeks after hatching, the chicks are able to make short flights and begin leaving the nest burrow. The parents will still help feed the chicks for 1 to 3 months. While most of the eggs will hatch, only four to five chicks usually survive to leave the nest.
During the nesting season, burrowing owls will line the burrow with mammal dung, usually from cattle. The dung helps to control the microclimate inside the burrow and to attract insects, which the owls may eat (Levey et al. 2004).
Site fidelity rates appear to vary among populations. In some locations, owls will frequently reuse a nest several years in a row. Owls in migratory northern populations are less likely to return to the same burrow every year. Also, as with many other birds, the female owls are more likely to disperse to a different site than are male owls (Lutz & Plumpton 1999).
The highly variable diet includes small mammals, small birds, snakes, lizards, frogs, insects, and scorpions. But the owls mainly eat large insects and small rodents. Although burrowing owls often live in close proximity to ground squirrels, they rarely prey upon them. Unlike other owls, they also eat fruits and seeds, especially the fruit of tasajillo (Cylindropuntia leptocaulis) and other prickly pear and cholla cacti. When hunting they wait on a perch until they spot prey. Then they swoop down on prey or fly up to catch insects in flight. Sometimes they chase prey on foot across the ground.
The burrowing owl is sometimes separated in the monotypic genus Speotyto. This is based on an overall different morphology and karyotype. On the other hand, osteology and DNA sequence data suggests that the Burrowing Owl is just a terrestrial version of the Athene little owls, and it is today placed in that genus by most authorities.
A considerable number of subspecies have been described, but they differ little in appearance and the taxonomy of several needs to be validated (Holt et al. 1999). Most subspecies are found in the Andes and the Antilles. Only A. c. hypugaea and A. c. floridana are found in North America. Although distinct from each other, the relationship of the Floridan subspecies to (and its distinctness from) the Caribbean birds is not quite clear (Korfanta et al. 2005).
Um texto em português:
Coruja-buraqueira (Speotyto cunicularia).
Veja um vídeo clicando no endereço a seguir:
br.youtube.com/watch?v=BhCP0YqJDnY
Ficha Técnica
Nome comum: coruja-buraqueira, coruja-martelo, coruja-do-campo, caburé-de-cupim, caburé-do-campo, coruja-barata, coruja-buraqueira, coruja-do-campo, coruja-mineira, corujinha-buraqueira, corujinha-do-buraco, corujinha-do-campo, guedé, urucuera, urucuréia e urucuriá.
Nome científico: Speotyto cunicularia
Reino: Animal
Filo: Vertebrado
Classe: Aves
Ordem: Strigiformes
Família: Strigidae
Ave muito interessante e com características peculiares é tida pelo povo grego como a ave da sabedoria. Outros povos porém, acham que causa azar e arrepios seu canto quando rasga o silêncio noturno. Dizem ainda que é sinal de mal agouro e que o seu canto está pressagiando alguma tragédia, o que é pura crendice popular, pois o que se sabe é que as corujas são muito úteis ao homem predando pragas nas lavouras e controlando a população de ratos ao redor das cidades e no campo.
Pode girar seu pecoço em 270º
Características:
A coruja-buraqueira é muito comum pelos campos do Brasil.
Mede em torno de 20-30 cm com envergadura de 50-61cm e pesando em média 170g.
Com peito branco e plumagem amarelada o macho é ligeiramente maior que a fêmea, possuem cabeça arredondada e são aves muito tímidas.
Com olhos grandes e amarelos, a coruja-buraqueira tem a visão 100 vezes mais aguçada que a do homem e seus olhos estão dispostos frontalmente, como os do ser humano.
Quando necessita olhar algum objeto ao seu redor gira o pescoço em um ângulo de até 270 graus, aumentando assim o seu campo visual.
Essa disposição frontal, proporciona à coruja uma visão binocular (enxerga um objeto com ambos os olhos e ao mesmo tempo), isso significa que a coruja pode ver objetos em três dimensões, ou seja, altura, largura e profundidade.
Pode julgar distâncias similares ao ser humano e seu campo visual é de 110 graus, sendo 70 graus de visão binocular.
Os olhos da coruja-buraqueira são bem grandes, em algumas espécies de corujas até maiores que o próprio cérebro, a fim de melhorar sua eficiência em condições de baixa luminosidade, captando e processando melhor a luz disponível.
Além de sua privilegiada visão, a coruja-buraqueira é dona de uma audição potentíssima, conseguindo localizar e abater sua presa com apenas este sentido.
Abate preferencialmente pequenos roedores, insetos, anfíbios e pássaros. A coruja é uma ave de rapina, portanto mata para se alimentar. A tradução da palavra rapina é "roubo", o que caracteriza o fato de tais aves retirarem a vida de suas presas.
Rapineira e atenta à tudo
A coruja como a grande maioria dos animais possue território de caça. São ""equipadas "" com adaptações especiais que as tornam predadoras eficientes, sendo uma delas o vôo.
Sempre muito silenciosa e sorrateira, isso devido às penas especiais de sua asa, muito macias e em grande quantidade, conseguem cortar o ar e planar por muito tempo sendo muito discretas e imperceptíveis às suas presas.
A observação das presas se dá no alto de árvores ou em mourões de cercas nos pastos e até durante o vôo silencioso, quando fazem uma varredura na área de caça. Quando um alvo é avistado a coruja voa silenciosamente até ele, mantendo sua cabeça em linha reta ao alvo, quando então a joga para trás e empurra suas garras para frente a fim de prender seguramente sua presa. A força do impacto é violenta e certeira não dando chances à presa. Posteriormente a vítima é morta pela pressão do bico, num processo de abatimento de presas no solo.
O período reprodutivo da coruja-buraqueira começa nos meses de março e abril, os ninhos são feitos no solo, aproveitando antigas tocas de tatus ou simplesmente promovem a abertura de novos ninhos, num trabalho revezado entre o casal.
Os ninhos são escavados com os pés e bicos, formando uma galeria horizontal de até 3 m de profundidade por 30cm-60cm de largura.
Em média botam de 6 a 12 ovos, que são incubados por 28 dias pela fêmea; fica por conta do macho proteger o ninho e procurar alimento para toda a prole.
Com 14 dias os filhotes já ficam empoleirados na saída da cova, aos 44 dias saem do ninho e com 60 dias estão caçando pequenos insetos.
Informações do site: www.cuestajardins.com.br/?id=149&codigo=426&PHPSE...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant. The sea is sometimes considered a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it is usually identified as a completely separate body of water.
The name Mediterranean is derived from the Latin mediterraneus, meaning "inland" or "in the middle of the land" (from medius, "middle" and terra, "land"). It covers an approximate area of 2.5 million km² (965,000 sq mi), but its connection to the Atlantic (the Strait of Gibraltar) is only 14 km (8.7 mi) wide. In oceanography, it is sometimes called the Eurafrican Mediterranean Sea or the European Mediterranean Sea to distinguish it from mediterranean seas elsewhere.[3][4]
The Mediterranean Sea has an average depth of 1,500 m (4,900 ft) and the deepest recorded point is 5,267 m (17,280 ft) in the Calypso Deep in the Ionian Sea.
It was an important route for merchants and travellers of ancient times that allowed for trade and cultural exchange between emergent peoples of the region. The history of the Mediterranean region is crucial to understanding the origins and development of many modern societies.
Name
The term Mediterranean derives from the Latin word mediterraneus, meaning "in the middle of earth" or "between lands" (medi-; adj. medius, -um -a "middle, between" + terra f., "land, earth"): as it is between the continents of Africa, Asia and Europe. The Greek name Mesogeios (Μεσόγειος), is similarly from μέσο, "middle" + γη, "land, earth").[5]
The Mediterranean Sea has historically had several names. For example the Romans commonly called it Mare Nostrum (Latin, "Our Sea"), and occasionally Mare Internum (Sallust, Jug. 17).
In the Bible, it was primarily known as הים הגדול (HaYam HaGadol), the "Great Sea", (Num. 34:6,7; Josh. 1:4, 9:1, 15:47; Ezek. 47:10,15,20), or simply "The Sea" (1 Kings 5:9; comp. 1 Macc. 14:34, 15:11); however, it has also been called the "Hinder Sea", due to its location on the west coast of the Holy Land, and therefore behind a person facing the east, sometimes translated as "Western Sea", (Deut. 11:24; Joel 2:20). Another name was the "Sea of the Philistines" (Exod. 23:31), from the people occupying a large portion of its shores near the Israelites.
In Modern Hebrew, it has been called HaYam HaTikhon (הַיָּם הַתִּיכוֹן), "the Middle Sea", reflecting the Sea's name in ancient Greek (Mesogeios), Latin (Mare internum) and modern languages in both Europe and the Middle East (Mediterranean, etc.). Similarly, in Modern Arabic, it is known as al-Baḥr [al-Abyaḍ] al-Mutawassiṭ (البحر [الأبيض] المتوسط), "the [White] Medium Sea", while in Islamic and older Arabic literature, it was referenced as Baḥr al-Rūm (بحر الروم), or "the Roman/Byzantine Sea." In Turkish, it is known as Akdeniz,[6] "the White Sea" since among Turks the white color (ak) represents the west.
History
Several ancient civilizations were located around its shores; thus it has had a major influence on those cultures. It provided routes for trade, colonization and war, and provided food (by fishing and the gathering of other seafood) for numerous communities throughout the ages.[7]
The sharing of similar climate, geology and access to a common sea led to numerous historical and cultural connections between the ancient and modern societies around the Mediterranean.
Two of the most notable Mediterranean civilizations in classical antiquity were the Greek city states and the Phoenicians. When[citation needed] Augustus founded the Roman Empire, the Mediterranean Sea began to be called Mare Nostrum (literally:"Our Sea") by the Romans.
Darius I of Persia, who conquered Ancient Egypt, built a canal linking the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. Darius's canal was wide enough for two triremes to pass each other with oars extended, and required four days to traverse.[8]
The western Roman empire collapsed around AD 476. Temporarily the east was again dominant as the Byzantine Empire formed from the eastern half of the Roman empire. Another power soon arose in the east: Islam. At its greatest extent, the Arab Empire controlled 75% of the Mediterranean region.
Europe was reviving, however, as more organized and centralized states began to form in the later Middle Ages after the Renaissance of the 12th century.
Ottoman power continued to grow, and in 1453, the Byzantine Empire was extinguished with the Conquest of Constantinople. Ottomans gained control of much of the sea in the 16th century and maintained naval bases in southern France, Algeria and Tunisia. Barbarossa, the famous Ottoman captain is a symbol of this domination with the victory of the Battle of Preveza. The Battle of Djerba marked the apex of Ottoman naval domination in the Mediterranean. However, as naval prowess of the European powers grew, they confronted Ottoman expansion in the region when the Battle of Lepanto checked the power of the Ottoman Navy. This was the last naval battle to be fought primarily between galleys.
The Barbary pirates of North Africa preyed on Christian shipping in the western Mediterranean Sea.[9] According to Robert Davis, from the 16th to 19th century, pirates captured 1 million to 1.25 million Europeans as slaves.[10]
The development of oceanic shipping began to affect the entire Mediterranean. Once, all trade from the east had passed through the region, but now the circumnavigation of Africa allowed spices and other goods to be imported through the Atlantic ports of western Europe.[11][12][13] The Malta president described the Mediterranean sea as a "cemetery" due to the large amounts of migrants who drown there.
Geography
With its highly indented coastline and large number of islands, Greece has the longest Mediterranean coastline.
The Mediterranean Sea is connected to the Atlantic Ocean by the Strait of Gibraltar in the west and to the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea, by the Dardanelles and the Bosporus respectively, in the east. The Sea of Marmara is often considered a part of the Mediterranean Sea, whereas the Black Sea is generally not. The 163 km (101 mi) long man-made Suez Canal in the southeast connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea.
Large islands in the Mediterranean include Cyprus, Crete, Euboea, Rhodes, Lesbos, Chios, Kefalonia, Corfu, Limnos, Samos, Naxos and Andros in the eastern Mediterranean; Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, Cres, Krk, Brač, Hvar, Pag, Korčula and Malta in the central Mediterranean; and Ibiza, Majorca and Minorca (the Balearic Islands) in the western Mediterranean.
The typical Mediterranean climate has hot, dry summers and mild, rainy winters. Crops of the region include olives, grapes, oranges, tangerines, and cork.
Extent
The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Mediterranean Sea as follows:[15]
Stretching from the Strait of Gibraltar in the West to the entrances to the Dardanelles and the Suez Canal in the East, the Mediterranean Sea is bounded by the coasts of Europe, Africa and Asia, and is divided into two deep basins:
Western Basin:
On the west: A line joining the extremities of Cape Trafalgar (Spain) and Cape Spartel (Africa).
On the northeast: The West Coast of Italy. In the Strait of Messina a line joining the North extreme of Cape Paci (15°42'E) with Cape Peloro, the East extreme of the Island of Sicily. The North Coast of Sicily.
On the east: A line joining Cape Lilibeo the Western point of Sicily (37°47′N 12°22′E), through the Adventure Bank to Cape Bon (Tunisia).
Eastern Basin:
On the west: The Northeastern and Eastern limits of the Western Basin.
On the northeast: A line joining Kum Kale (26°11'E) and Cape Helles, the Western entrance to the Dardanelles.
On the southeast: The entrance to the Suez Canal.
On the east: The coasts of Syria, Israel, Lebanon, and Gaza Strip.
Oceanography
Being nearly landlocked affects conditions in the Mediterranean Sea: for instance, tides are very limited as a result of the narrow connection with the Atlantic Ocean. The Mediterranean is characterized and immediately recognised by its deep blue colour.
Evaporation greatly exceeds precipitation and river runoff in the Mediterranean, a fact that is central to the water circulation within the basin.[16] Evaporation is especially high in its eastern half, causing the water level to decrease and salinity to increase eastward.[17] This pressure gradient pushes relatively cool, low-salinity water from the Atlantic across the basin; it warms and becomes saltier as it travels east, then sinks in the region of the Levant and circulates westward, to spill over the Strait of Gibraltar.[18] Thus, seawater flow is eastward in the Strait's surface waters, and westward below; once in the Atlantic, this chemically distinct Mediterranean Intermediate Water can persist thousands of kilometres away from its source.
Coastal countries
Twenty-two countries have a coastline on the Mediterranean Sea. They are:
Northern shore (from west to east): Spain, France, Monaco, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia,
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Greece and Turkey.
Eastern shore (from north to south): Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Flag of Palestine.svg Palestine (limited recognition).
Southern shore (from west to east): Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt.
Island nations: Malta, Cyprus, Flag of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.svg Northern Cyprus (limited recognition).
Several other territories also border the Mediterranean Sea (from west to east): The British overseas territory of Gibraltar, the Spanish autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla and nearby islands, and the Sovereign Base Areas on Cyprus
Major cities (municipalities) with populations larger than 200,000 people bordering the Mediterranean Sea are:
CountryCities
AlbaniaDurrës
AlgeriaAlgiers, Annaba, Oran
CroatiaSplit, Rijeka
EgyptAlexandria, Port Said
FranceMarseille, Nice
GreeceAthens, Patras, Thessaloniki
IsraelAshdod, Haifa, Tel Aviv
ItalyBari, Catania, Genoa, Messina, Naples, Palermo, Rome, Taranto, Trieste, Venice
LebanonBeirut, Tripoli
LibyaBenghazi, Khoms, Misrata, Tripoli, Zawiya, Zliten
MoroccoTétouan, Tangier
SpainAlicante, Badalona, Barcelona, Cartagena, Málaga, Palma, Valencia
State of PalestineGaza City
SyriaLatakia
TunisiaBizerte, Sfax, Tunis
TurkeyAntalya, İskenderun, İzmir, Mersin
Subdivisions
According to the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO), the Mediterranean Sea is subdivided into a number of smaller waterbodies, each with their own designation (from west to east):[15]
the Strait of Gibraltar;
the Alboran Sea, between Spain and Morocco;
the Balearic Sea, between mainland Spain and its Balearic Islands;
the Ligurian Sea between Corsica and Liguria (Italy);
the Tyrrhenian Sea enclosed by Sardinia, Italian peninsula and Sicily;
the Ionian Sea between Italy, Albania and Greece;
the Adriatic Sea between Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Albania;
the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey.
Other seas
Although not recognised by the IHO treaties, there are some other seas whose names have been in common use from the ancient times, or in the present:
the Sea of Sardinia, between Sardinia and Balearic Islands, as a part of the Balearic Sea
the Sea of Sicily between Sicily and Tunisia,
the Libyan Sea between Libya and Crete,
In the Aegean Sea,
the Thracian Sea in its north,
the Myrtoan Sea between the Cyclades and the Peloponnese,
the Sea of Crete north of Crete,
the Icarian Sea between Kos and Chios
the Cilician Sea between Turkey and Cyprus
the Levantine Sea at the eastern end of the Mediterranean
Other features
Many of these smaller seas feature in local myth and folklore and derive their names from these associations. In addition to the seas, a number of gulfs and straits are also recognised:
the Saint George Bay in Beirut, Lebanon
the Ras Ibn Hani cape in Latakia, Syria
the Ras al-Bassit cape in northern Syria.
the Minet el-Beida ("White Harbour") bay near ancient Ugarit, Syria
the Strait of Gibraltar, connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Spain from Morocco
the Bay of Gibraltar, at the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula
the Gulf of Corinth, an enclosed sea between the Ionian Sea and the Corinth Canal
the Pagasetic Gulf, the gulf of Volos, south of the Thermaic Gulf, formed by the Mount Pelion peninsula
the Saronic Gulf, the gulf of Athens, between the Corinth Canal and the Mirtoan Sea
the Thermaic Gulf, the gulf of Thessaloniki, located in the northern Greek region of Macedonia
the Kvarner Gulf, Croatia
the Gulf of Lion, south of France
the Gulf of Valencia, east of Spain
the Strait of Messina, between Sicily and the toe of Italy
the Gulf of Genoa, northwestern Italy
the Gulf of Venice, northeastern Italy
the Gulf of Trieste, northeastern Italy
the Gulf of Taranto, southern Italy
The Adriatic Sea contains over 1200 islands and islets.
the Gulf of Salerno, southwestern Italy
the Gulf of Gaeta, southwestern Italy
the Gulf of Squillace, southern Italy
the Strait of Otranto, between Italy and Albania
the Gulf of Haifa, northern Israel
the Gulf of Sidra, between Tripolitania (western Libya) and Cyrenaica (eastern Libya)
the Strait of Sicily, between Sicily and Tunisia
the Corsica Channel, between Corsica and Italy
the Strait of Bonifacio, between Sardinia and Corsica
the Gulf of İskenderun, between İskenderun and Adana (Turkey)
the Gulf of Antalya, between west and east shores of Antalya (Turkey)
the Bay of Kotor, in south-western Montenegro and south-eastern Croatia
the Malta Channel, between Sicily and Malta
the Gozo Channel, between Malta Island and Gozo
Sea temperature
Mean sea temperature (°C)
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecØ/Year
Marseille[21]13131314161821222118161416.6
Venice[22]11101113182225262320161417.4
Barcelona[23]13131314172023252320171517.8
Valencia[24]14131415172124262421181518.5
Málaga[25]16151516172022232220181618.3
Gibraltar[26]16151616172022222220181718.4
Naples[27]15141415182225272522191619.3
Athens[28]16151516182124242421191819.3
Heraklion[29]16151516192224252422201819.7
Malta[30]16161516182124262523211819.9
Larnaca[31]18171718202426272725221921.7
Limassol[32]18171718202426272725221921.7
Antalya17171718212427282725221921.8
Alexandria[33]18171718202325262625222021.4
Tel Aviv[34]18171718212426282726232022.1
Geology
The geologic history of the Mediterranean is complex. It was involved in the tectonic break-up and then collision of the African and Eurasian plates. The Messinian Salinity Crisis occurred in the late Miocene (12 million years ago to 5 million years ago) when the Mediterranean dried up. Geologically the Mediterranean is underlain by oceanic crust.
The Mediterranean Sea has an average depth of 1,500 m (4,900 ft) and the deepest recorded point is 5,267 m (17,280 ft) in the Calypso Deep in the Ionian Sea. The coastline extends for 46,000 km (29,000 mi). A shallow submarine ridge (the Strait of Sicily) between the island of Sicily and the coast of Tunisia divides the sea in two main subregions (which in turn are divided into subdivisions), the Western Mediterranean and the Eastern Mediterranean. The Western Mediterranean covers an area of about 0.85 million km² (0.33 million mi²) and the Eastern Mediterranean about 1.65 million km² (0.64 million mi²). A characteristic of the Mediterranean Sea are submarine karst springs or vruljas, which mainly occur in shallow waters[35] and may also be thermal.
Tectonic evolution
The geodynamic evolution of the Mediterranean Sea was provided by the convergence of European and African plates and several smaller microplates. This process was driven by the differential seafloor spreading along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which led to the closure of the Tethys Ocean and eventually to the Alpine orogenesis. However, the Mediterranean also hosts wide extensional basins and migrating tectonic arcs, in response to its land-locked configuration.
According to a report published by Nature in 2009, some scientists think that the Mediterranean Sea was mostly filled during a time period of less than two years, in a major flood (the Zanclean flood) that happened approximately 5.33 million years ago, in which water poured in from the Atlantic Ocean and through the Strait of Gibraltar, at a rate three times the current flow of the Amazon River.[37] However, the sea basins had been filled for many millions of years before the prior closure of the Strait of Gibraltar.
Eastern Mediterranean
In middle Miocene times, the collision between the Arabian microplate and Eurasia led to the separation between the Tethys and the Indian oceans. This process resulted in profound changes in the oceanic circulation patterns, which shifted global climates towards colder conditions. The Hellenic arc, which has a land-locked configuration, underwent a widespread extension for the last 20 Ma due to a slab roll-back process. In addition, the Hellenic Arc experienced a rapid rotation phase during the Pleistocene, with a counterclockwise component in its eastern portion and a clockwise trend in the western segment.
Central Mediterranean
The opening of small oceanic basins of the central Mediterranean follows a trench migration and back-arc opening process that occurred during the last 30 Myr. This phase was characterised by the anticlockwise rotation of the Corsica-Sardinia block, which lasted until the Langhian (ca.16 Ma), and was in turn followed by a slab detachment along the northern African margin. Subsequently, a shift of this active extensional deformation led to the opening of the Tyrrenian basin.
Western Mediterranean[edit]
The Betic-Rif mountain belts developed during Mesozoic and Cenozoic times, as Africa and Iberia converged. Tectonic models for its evolution include: rapid motion of Alboran Domain, subduction zone and radial extensional collapse caused by convective removal of lithospheric mantle. The development of these intramontane Betic and Rif basins led to the onset of two marine gateways which were progressively closed during the late Miocene by an interplay of tectonic and glacio-eustatic processes.
Paleoenvironmental analysis
Its semi-enclosed configuration makes the oceanic gateways critical in controlling circulation and environmental evolution in the Mediterranean Sea. Water circulation patterns are driven by a number of interactive factors, such as climate and bathymetry, which can lead to precipitation of evaporites. During late Miocene times, a so-called "Messinian Salinity Crisis" (MSC hereafter) occurred, where the Mediterranean entirely or almost entirely dried out, which was triggered by the closure of the Atlantic gateway. Evaporites accumulated in the Red Sea Basin (late Miocene), in the Carpatian foredeep (middle Miocene) and in the whole Mediterranean area (Messinian). An accurate age estimate of the MSC—5.96 Ma—has recently been astronomically achieved; furthermore, this event seems to have occurred synchronously. The beginning of the MSC is supposed to have been of tectonic origin; however, an astronomical control (eccentricity) might also have been involved. In the Mediterranean basin, diatomites are regularly found underneath the evaporite deposits, thus suggesting (albeit not clearly so far) a connection between their geneses.
The present-day Atlantic gateway, i.e. the Strait of Gibraltar, finds its origin in the early Pliocene. However, two other connections between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea existed in the past: the Betic Corridor (southern Spain) and the Rifian Corridor (northern Morocco). The former closed during Tortonian times, thus providing a "Tortonian Salinity Crisis" well before the MSC; the latter closed about 6 Ma, allowing exchanges in the mammal fauna between Africa and Europe. Nowadays, evaporation is more relevant than the water yield supplied by riverine water and precipitation, so that salinity in the Mediterranean is higher than in the Atlantic. These conditions result in the outflow of warm saline Mediterranean deep water across Gibraltar, which is in turn counterbalanced by an inflow of a less saline surface current of cold oceanic water.
The Mediterranean was once thought to be the remnant of the Tethys Ocean. It is now known to be a structurally younger ocean basin known as Neotethys. The Neotethys formed during the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic rifting of the African and Eurasian plates.
Paleoclimate
Because of its latitudinal position and its land-locked configuration, the Mediterranean is especially sensitive to astronomically induced climatic variations, which are well documented in its sedimentary record. Since the Mediterranean is involved in the deposition of eolian dust from the Sahara during dry periods, whereas riverine detrital input prevails during wet ones, the Mediterranean marine sapropel-bearing sequences provide high-resolution climatic information. These data have been employed in reconstructing astronomically calibrated time scales for the last 9 Ma of the Earth's history, helping to constrain the time of past Geomagnetic Reversals.[38] Furthermore, the exceptional accuracy of these paleoclimatic records have improved our knowledge of the Earth's orbital variations in the past.
Ecology and biota
As a result of the drying of the sea during the Messinian salinity crisis,[39] the marine biota of the Mediterranean are derived primarily from the Atlantic Ocean. The North Atlantic is considerably colder and more nutrient-rich than the Mediterranean, and the marine life of the Mediterranean has had to adapt to its differing conditions in the five million years since the basin was reflooded.
The Alboran Sea is a transition zone between the two seas, containing a mix of Mediterranean and Atlantic species. The Alboran Sea has the largest population of Bottlenose Dolphins in the western Mediterranean, is home to the last population of harbour porpoises in the Mediterranean, and is the most important feeding grounds for Loggerhead Sea Turtles in Europe. The Alboran sea also hosts important commercial fisheries, including sardines and swordfish. The Mediterranean monk seals live in the Aegean Sea in Greece. In 2003, the World Wildlife Fund raised concerns about the widespread drift net fishing endangering populations of dolphins, turtles, and other marine animals.
Environmental threats
Biodiversity
Invasive species
The Reticulate whipray is one of the species that colonised the eastern Mediterranean through the Suez Canal.
The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 created the first salt-water passage between the Mediterranean and Red Sea. The Red Sea is higher than the Eastern Mediterranean, so the canal serves as a tidal strait that pours Red Sea water into the Mediterranean. The Bitter Lakes, which are hyper-saline natural lakes that form part of the canal, blocked the migration of Red Sea species into the Mediterranean for many decades, but as the salinity of the lakes gradually equalized with that of the Red Sea, the barrier to migration was removed, and plants and animals from the Red Sea have begun to colonise the Eastern Mediterranean. The Red Sea is generally saltier and more nutrient-poor than the Atlantic, so the Red Sea species have advantages over Atlantic species in the salty and nutrient-poor Eastern Mediterranean. Accordingly, Red Sea species invade the Mediterranean biota, and not vice versa; this phenomenon is known as the Lessepsian migration (after Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French engineer) or Erythrean invasion. The construction of the Aswan High Dam across the Nile River in the 1960s reduced the inflow of freshwater and nutrient-rich silt from the Nile into the Eastern Mediterranean, making conditions there even more like the Red Sea and worsening the impact of the invasive species.
Invasive species have become a major component of the Mediterranean ecosystem and have serious impacts on the Mediterranean ecology, endangering many local and endemic Mediterranean species. A first look at some groups of exotic species show that more than 70% of the non-indigenous decapods and about 63% of the exotic fishes occurring in the Mediterranean are of Indo Pacific origin,[40] introduced into the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal. This makes the Canal as the first pathway of arrival of "alien" species into the Mediterranean. The impacts of some lessepsian species have proven to be considerable mainly in the Levantine basin of the Mediterranean, where they are replacing native species and becoming a "familiar sight".
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature definition, as well as Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and Ramsar Convention terminologies, they are alien species, as they are non-native (non-indigenous) to the Mediterranean Sea, and they are outside their normal area of distribution which is the Indo-Pacific region. When these species succeed in establishing populations in the Mediterranean sea, compete with and begin to replace native species they are "Alien Invasive Species", as they are an agent of change and a threat to the native biodiversity. In the context of CBD, "introduction" refers to the movement by human agency, indirect or direct, of an alien species outside of its natural range (past or present). The Suez Canal, being an artificial (man made) canal, is a human agency. Lessepsian migrants are therefore "introduced" species (indirect, and unintentional). Whatever wording is chosen, they represent a threat to the native Mediterranean biodiversity, because they are non-indigenous to this sea. In recent years, the Egyptian government's announcement of its intentions to deepen and widen the canal have raised concerns from marine biologists, fearing that such an act will only worsen the invasion of Red Sea species into the Mediterranean, facilitating the crossing of the canal for yet additional species.
Arrival of new tropical Atlantic species
In recent decades, the arrival of exotic species from the tropical Atlantic has become a noticeable feature. Whether this reflects an expansion of the natural area of these species that now enter the Mediterranean through the Gibraltar strait, because of a warming trend of the water caused by Global Warming; or an extension of the maritime traffic; or is simply the result of a more intense scientific investigation, is still an open question. While not as intense as the "lessepsian" movement, the process may be scientific interest and may therefore warrant increased levels of monitoring.
Sea-level rise
By 2100, the overall level of the Mediterranean could rise between 3 to 61 cm (1.2 to 24.0 in) as a result of the effects of climate change.[42] This could have adverse effects on populations across the Mediterranean:
Rising sea levels will submerge parts of Malta. Rising sea levels will also mean rising salt water levels in Malta's groundwater supply and reduce the availability of drinking water.[43]
A 30 cm (12 in) rise in sea level would flood 200 square kilometres (77 sq mi) of the Nile Delta, displacing over 500,000 Egyptians.[44]
Coastal ecosystems also appear to be threatened by sea level rise, especially enclosed seas such as the Baltic, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. These seas have only small and primarily east-west movement corridors, which may restrict northward displacement of organisms in these areas.[45] Sea level rise for the next century (2100) could be between 30 cm (12 in) and 100 cm (39 in) and temperature shifts of a mere 0.05-0.1°C in the deep sea are sufficient to induce significant changes in species richness and functional diversity.
Pollution
Pollution in this region has been extremely high in recent years.[when?] The United Nations Environment Programme has estimated that 650,000,000 t (720,000,000 short tons) of sewage, 129,000 t (142,000 short tons) of mineral oil, 60,000 t (66,000 short tons) of mercury, 3,800 t (4,200 short tons) of lead and 36,000 t (40,000 short tons) of phosphates are dumped into the Mediterranean each year.[47] The Barcelona Convention aims to 'reduce pollution in the Mediterranean Sea and protect and improve the marine environment in the area, thereby contributing to its sustainable development.'[48] Many marine species have been almost wiped out because of the sea's pollution. One of them is the Mediterranean Monk Seal which is considered to be among the world's most endangered marine mammals.[49]
The Mediterranean is also plagued by marine debris. A 1994 study of the seabed using trawl nets around the coasts of Spain, France and Italy reported a particularly high mean concentration of debris; an average of 1,935 items per km². Plastic debris accounted for 76%, of which 94% was plastic bags.
Shipping
Some of the world's busiest shipping routes are in the Mediterranean Sea. It is estimated that approximately 220,000 merchant vessels of more than 100 tonnes cross the Mediterranean Sea each year—about one third of the world's total merchant shipping. These ships often carry hazardous cargo, which if lost would result in severe damage to the marine environment.
The discharge of chemical tank washings and oily wastes also represent a significant source of marine pollution. The Mediterranean Sea constitutes 0.7% of the global water surface and yet receives seventeen percent of global marine oil pollution. It is estimated that every year between 100,000 t (98,000 long tons) and 150,000 t (150,000 long tons) of crude oil are deliberately released into the sea from shipping activities.
Approximately 370,000,000 t (360,000,000 long tons) of oil are transported annually in the Mediterranean Sea (more than 20% of the world total), with around 250-300 oil tankers crossing the Sea every day. Accidental oil spills happen frequently with an average of 10 spills per year. A major oil spill could occur at any time in any part of the Mediterranean.
Tourism
With a unique combination of pleasant climate, beautiful coastline, rich history and diverse culture the Mediterranean region is the most popular tourist destination in the world—attracting approximately one third of the world's international tourists.
Tourism is one of the most important sources of income for many Mediterranean countries. It also supports small communities in coastal areas and islands by providing alternative sources of income far from urban centres. However, tourism has also played major role in the degradation of the coastal and marine environment. Rapid development has been encouraged by Mediterranean governments to support the large numbers of tourists visiting the region each year. But this has caused serious disturbance to marine habitats such as erosion and pollution in many places along the Mediterranean coasts.
Tourism often concentrates in areas of high natural wealth, causing a serious threat to the habitats of endangered Mediterranean species such as sea turtles and monk seals. Reductions in natural wealth may reduce incentives for tourists to visit
Overfishing
Fish stock levels in the Mediterranean Sea are alarmingly low. The European Environment Agency says that over 65% of all fish stocks in the region are outside safe biological limits and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, that some of the most important fisheries—such as albacore and bluefin tuna, hake, marlin, swordfish, red mullet and sea bream—are threatened.[date missing]
There are clear indications that catch size and quality have declined, often dramatically, and in many areas larger and longer-lived species have disappeared entirely from commercial catches.
Large open water fish like tuna have been a shared fisheries resource for thousands of years but the stocks are now dangerously low. In 1999, Greenpeace published a report revealing that the amount of bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean had decreased by over 80% in the previous 20 years and government scientists warn that without immediate action the stock will collapse.
Aquacultur
Aquaculture is expanding rapidly—often without proper environmental assessment—and currently accounts for 30% of the fish protein consumed worldwide. The industry claims that farmed seafood lessens the pressure on wild fish stocks, yet many of the farmed species are carnivorous, consuming up to five times their weight in wild fish.
Mediterranean coastal areas are already over exposed to human influence, with pristine areas becoming ever scarcer. The aquaculture sector adds to this pressure, requiring areas of high water quality to set up farms. The installation of fish farms close to vulnerable and important habitats such as seagrass meadows is particularly concerning.
Details best viewed in Original Size.
We were on a safari drive when G (Gaone), our guide/driver, stopped our vehicle and pointed to a speck in the distance that was this Bateleur attempting to make a meal of the bone in its talons. In each of the camps we went, the guides and trackers displayed remarkable eye sights, often pointing out targets where the four or six guests in the vehicle had seen nothing!
The Bateleur is a medium-sized eagle with its closest relatives being the snake eagles. It is the only member of its genus and may be the origin of the "Zimbabwe Bird", national emblem of Zimbabwe. It is endemic to Africa and small parts of Arabia. "Bateleur" is French for "Street Performer". The average adult is 22 to 28 inches (55 to 70cm) long with a 6-foot (186cm) wingspan and adults weigh typically between 4.5 and 5.75 lbs. (2 to 2.6kg). The Bateleur is a colorful species with a very short tail which, together with its white underwing coverts, makes it unmistakable in flight. The tail is so small the bird's legs protrude slightly beyond the tail during flight. The Bateleur is sexually dimorphic; both adults have black plumage, a chestnut mantle and tail, grey shoulders, tawny wing coverts, and red facial skin, bill and legs. The female additionally has tawny secondary wing feathers. Less commonly, the mantle may be white. Immature birds are brown with white dappling, have greenish facial skin and it takes them seven or eight years to reach full maturity.
Info above was extracted from Wikipedia.
Tonight's collection of average Wheeling shots were taken on the way home from the assisted care center in Massillon. As soon as I got to the car, the dispatcher was giving 214 a TW east from Brewster. Had a pretty good plan it could be caught but road work put a dent in Plan A but Plan B came through with about 2 minutes to spare. The other posting shows it by the cemetery across from Ft Laurens at around 4:20. From there the route home for National Hot Dog Day takes me through Akron where 291 is often ready to depart around 5:30 and it was today. This second shot is coming by North Akron. Unfortunately, the frequent problem of switching the lumber yard in Copley prevents a second shot in Medina.
At an average size of only 4 inches, the Texas Banded Gecko is the smallest of the North American Coleonyx. They are most often found crossing roads at night with their tail curled up over their body, resembling a scorpion. They are especially common during nights of high humidity or after rain showers.
On average, over 80 inches of rain falls in Silver Falls State Park in Oregon. Moss covers the trees and wildflowers bloom along the trails.
Our condo entrance. This is typical Korean style and not some fancy place--just very average. It is true that the maintenance of the roads, sidewalks and crosswalks is very meticulous by western standards. So too was the original construction. They build sidewalks and portions of roadways using individually cut square stones like the black and white stones you can see in the sidewalk to the left (and also on the other side of the road). They like these colorful striped and earth-toned pavements at intersections and to highlight speed bumps and crosswalks wherever they appear.
The street maintenance workers do very time-intensive and meticulous work. We westerners might call it a waste of money or "make-work" but it is not. It's employment for many people of all ages and we have no homeless problem here. We have very strict litter clearance of roadways and sidewalks in general. This is especially true in the more intensely populated parts of the city like this condo complex. Generally speaking, the more heavily populated an area is the cleaner it is kept. Which is the complete opposite of what one would think. Litter is more of a problem on the edges of town where its harder to get crews to cover all the roadways.
Korea is far from alone as far as the streets and sidewalks being made this way. Lisbon, Portugal does this as does Rio de Janeiro and I've seen it elsewhere around Europe. I think the Mexicans do it in places as well.
Wonju, South Korea
Konica Genba Kantoku 35mm f/3.5 on Fuji 200.
July, 2022
The mountains average 300+ inches of snow a year. The valley, in the immediate rain shadow of the mountains, averages about 40 inches a year. Because the sun 'burns' the valley snow off rather quickly, the valley is often open and without much snow cover. Winter pasture!
Family: Phoenicopteridae
Length: 1.2 to 1.45m Wingspan: 1.4 to 1.7m Weight: 3 to 4kg (Males tend to be larger than females). Lifespan: Averaging between 30 to 40 years. (In captivity, The Greater Flamingo has been known to live 50 to 60 years plus).
This is the largest living species of Flamingo and is found in parts of North Africa, Southern Asia, (mainly around the coastal regions of India and Pakistan). In Europe, they are more locally around the Southern parts of Europe, from Spain, Portugal, along the coastal regions of Southern France, as well as other southern and Eastern countries, bordering on the Mediterranean coast line; also found in the Middle Eastern countries.
Habitat: Found in a variety of saltwater habitats, especially shallow coastal lagoons, salt pans, mudflats, also alkaline lakes. Flamingos maybe even be seen feeding from freshwater inlets and lakes.
Some of the Flamingos natural habitats are under threat, mainly due to building developments close by, especially pollution from manufacturing Industries that produce chemical wastes. When pollution is spilled into their natural water supplies, the habitat can instantly die!
Here in Spain, The Greater Flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber) are seen in large numbers on the Salt lakes in Santa Pola, Alicante. (Incidentally this is where most of these images were taken from).
Flamingos are social birds, they will be seen mainly in flocks, (Flamingo flocks are referred to as a ‘colony,’ or a ‘stand’).
Feeding:
Greater Flamingos are omnivores and are filter-feeders. They usually feed head submerged, with its bill upside down, sieving through the shallow water for small crustaceans. This is achieved by sucking in the water through the partly closed bill, the water is then pushed out by pumping their tongue up and down continuously, (about 5 to 6 times a second) this can last up to 20 seconds while the head is still submerged. It was fascinating observing them as they scuffle their feet, disturbing the underwater sediment, for tiny crustaceans, such as shrimp, molluscs, tiny fish, plankton and insect larvae. Plant material is also eaten, such as decaying leaves, algae, seeds, and small young water plants.
While observing I did notice that each bird (if not paired up) preferred their own “elbow” space. The odd peck, scuffle or short chase did occur occasionally, especially if one came too close to another, while it was feeding.
The immature Flamingo lacks the mature Flamingos colourful, pinkish-white body plumage and red wing coverts; also lacking the colourful pink bill, with a black tip. The adults attain their colourful plumage, which mainly comes from their diet of shrimp and other pink crustaceans, living in the warm saltwater.
Nesting: April to May. Consisting of a small pillar/mound of mud, constructed in shallow water, usually safe from land-based predators. One chalky-white egg is laid, both parents take it in turn to incubate the egg, which usually takes between 27 to 31 days to hatch. While the chick is hatching, the parents will help the young chick to break away the shell.
Flamingo nests are plundered, mainly by seagulls, raptors, crows and I suspect herons and egrets will also take the opportunity if a nest is left unattended. Chicks are covered mostly in grey with some white, fluffy down. The new born chick being more vulnerable to predation, in their early days of life. The Chick will be fed entirely by both parents for up to four weeks or more. While feeding, both parents produce a rich creamy pink liquid, this is known as “crop-milk”. A chick will fledge around ten weeks but will remain in the “flamingo creches” for another month. Each chick has its own unique call, remarkably the parent birds are able to distinguish their chicks call, amongst hundreds and sometimes thousands of other young chicks, that are grouped together in these “flamingo creches”. Flamingos have just one brood/chick a year.
Flamingo chicks are grey and white when born and do not develop their pink colouration for around 2 years. The chick is fed for at least the first 3 – 4 weeks entirely by the parents who secrete a creamy pink liquid called ‘crop milk’ which comes from the parents upper digestive tract. Either parent can feed the chick this way and other flamingos can act as foster feeders.
The chicks fledge after 10 weeks, but remain in creches for a further month. The chick is born with a straight bill which starts to curve at about one month and can filter feed properly at two and a half months. Amazingly, the adult flamingo is able to locate its chick from hundreds or thousands of other chicks, by its ‘call’.
Flamingos are fully grown at 2 years and are able to mate at 3 years. Most flamingos will not breed for the first time until they are 5 to 10 years old. Flamingos may not breed when wetlands are dry and food is scarce. Some years, their feeding pools are teeming with life and there is plenty of food with which to feed their chicks. However, other years the pools are nearly empty. As a result, flamingos may only breed when conditions are just right.
The Greater Flamingo can live to the age of over 60 years old in captivity. The average life span in the wild is around 30 – 40 years.
Lakhta story. youtu.be/j8uuH89ZiAM
Lahti. Lakhta ?This small village on the northern shore of the Gulf of Finland, about 15 km northwest of the city, is home to human settlements on the banks of the Neva. It was on the territory of Lakhta that the remains of a man’s parking site of three thousand years ago were found.
In official documents, a settlement named Lakhta dates back to 1500. The name is derived from the Finnish-speaking word lahti - "bay". This is one of the few settlements that has not changed its name throughout its 500-year history. Also known as Laches, Lahes-by, Lahes and was originally inhabited by Izhora. In the last decades of the 15th century, Lakhta was a village (which indicates a significant population) and was the center of the eponymous grand-parish volost, which was part of the Spassko-Gorodensky graveyard of the Orekhovsky district of the Vodskaya Pyatina. In the village, there were 10 courtyards with 20 people (married men). In Lakhta, on average, there were 2 families per yard, and the total population of the village probably reached 75 people.
From the notes on the margins of the Swedish scribe book of the Spassky graveyard of 1640, it follows that the lands along the lower reaches of the Neva River and parts of the Gulf of Finland, including Lakhta Karelskaya, Perekulya (from the Finnish “back village”, probably because of its position relative to Lakhti) and Konduy Lakhtinsky, were royal by letter of honor on January 15, 1638 transferred to the possession of the Stockholm dignitary, Rickschulz general Bernhard Sten von Stenhausen, a Dutchman by birth. On October 31, 1648, the Swedish government granted these lands to the city of Nyuen (Nyenschanz). With the arrival of the Swedes in Prievye, Lakhta was settled by the Finns, who until the middle of the 20th century made up the vast majority of the villagers.
On December 22, 1766, Catherine 2 granted Lakhta Manor, which was then in the Office of the Chancellery from the buildings of palaces and gardens, "in which and in her villages with courtyards 208 souls," her favorite Count Orlov. Not later than 1768, Count J.A. Bruce took over the estate. In 1788, Lakhta Manor was listed behind him with wooden services on a dry land (high place) and the villages Lakhta, Dubki, Lisiy Nos and Konnaya belonging to it also on dry land, in those villages of male peasants 238 souls. On May 1, 1813, Lakhta passed into the possession of the landowners of the Yakovlevs. On October 5, 1844, Count A.I. Stenbok-Fermor entered into the possession of the Lakhtinsky estate, which then had 255 male souls. This clan was the owner of the estate until 1912, when its last representative got into debt and noble custody was established over the estate. On October 4, 1913, in order to pay off his debts, he was forced to go for corporatization, and the Lakhta estate passed into the ownership of the Joint Stock Company “Lakhta” of Count Stenbock-Fermor and Co.
After the revolution, Lakhta was left on its own for a while, here on the former estate of the counts Stenbock-Fermorov on May 19, 1919, the Lakhta excursion station was opened, which existed there until 1932. In the early 1920s, sand mining began on Lakhta beaches, and the abandoned and dilapidated peat plant of the Lakhta estate in 1922 took over the Oblzemotdel and put it into operation after major repairs. In 1963, the village of Lakhta was included in the Zhdanovsky (Primorsky) district of Leningrad (St. Petersburg).
At the beginning of Lakhtinsky Prospekt, on the banks of the Lakhtinsky spill, there was the village of Rakhilax (Rahilax-hof, Rahila, Rokhnovo). Most likely, under this name only one or several courtyards are designated. There is an assumption that the name of the village was formed from the Finnish raahata - “drag, drag,” because there could be a place for transportation through the isthmus of the Lakhtinsky spill (we should not forget that not only the bridge over the channel connecting the spill with the Gulf of Finland was not yet here, the duct itself was many times wider than the current one). The search book of the Spassko-Gorodensky graveyard of 1573, describing the Lakhta lands, mentions that there were 2 lodges in the “Rovgunov” village, from which we can conclude that we are talking about the village of Rohilaks, which the Russian scribes remade into a more understandable to them Rovgunovo. The village was empty in Swedish time and was counted as a wasteland of the village of Lahta.
On the banks of the Lakhtinsky spill, near the confluence of the Yuntolovka River, from the 17th century there existed the village of Bobylka (Bobylskaya), which merged into the village of Olgino only at the beginning of the 20th century, but was found on maps until the 1930s. It is probably the Search Book that mentions it Spassko-Gorodensky churchyard in 1573 as a village "in Lakhta in Perekui", behind which there was 1 obzh. With the arrival of the Swedes by royal letter on January 15, 1638, the village was transferred to the possession of the Stockholm dignitary, Rickshaw General Bernhard Sten von Stenhausen, a Dutchman by birth. On October 31, 1648, the Swedish government granted Lahti lands to the city of Nyuen (Nyenschanz). On the Swedish map of the 1670s, in the place of the village of Bobylsky, the village of Lahakeülä is marked (küla - the village (Fin.)). The village could subsequently be called Bobyl from the Russian word "bobyl."
The owners of Bobylskaya were both Count Orlov, and Count Y. A. Bruce, and the landowners Yakovlev. In 1844, Count A.I. Stenbok-Fermor entered into the possession of the Lakhtinsky estate (which included the village of Bobyl). This family was the owner of the estate until 1913, when the owners, in order to pay off their debts, had to go for corporatization, and the Lakhta estate was transferred to the ownership of the Lakhta Joint-Stock Company of Count Stenbock-Fermor and Co. By the middle of the 20th century, the village merged with the village of Lakhta.
The name Konnaya Lakhta (Konnaya) has been known since the 16th century, although earlier it sounded like Konduya (Konduya Lakhtinskaya) or just Kondu (from the Finnish kontu - courtyard, manor). Subsequently, this name was replaced by the more familiar Russian ear with the word "Horse". In the Search Book of the Spassko-Gorodensky Pogost in 1573, it is mentioned as the village "on Kovdui", where 1 obzh was listed, which indicates that there most likely was one yard. On January 15, 1638, together with neighboring villages, it was transferred to the possession of the Stockholm dignitary, Rickschulz General Bernhard Steen von Stenhausen, of Dutch origin. On October 31, 1648, the Swedish government granted these lands to the city of Nyuen (Nyenschanz). In a deed of gift, Konduya Lakhtinskaya is called a village, which indicates a noticeable increase in its population. Later, on the Swedish map of the 1670s, on the site of the present Horse Lahti, the village of Konda-bai is marked (by - village (sv)).
The owners of Konnaya Lakhta, as well as the villages of Bobylskaya and Lakhta, were in turn Count Orlov, Count Ya. A. Bruce, and the landowners Yakovlev. In 1844, Count A.I. Stenbok-Fermor entered the possession of the Lakhta estate (which included Konnaya Lakhta. This family was the owner of the estate until 1913, when the owners had to go to corporations to pay off their debts, and the Lakhta estate became the property of Lakhta Joint Stock Company of Count Stenbock-Fermor and Co. In 1963, Horse Lahta was included in the Zhdanov (Primorsky) district of Leningrad (St. Petersburg).
As the dacha village of Olgino appeared at the end of the 19th century and initially consisted of both Olgin itself and the villages of Vladimirovka (now part of Lisiy Nos) and Aleksandrovka. In the first half of the 18th century, this territory was part of the Verpelev palace estate, which in the second half of the 18th century was granted to Count G. G. Orlov, then it was owned by the family of landowners the Yakovlevs, in the middle of the 19th century the estate was transferred to the counts of Stenbock-Fermor. In 1905 A.V. Stenbok-Fermor, the then owner of Lakhta lands, divided the lands around Lakhta into separate plots with the intention of selling them profitably for dachas. So there were the villages of Olgino (named after the wife of Olga Platonovna), Vladimirovka (in honor of the father of the owner; the coastal part of the modern village of Lisy Nos) and Alexandrov or Aleksandrovskaya (in honor of Alexander Vladimirovich himself). It is likely that on the site of the village was the village of Olushino (Olushino odhe) - a search book of the Spassko-Gorodensky churchyard in 1573 mentions that there were 1 obzh in the village of Olushkov’s, which suggests that at least one residential the yard. On behalf of Olushka (Olpherius). Most likely, the village was deserted in Swedish time and then was already listed as a wasteland belonging to the village of Lahta. Thus, the name of the village could be given in harmony with the name of the mistress and the old name of the village.
The villages were planned among a sparse pine forest (the layout was preserved almost unchanged), so there were more amenities for living and spending time there than in Lakhta. A park was set up here, a summer theater, a sports ("gymnastic") playground, a tennis court, and a yacht club were arranged.
In the 1910s about 150 winter cottages were built in Olgino, many of which are striking monuments of "summer cottage" architecture. In 1963, the village of Olgino was included in the Zhdanovsky (Primorsky) district of Leningrad (St. Petersburg).
Near Olgino, in the area of the Dubki park, there was a small village Verpeleva (Verpelevo), which consisted of only a few yards. In the first half of the XVIII century. this territory was part of the palace estate "Verpeleva", which in the second half of the XVIII century. It was granted to Count G. G. Orlov, then passed to the Counts of Stenbock-Fermor. The village has not existed for a long time, but the entire reed-covered peninsula (barely protruding above the water of the Verpier-Luda peninsula (Verper Luda (from the Finnish luoto - “small rocky island”)) still existed, and there was another spelling the name of this island is Var Pala Ludo).
Kamenka. The Novgorod scribal book mentions two villages in the Lakhta region with a similar name, referring to the possessions of Selivan Zakharov, son of Okhten, with his son and 5 other co-owners. On the lands of this small patrimony, which, unlike the estate was inherited, peasants lived in 3 villages, including: the village "Kamenka in Lakhta near the sea" in 5 yards with 5 people and arable land in 1,5 obzhi, the village "on Kamenka "in 2 courtyards with 2 people and arable land in 1 obzhu. For the use of land, the peasants paid the owners of the patrimony 16 money and gave 1/3 of the rye harvest. Thus, in the 16th century on the Kamenka River (another name for the Kiviyoki River, which is the literal translation of kivi - "stone", joki - "river") there was one large village of Kamenka near its confluence with the Lakhtinsky spill and the second, smaller, somewhere upstream. On the drawing of Izhora land in 1705, a village under this name is depicted in the area of the modern village of Kamenka. The village of Kamennaya in the middle reaches of Kamenka and on the map of 1792 is designated. Other name options are Kaumenkka, Kiviaja.
In the second half of the 18th century, Kamenka became a vacation spot for Russian Germans. Here in 1865, German colonists founded their "daughter" colony on leased land. Since then, the village has received the name Kamenka Colony (so called until the 1930s). In 1892, a colony near the village of Volkovo "budded" from it. The inhabitants of both colonies belonged to the Novo-Saratov parish and since 1871 had a prayer house in Kamenka, which was visited by 250 people. He maintained a school for 40 students. The house was closed in 1935 and later demolished.
Currently, Kamenka exists as a holiday village, located along the road to Levashovo. Since 1961 - in the city, part of the planning area in the North-West, from the mid-1990s. built up with multi-storey residential buildings and cottages.
Volkovo. The settlement is about southeast of the village of Kamenka - on the old road to Kamenka, on the bank of a stream that flows into Kamenka between the village of Kamenka and the Shuvalovsky quarry. In 1892, a German colony emerged on the territory of the village, "budding" from a nearby colony in the village of Kamenka. The origin of Volkovo is not clear, the village is found only on maps of 1912, 1930, 1939, 1943. and probably appeared no earlier than the 19th century.
Kolomyagi. Scribe books of the XV — XVI centuries and Swedish plans testify that small settlements already existed on the site of Kolomyag. Most likely, these were first Izhora or Karelian, then Finnish farms, which were empty during the hostilities of the late XVII century.
The name "Kolomyag" connoisseurs decipher in different ways. Some say that it came from the "colo" - in Finnish cave and "pulp" - a hill, a hill. The village is located on the hills, and such an interpretation is quite acceptable. Others look for the root of the name in the Finnish word "koaa" - bark - and believe that trees were processed here after felling. Another version of the origin of the name from the Finnish "kello" is the bell, and it is associated not with the feature of the mountain, but with the "bell on the mountain" - a tower with a signal bell standing on a hill.
The owners of Kolomyazhsky lands were Admiral General A.I. Osterman, Count A.P. Bestuzhev-Ryumin, a family of Volkonsky. In 1789, the Volkonskys sold these lands to retired colonel Sergei Savvich Yakovlev. On his estate S. S. Yakovlev built a manor and lived in it with his wife and seven daughters. The once-Finnish population of Kolomyag was “Russified” by that time - it was made up of descendants of serfs resettled by Osterman and Bestuzhev-Rumin from their villages in Central Russia (natives of the Volga and Galich) and Ukraine. Then the name "Kellomyaki" began to sound in Russian fashion - "Kolomyagi", although later the old name also existed, especially among local Finns. And not without reason the indigenous Kolomozhites associate their origin with the Volga places, and the southern half of the village is now called “Galician”.
Yakovlev died in 1818. Five years after his death, a division of the territory of the manor was made. The village of Kolomyagi was divided in half between two of his daughters. The border was the Bezymyanny stream. The southeastern part of the village of Kolomyagi beyond Bezymyanny creek and a plot on the banks of the Bolshaya Nevka passed to the daughter Ekaterina Sergeevna Avdulina.
Daughter Yakovleva Elena Sergeevna - the wife of General Alexei Petrovich Nikitin, a hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, who was awarded the highest military orders and twice a gold sword with the inscription "For courage", died early, leaving her daughter Elizabeth. The northwestern part of Kolomyag inherited the young Elizabeth, so this part of Kolomyag was practically inherited by the father of Yakovlev’s granddaughter, Count A.P. Nikitin, who in 1832 became the owner of the entire village. It is his name that is stored in the names of the streets - 1st and 2nd Nikitinsky and Novo-Nikitinsky. The new owner built a stone mansion on the estate’s estate - an excellent example of classicism of the first third of the 19th century, which became his country house and has survived to this day and has been occupied until recently by the Nursing Home. It is believed that this mansion was built according to the project of the famous architect A.I. Melnikov. The severity and modesty of the architectural appearance of the facades and residential chambers of the Nikitin mansion was opposed by the splendor of ceremonial interiors, in particular the two-light dance hall with choirs for musicians. Unfortunately, with repeated alterations and repairs, many details of the decor and stucco emblems of the owners disappeared. Only two photographs of the 1920s and preserved fragments of ornamental molding and paintings on the walls and ceiling show the past richness of the decorative decoration of this architectural monument. The mansion was surrounded by a small park. In it stood a stone pagan woman brought from the southern steppes of Russia (transferred to the Hermitage), and a pond with a plakun waterfall was built. Near the pond there was a "walk of love" from the "paradise" apple trees - it was called so because the bride and groom passed through it after the wedding. Here, in the shadow of these apple trees, young lovers made appointments.
Under the Orlov-Denisov opposite the mansion (now Main Street, 29), the structures of an agricultural farm were erected, partially preserved to this day, and the greenhouse. Behind the farm were the master's fields. On them, as the New Time newspaper reported in August 1880, they tested the reaping and shearing machines brought from America.
In the 19th century, the provincial surveyor Zaitsev submitted for approval the highway called the Kolomyagskoye Shosse. The route was supposed to connect the village, gradually gaining fame as a summer residence of the "middle arm", with St. Petersburg. The construction of the road ended in the 1840s, and then horse-drawn and country-house crafts became the most important articles of peasant income. In addition, peasants either built small dachas in their yards, or rented their huts for the summer. Located away from the roads, surrounded by fields, the village was chosen by multi-family citizens.
The income from the summer cottage industry increased from year to year, which was facilitated by the summer movement of omnibuses that opened on the new highway from the City Council building. They walked four times a day, each accommodated 16 people, the fare cost 15 kopecks. Even when the Finnish Railway with the nearest Udelnaya station came into operation in 1870, the highway remained the main access road through which public carriages pulled by a trio of horses ran from the Stroganov (now Ushakovsky) bridge.
The importance of the highway has decreased since 1893, when traffic began along the Ozerkovskaya branch of the Primorsky Railway, built by the engineer P.A. Avenarius, the founder of the Sestroretsky resort.
I'm just a normal guy, just as plain as one can be.
My Mum & Dad were average folks, & that's how they raised me
I don't understand it, it's to normal things I'm geared
By day my life is sane, but at night my dreams are weird
I'm just a normal fella who goes off to work each day
I do my job, lunch with my mates, each week collect my pay
But in the night I dread the bed, each night is just the same
Cause all my dreams are kinky, one overnight sick game.
I'm dressed in a G-string tied in a bow
There's a chicken in a garter belt, Oh God no!
Birds fly by and wolf whistle overhead
Don't roll over there's a roo in the bed ...
15 Strippers all in a row
All with bra-straps ready to blow
One pretty lady dancin' in my lap
Don't you touch or you'll get a nasty slap.
I'm just a normal guy, just as plain as one can be.
My Mum & Dad were average folks, & that's how they raised me
I think one day when I was small, Ma dropped me in the sink
By day I'm just a normal sod, by all my dreams are kinked
I'd like to have a girlfriend, but it just never does work out
We get on fine until they find what my night dreams are about
Then they drop me like a stone, they say they can't compete
With nude three-breasted women with vibrators on their feet
Hippos in tutus, hot oil & cream
Chains and whips all to make me scream
Lizards & snakes all in strange places
They're gettin' it on & making lewd faces
When dreaming the nightclubs everywhere
Are chock full of animals in underwear
Teddy Bears in teddies, wombats in hot pants
All we need now is a couple thousand ants
I'm just a normal guy, just as plain as one can be.
My Mum & Dad were average folks, & that's how they raised me
My life could be near perfect, my life could be real fun
If only when I slept, the chorus girls weren't dressed like nuns
I went to see a famous shrink, to straighten out my head
I told him if I can't get fixed I might as well be dead
He laid me down & said "tell me of your erotic dreams"
I said "One feather is erotic, not whole chickens soaked in cream!"
There are female wrestlers all covered in jelly
Exotic dancers doing things with their bellies
A cute sexy lady, covered in mud
Whispers in my ear with the voice of Elmer Fudd
There are strong males strippers with bricks in their jocks
With all those square corners, they couldn't be socks
This stuff all around me is one kinky dream
Whatever you imagine, I'm sure to have a theme
I guess it is my lot to life, can't beat it so I'll join
I suppose that they are only dreams they don't even cost a coin
So if at night you happen to hear me in my sleep
Just think, "that lucky bugger, is dancing naked, tending sheep."
I'm just a normal guy, just as plain as one can be.
My Mum & Dad were average folks, & that's how they raised me
I don't under stand it, it's to normal things I'm geared
By day my life is sane, but at night my dreams are weird
~S. L. (Woody) Meltcher
IMG_3480
11 Mar 11
As common as the ore trains on the Missabe is the fleet of northbound intermodal trains that use this line as part of directional running in conjunction with the former DWP used by southbounds. On this specific northbound we see ES44DC 2266 on the head end while another modern GE works as a mid train DPU about 2/3rds of the way through the train. Once they hit Shelton Jct a few miles north, this train will hop onto the DWP mainline to continue north towards the crew change point at Rainer, Minnesota
#5_MobilePhone_ICM_GeneralPostProcessing_AverageCameraPro
March 23, 2022: Eight frames in Average Camera Pro during a walk at Pepper Tree Playfield in Newbury Park, California.
Average red-bellied trogon of subtropical forests. Male is iridescent green on breast, head, and back; female is brown. Namesake dark mask is usually obvious, especially on females. Nearly identical to Collared Trogon but very little overlap; Masked is almost always found at higher elevations. Where both are possible, look especially at tail pattern on males: large white tips on underside of tail feathers, otherwise dark with very fine white barring.
This one was photographed in Ecuador guided by Neotropic Photo Tours. ISO 16,000.
Two shots this evening but no need to comment on the second one, because it is just for talking purposes. The second shot is of Big Boy and he got that name by being THE largest gator on the bayou. Gary and I don’t like to exaggerate and so we set his length at 13 feet. Not a very good shot because of the backlighting and I don’t handle situations like that very well. I wasn’t willing to get out of the canoe and walk around the other side of so this scene will just have to do.
The second one is just your ol’ basic 9 or 10 foot gator that inhabits the bayou. He’s an average size and it is a male because the females don’t get this large. He was sunning himself on a gorgeous spring day on the bayou. Photos were all taken on Horsepen Bayou.
DSL_7873uls
Nov. 28, 2022: Christmas Tree located at Janss Marketplace in Thousand Oaks, California. Average Camera Pro.
Glacier travel in Huascarán National Park. Cordillera Blanca Mountain Range in the Peruvian Andes.
Converted from an old slide. July, 1983.
This result is a simple five exposure average, performed in the Batch - Average mode of Photomatix, with adjustment in Lightroom.
The unevenness in the sky enhanced by the tone mapping process in a prior attempt is gone. The color and contrast are much better as well.
This image was featured in Flickr's Explore, highest position: 72 on Wednesday, November 7, 2012.
Tool bit vending machine. This was located in a local engineering company workshop. Any time they needed a new tool bit they just paid and got one from the machine. No waiting. The machine would send a stock message back to head office and they could keep track of which tools were most required and restock the racks accordingly.
Venedig - Canal Grande
seen from Rialto Bridge
gesehen von der Rialtobrücke
The Grand Canal (Italian: Canal Grande [kaˌnal ˈɡrande]; Venetian: Canal Grando, anciently Canałasso [kanaˈɰaso]) is a channel in Venice, Italy. It forms one of the major water-traffic corridors in the city.
One end of the canal leads into the lagoon near the Santa Lucia railway station and the other end leads into the basin at San Marco; in between, it makes a large reverse-S shape through the central districts (sestieri) of Venice. It is 3.8 km (2.4 mi) long, and 30 to 90 m (98 to 295 ft) wide, with an average depth of 5 metres (16 feet).
Description
The banks of the Grand Canal are lined with more than 170 buildings, most of which date from the 13th to the 18th century, and demonstrate the welfare and art created by the Republic of Venice. The noble Venetian families faced huge expenses to show off their richness in suitable palazzos; this contest reveals the citizens’ pride and the deep bond with the lagoon. Amongst the many are the Palazzi Barbaro, Ca' Rezzonico, Ca' d'Oro, Palazzo Dario, Ca' Foscari, Palazzo Barbarigo and to Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, housing the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. The churches along the canal include the basilica of Santa Maria della Salute. Centuries-old traditions, such as the Historical Regatta [it], are perpetuated every year along the Canal.
Because most of the city's traffic goes along the Canal rather than across it, only one bridge crossed the canal until the 19th century, the Rialto Bridge. There are currently three more bridges, the Ponte degli Scalzi, the Ponte dell'Accademia, and the controversial Ponte della Costituzione from 2008, designed by Santiago Calatrava, connecting the train station to Piazzale Roma, one of the few places in Venice where buses and cars can enter. As was usual in the past, people can still take a ferry ride across the canal at several points by standing up on the deck of a simple gondola called a traghetto, although this service is less common than even a decade ago.
Most of the palaces emerge from water without pavement. Consequently, one can only tour past the fronts of the buildings on the grand canal by boat.
History
The first settlements
The Grand Canal probably follows the course of an ancient river (possibly a branch of the Brenta) flowing into the lagoon. Adriatic Veneti groups already lived beside the formerly-named "Rio Businiacus" before the Roman age. They lived in stilt houses and relied on fishing and commerce (mainly salt). Under the rule of the Roman empire and later of the Byzantine empire the lagoon became populated and important, and in the early 9th century the doge moved his seat from Malamocco to the safer "Rivoaltus".[clarification needed]
Increasing trade followed the doge and found in the deep Grand Canal a safe and ship accessible canal-port. Drainage reveals that the city became more compact over time: at that time the Canal was wider and flowed between small, tide-subjected islands connected by wooden bridges.
"Fondaco" houses
Along the Canal, the number of "fondaco" houses increased, buildings combining the warehouse and the merchant's residence.
A portico (the curia) covers the bank and facilitates the ships' unloading. From the portico a corridor flanked by storerooms reaches a posterior courtyard. Similarly, on the first floor a loggia as large as the portico illuminates the hall into which open the merchant's rooms. The façade is thereby divided into an airy central part and two more solid sides. A low mezzanine with offices divides the two floors.
The fondaco house often had lateral defensive towers (torreselle), as in the Fondaco dei Turchi (13th century, heavily restored in the 19th). With the German warehouse, the Fondaco dei Tedeschi (which is also situated on the Grand Canal), it reflects the high number of foreign merchants working in Venice, where the republic supplied them with storerooms and lodging and simultaneously controlled their trading activity.
More public buildings were built along the Canal at Rialto: palaces for commercial and financial Benches (Palazzo dei Camerlenghi and Palazzo dei Dieci Savi, rebuilt after 1514 fire) and a mint. In 1181 Nicolò Barattieri constructed a pontoon bridge connecting Rialto to Mercerie area, which was later replaced by a wooden bridge with shops on it. Warehouses for flour and salt were more peripheral.
The Venetian-Byzantine style
From the Byzantine empire, goods arrived together with sculptures, friezes, columns and capitals to decorate the fondaco houses of patrician families. The Byzantine art merged with previous elements resulting in a Venetian-Byzantine style; in architecture, it was characterized by large loggias with round or elongated arches and by polychrome marbles abundance.
Along the Grand Canal, these elements are well preserved in Ca' Farsetti, Ca' Loredan (both municipal seats) and Ca' da Mosto, all dating back to the 12th or 13th century. During this period Rialto had an intense building development, determining the conformation of the Canal and surrounding areas. As a matter of fact, in Venice building materials are precious and foundations are usually kept: in the subsequent restorations, existing elements will be used again, mixing the Venetian-Byzantine and the new styles (Ca' Sagredo, Palazzo Bembo). Polychromy, three-partitioned façades, loggias, diffuse openings, and rooms disposition formed a particular architectural taste that continued in the future.
The Fourth Crusade, with the loot obtained from the sack of Constantinople (1204), and other historical situations, gave Venice an Eastern influence until the late 14th century.
Venetian Gothic
Venetian Gothic architecture found favor quite late, as a splendid flamboyant Gothic ("gotico fiorito") beginning with the southern façade of the Doge's Palace. The verticality and the illumination characterizing the Gothic style are found in the porticos and loggias of fondaco houses: columns get thinner, elongated arches are replaced by pointed or ogee or lobed ones. Porticos rise gently intertwining and drawing open marbles in quatrefoils or similar figures. Façades were plastered in brilliant colors.
The open marble fascias, often called "laces", quickly diffused along the Grand Canal. Among the 15th-century palaces still showing the original appearance are Ca' d'Oro, Palazzo Bernardo a San Polo, Ca' Foscari (now housing the University of Venice), Palazzo Pisani Moretta, Palazzi Barbaro, Palazzo Cavalli-Franchetti.
Renaissance
By the start of the 15th century, Renaissance architecture motifs appear in such buildings as the Palazzo Dario and the Palazzo Corner Spinelli; the latter was designed by Mauro Codussi, pioneer of this style in Venice. Ca' Vendramin Calergi, another of his projects (now hosting the Casino), reveals a completed transition: the numerous and large windows with open marbles are round-arched and have columns in the three classical orders.
Classical architecture is more evident in Jacopo Sansovino's projects, who arrived from Rome in 1527. Along the Canal, he designed Palazzo Corner and Palazzo Dolfin Manin, known for grandiosity, for the horizontal layout of the white façades and for the development around a central courtyard. Other Renaissance buildings are Palazzo Papadopoli and Palazzo Grimani di San Luca. Several palaces of this period had façades with frescoes by painters such as Il Pordenone, Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, all of them unfortunately lost. Particularly noteworthy were the frescoes by Veronese and Zelotti on Ca Cappello, overlooking the Grand Canal at the intersection with the Rio de S. Polo.
Venetian Baroque
In 1582, Alessandro Vittoria began the construction of Palazzo Balbi (now housing the Government of Veneto), in which Baroque elements can be recognized: fashioned cornices, broken pediments, ornamental motifs.
The major Baroque architect in Venice was Baldassarre Longhena. In 1631 he began to build the magnificent Santa Maria della Salute basilica, one of the most beautiful churches in Venice and a symbol of Grand Canal. The classical layout of the façade features decorations and by many statues, the latter crowning also the refined volutes surrounding the major dome.
Longhena later designed two majestic palaces, Ca' Pesaro and Ca' Rezzonico (with many carvings and chiaroscuro effects), and Santa Maria di Nazareth church (Chiesa degli Scalzi). For various reasons the great architect did not see any of these buildings finished, and the designs for all but Santa Maria Della Salute were modified after his death.
Longhena's themes recur in the two older façades of Palazzo Labia, containing a famous fresco cycle by Giambattista Tiepolo. In the Longhenian school grew Domenico Rossi (San Stae's façade, Ca' Corner della Regina) and Giorgio Massari, who later completed Ca' Rezzonico.
The 16th and 17th centuries mark the beginning of the Republic's decline, but nevertheless, they saw the highest building activity on the Grand Canal. This can be partially explained by the increasing number of families (like the Labia) becoming patrician by the payment of an enormous sum to the Republic, which was then facing financial difficulties. Once these families had achieved this new status, they built themselves with impressive residences on the Canal, often inducing other families to renew theirs.
Neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architectures along the Canal date to the 18th century: during the first half was built San Simeone Piccolo, with an impressive corinthian portico, central plan and a high copper-covered dome ending in a cupola shaped as a temple. Date to the second half Massari's Palazzo Grassi.
Modern era
After the fall of the Republic of Venice in 1797, much of the palatial construction in Venice was suspended, as symbolized by the unfinished San Marcuola and Palazzo Venier dei Leoni (housing the Peggy Guggenheim Collection). The Patrician families, bereft of their hereditary role in governance and sometimes persecuted by revolutionary forces, sought other residences. Several historical palaces were pulled down, but many found other uses, and some restorations have saved their 18th-century appearance. By the late 20th century, most of the more prominent palaces were owned by the city, state, or civic institutions.
During the era of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, the Napoleonic suppression of the monastic religious orders vacated large sectors of real estate in the city. It also freed large amounts of furnishings and works of art into the antiquarian market or into the possession of the state. Large monasteries changed functions: the Santa Maria della Carità complex became a museum, the Gallerie dell'Accademia); the Santa Croce complex, was converted into the Papadopoli Gardens area; and the Santa Lucia complex (partially designed by Palladio) was razed for the establishment of the Santa Lucia Station.
The Kingdom of Italy accession restored serenity in the city and stimulated construction along the Grand Canal respecting its beauty, often reproduced in Gothic Revival architectures like the Pescaria at Rialto.
Events
Historical Regatta
On the first Sunday of September the Historical Regatta ("Regata Storica") takes place, a competition between Venetian boats watched by thousands of people from the banks or from floating stands. Competitions are preceded by a historical procession ("Corteo Storico") remembering the entrance of the Queen of Cyprus Catherine Cornaro after abdication in 1489: gondoliers in costumes sail in typical 16th century boats following the Bucentaur, doge's state galley.
The Feast-day of the Madonna della Salute
On November 21, Venetians thank the Virgin Mary for salvation from the plague epidemic in 1630-38 with a pilgrimage to Santa Maria della Salute. Pilgrims cross Grand Canal on a temporary pontoon bridge from Campo Santa Maria del Giglio, and enjoy stalls and traditional dishes.
(Wikipedia)
Der Canal Grande, im Venezianischen Canałazzo, ist eine knapp vier Kilometer lange, zwischen 30 und 70 Meter breite und bis zu fünf Meter tiefe Hauptwasserstraße in der Lagunenstadt Venedig. Die erste Biegung des S-förmigen Kanals wird als Volta di Canal bezeichnet.
Er ist das letzte Stück des nördlichen Armes des Flusses Brenta, der durch die Lagune zieht, weshalb das Wasser hier im Gegensatz zu den übrigen venezianischen Kanälen immer fließt. Rund 45 kleinere Kanäle (italienisch Rii) münden in den Canal Grande ein.
Lage
Der Canal Grande trennt die citra (diesseits)-Stadtsechstel (Sestieri) San Marco, Cannaregio und Castello von den auf der rechten Kanalseite gelegenen ultra (jenseits)-Stadtteilen Dorsoduro, San Polo und Santa Croce.
Brücken und Gondeln
Derzeit überspannen vier Brücken den Kanal, deren älteste die Rialtobrücke ist. Es handelt sich dabei um eine gegen Ende des 16. Jahrhunderts anstelle einer Holzbrücke errichtete, gedeckte Brücke in Kalkstein.
Bis zur Errichtung der Scalzi-Brücke und der Accademia-Brücke im 19. Jahrhundert (beide erneuert im 20. Jahrhundert) war die Rialtobrücke die einzige feste Verbindung über den Kanal.
Im Sommer 2007 wurde mit dem Bau einer vierten Brücke nach Entwürfen des spanischen Architekten Santiago Calatrava begonnen. Am 11. August 2007 wurde das Mittelstück der tragenden Konstruktion eingesetzt. Dazu wurde der Canal Grande für mehrere Stunden gesperrt. Am 11. September 2008 wurde die Brücke als „Ponte della Costituzione“ eingeweiht. Die 94 Meter lange Brücke mit Treppenstufen ermöglicht Pendlern und Busreisenden, ohne Umweg von den Parkplätzen und dem Busbahnhof am Piazzale Roma zum Bahnhof Santa Lucia zu gelangen.
Neben den Brücken und den städtischen Vaporetti ermöglichen Gondeln (italienisch Traghetti) an acht Stellen ein Übersetzen über den Canal Grande. Die Gondeln verkehren ausschließlich tagsüber.
Verluste an historischer Bebauung, darunter die Kirche Santa Lucia, mussten im 19. Jahrhundert durch die Errichtung des Bahnhofs am westlichen Ende des Kanals verzeichnet werden. In Erinnerung an die abgerissene Kirche wurde der Bahnhof Stazione Ferroviaria Santa Lucia genannt.
Im Canal Grande besteht ein bußgeldbewehrtes Badeverbot, das streng durchgesetzt wird.
Paläste
Der Canal Grande wird von über 200 prächtigen Adelspalästen gesäumt. In Venedig war die Höhe der Paläste von zahlreichen Vorschriften der Stadtrepublik vorgegeben und jeder akzeptierte das. Auch hier herrschte im Vergleich zu anderen italienischen Städten ein starker gemeinsamer Geist, der Einzelinteressen überlagerte. Das Gegenbeispiel sind die Geschlechtertürme in anderen Städten, mit denen sich die einzelnen Familien gegenseitig zu übertrumpfen suchten.
Nach dem großen Vierten Kreuzzug von 1204, in dessen Verlauf die Venezianer reiche Beute gemacht hatten, waren die ehemals hölzernen Häuser zunächst durch Steinbauten im byzantinischen Stil abgelöst worden. Vom 15. Jahrhundert an wurden sie nach und nach durch prunkvolle Paläste ersetzt – im Stil der Gotik, der Renaissance und auch des Barock. Byzantinische Elemente blieben in wenigen Gebäuden erhalten, sind jedoch noch in den Maßwerkformen der gotischen Fenster zu sehen.
Der Abstand der Paläste zum Canal Grande war im frühen und hohen Mittelalter teilweise größer. Erst im 13. Jahrhundert begann man, die Bauten, die auf vielen kleinen Inseln errichtet waren, zum Kanal hin zu erweitern und den Hof nach hinten zu verlagern. Gleichzeitig wurde die Hauptfassade zum Wasser hin verlegt, die zuvor zur Landseite wies. Entgegen einer weitverbreiteten Meinung standen die Paläste der berühmtesten Familien nicht am Canal Grande, sondern an größeren und kleineren Plätzen oder an Seitenkanälen.
Die Steine für diese Paläste wurden hauptsächlich vom Festland herbeitransportiert, besonders aus Verona (roter Marmor) und aus Istrien (weißer Kalkmarmor). Alles Baumaterial, auch Ziegel für Mauern und Dächer sowie erhebliche Mengen von Holz musste von außerhalb, zum Teil über hunderte von Kilometern, herangeschafft werden, da in der Stadt Venedig nichts davon vorhanden war.
Die Paläste sind zwar in ihrer Größe oft sehr unterschiedlich, aber alle nach dem gleichen Bauprinzip – einem dominierenden Mittelteil und seitlich untergeordneten Flügeln – angelegt. Die durch große Fenster geöffnete Fassade und die Bevorzugung der leichten vor der festen Bauweise ergibt sich auch durch die Notwendigkeit, auf unsicherem, oft sandigem Grund mitten im Wasser der Lagune keine allzu schweren Häuser bauen zu können. So sind alle Gebäude Venedigs auf einem Gerüst aus tausenden von Eichenpfählen, die viele Meter tief in den Untergrund getrieben wurden, errichtet. Die innere Anordnung der Räume ist meist an der Fassade abzulesen. Hier zeigt sich die jahrhundertelange Erfahrung der Baumeister, dass das fundamentale Element Venedigs das Wasser ist, dessen Lichtreflexionen in die Räume hineinspiegeln sollten.
Das untere Geschoss, das Wassergeschoss, war schon deshalb offen, um die Waren aufnehmen zu können, die von den Schiffen gebracht wurden. Dieses ganze Geschoss, das Piantereno, war auch auf der Hofseite seit dem 14. Jahrhundert dem Handel vorbehalten, also der wirtschaftlichen und finanziellen Grundlage der meisten venezianischen Familien, die solche Paläste bewohnten. Hier legten vor dem Portal die Boote an, wurden be- und entladen und die Waren unmittelbar in den angrenzenden Räumen und Magazinen eingelagert. Vor den Palästen stehen die berühmt gewordenen Pali, die bunten Pfähle zum Anbinden der Schiffe. Sie bezeichnen mit ihren individuellen Farben auch den jeweiligen Hausherrn.
Das erste Obergeschoss, das Piano nobile, und oft noch ein weiteres, war der Familie vorbehalten. Hier gab es den großen Saal, den Portego, der in der Mitte die ganze Tiefe des Hauses einnahm. Dieser Mitteltrakt war meist zu beiden Seiten von kleineren Räumen umgeben. Die Dienstboten wohnten ganz oben im Mezzanin. Die Küchen lagen ebenfalls meist unter den Dächern – aus gutem Grund. Wenn es hier zu einem Brand kam, wurde nicht das ganze Haus in Mitleidenschaft gezogen.
Innenhöfe fehlen fast immer. Dafür hatte jeder Palast im nach hinten offenen Hof seinen eigenen Brunnen. Die weniger Begüterten holten ihr Wasser aus öffentlichen Zisternen, die auf den Campi standen. Über jeder Zisterne war ein Brunnen eingerichtet.
Das Wasser für die Zisternen kam zum Teil von den Dächern. Rund um das Dach verlief nämlich die so genannte Gorne, eine steinerne Regenrinne, die über senkrechte Abflussrohre mit den Zisternen verbunden war. Die Dächer der Paläste sind relativ flach, und zwar – der Sage nach – weil die Venezianerinnen dort ihre Haare von der Sonne so lange bleichen lassen konnten, bis sie jenen Farbton des goldenen rötlichen Blonds erreicht hatten, für den sie schon zu Tizians Zeiten berühmt waren. Nur das Haar wurde gebleicht, nicht die Haut gebräunt. Das galt als vulgär. Braune Haut hatten nur die Leute, die im Freien arbeiten mussten. Die Dächer der venezianischen Palazzi waren aber entgegen einer weit verbreiteten Meinung nur selten wirklich begehbar, jedoch gab und gibt es in Venedig zahlreiche Altanen, hölzerne, balkonartige Aufbauten über den Dächern.
Viele Paläste waren trotz ihrer luftig-lichten Bauweise im Inneren sehr dunkel, vor allem im hinteren Bereich, wenn das Haus, wie meist in Venedig, eingekeilt zwischen Nachbargebäuden stand, mit oft nur wenig oder gar keinem Platz für einen Innenhof. Vor allem die Treppenhäuser und Erdgeschosse ließen an Licht und Luft zu wünschen übrig. Deswegen kam es im 16. Jahrhundert zu einer Aufwertung dieser Bereiche.
Kirchen
Direkt dem Canal Grande zugewandt, nur durch kleine Plätze oder gepflasterten Uferbereich von ihm getrennt, sind auch einige Kirchen: die Santa Maria di Nazareth (Scalzi), San Simeone Piccolo, San Geremia, San Marcuola, San Stae, San Samuele und Santa Maria della Salute. Als Teil der Accademia, dem größten Museum für Venezianische Kunst, ist auch noch das Langhaus der ehemaligen Kirche Santa Maria della Carità zu sehen. Für die Errichtung des Bahnhofs am nordwestlichen Ende des Canal Grande war im 19. Jahrhundert die Kirche Santa Lucia abgebrochen worden.
(Wikipedia)
I have titled this a little tounge in cheek. When me an my mate went to Castle Hill he said the sunset was only average. At the time he was fairly right but for a short time the sky had given a few very nice patterns and colours. A little processing and this has been brought out nicely on this one.
Not your average holiday card!!! I had these printed at WHCC, got a sample pack. Ultimately I will order more on the linen paper. They are yummy, and so true to color!!
Your average California summer landscape in the Arastradero Preserve, Palo Alto, this morning. The wild rye grass turns bone dry and golden, and provide the starting fodder for wildfires. The fire danger lurks, unfortunately, underneath the beauty.
Chesil Beach is 18 miles (28 kilometres) long and, on average, 160 metres wide and rises to 12 metres in height. It is a pebble and shingle tombolo connecting Portland to Abbotsbury and then continuing north-westwards to West Bay near Bridport. It is the largest tombolo in the UK.
The pebbles are graded in size from fist-sized near Portland to pea-sized at Bridport. The pebbles are mainly a mix of flint and chert, with some quartzite pebbles from Buddleigh Salterton.
The origin of the beach continues to be argued over with some proposing it is actually two beaches. The stretch from West Bay to Abbotsbury appears to have different characteristics to the stretch from Abbotsbury to Portland.
Chesil Beach shelters Weymouth from the prevailing wind and waves and prevents the area being eroded by wave action. Evidence suggests that the beach is no longer being replenished by natural means.
The beach forms part of the Dorset and East Devon World Heritage Site, known as the Jurassic Coast.
Chesil Bank
It is above all an elemental place, made of sea, shingle and sky, its dominant sound always that of waves on moving stone: from the great surf and pounding “grounds of seas” of sou’westers, to the delicate laps and back-gurgling of the rare dead calm….
John Fowles
www.chesilbeach.org/Chesil/description.html
Chesil Beach is a linear shingle storm beach stretching from Portland in the south to West Bay in the north-west. At its widest it is up to 200 metres in width. The height of the beach is typically 11 metres above mean sea level.
The seaward face of the beach is steeply shelving and this continues below the sea level until it gradually levels off at around 18 metres below sea level some 300 metres offshore in the southern part of the beach. Further north the offshore depth is around 11 metres.
There is a clear southern limit to the beach where it meets the limestone of Portland, but the northern limit is less distinct and depends on the definition used. Various limits have been proposed from Abbotsbury to West Bay. Geologically there is some merit in these arguments, but for practical purposes the limit is taken as the pier at West Bay. The pier is an effective barrier to longshore drift into or away from Chesil Beach.
The beach stabilised close to its present position some 5000 years ago. Since then it has been advancing slowly towards the mainland. Current estimates suggest that at the southern end this rate of advance is around 15 cms per year, with a slower rate further north. This advance occurs under storm conditions and is caused either by over-topping waves or by cann action where the water comes through the beach pushing quantities of pebbles out into the Fleet. This advancement is slowly causing increasing isolation of the various segments of the beach between Abbotsbury and West Bay.
Under storm conditions large quantities of pebbles can be removed from the beach onto the seabed. For severe storms the quantities can exceed 3 Million tonnes. Subsequent wave action then replaces these pebbles on the front of the beach.
There appears to be two types of storm conditions that affect Chesil Beach. The majority of storms are deep depressions approaching from the south-west where the combination of strong winds and low barometric pressure can produce storm surges in the English Channel combined with high local waves. A rarer type, but potentially more dramatic in impact, occurs when large storms out in the Atlantic generate huge, long-period swell waves that travel up the Channel and impact the Beach. Such waves can have a period of up to 20 seconds, compared with the 5-10 second period of local storm waves. Two such events are known to have occurred in 1904 and 1979.
www.chesilbeach.org/Chesil/formation.html
The formation of Chesil Beach has been much discussed over the years and is still the subject of continuing debate. Continuing research yields further insights into the origin of the material that forms the beach and how it was transported to its current location. This page presents a summary of one current view suggested by Malcolm Bray of Portsmouth University, a member of the Fleet Study Group. A more detailed document can be downloded here.
Chesil Beach initially formed from predominantly sandy deposits in Lyme Bay as water levels rose rapidly at the end of the last ice age 20,000-14,000 years ago. These deposits were eroded and the sand and gravel driven onshore as a barrier beach. As the barrier beach was driven further east by rising sea levels it overrode existing sediments and the Fleet was formed starting about 7000 years ago. The formation of the Fleet was virtually complete by 5000 years ago.
Sea levels stabilised 4000-5000 years ago and at that time Chesil Beach stood close to its present position. It was predominantly sandy with layers of shell and coarser material indicating over-washing by the sea.
At this time relict cliffs in East Devon, left stranded by falling sea levels during the ice age, were re-activated and the combination of re-working of extensive debris aprons and erosion of existing cliffs yielded large quantities of gravel. Estimates suggest that as much as 60 million cubic metres of gravel could have been supplied. This material was transported to Chesil Beach by longshore drift via a series of pocket beaches.
Coastal recession and human intervention have now depleted the beaches to the west of West Bay, resulting in increased prominence of the headlands. This has cut off the supply of material to Chesil Beach
Chesil Beach must now be regarded as a closed shingle system with no replenishment from outside sources. It is therefore sensitive to environmental changes such as rising sea levels. Ian West has suggested that Chesil Beach at Portland is moving eastward at around 15cm per year, with a much slower rate further north towards Abbotsbury.
www.chesilbeach.org/Chesil/pebbles.html
Chesil Beach is made up almost entirely of pebbles of various rock types. The only exception is in the north-west section of the beach from West Bexington to West Bay where there is some fine gravel and coarse sand overlaying the lower levels of the beach near the tide line. The pebbles are graded in size from fist-sized near Portland to pea-sized at West Bay.
The types of pebble that can be found are:
Flint
Flint originates from the chalk beds. They include the slightly brownish pebbles, most of the medium grey pebbles and also the less well- rounded pebbles. They are extremely hard, harder than most steels.
Chert
The chert pebbles are also extremely hard and originate from the upper greensand beds. They are often fairly clear and translucent with a pink or bluish tinge.
Quartzite
Quartzite pebbles originate from around Buddleigh Salterton and are discoidal pebbles coloured red, purple "liver-coloured", or white.
Granite
Granite is occasionally found on Chesil Beach. It can be identified by the coarse grain size, the pink or white feldspar, the quartz of glassy grey appearance, and the black mafic minerals, normally mica and/or hornblende. These pebbles probably originated from further west on the south-west peninsula or may have come from the ballast of ships wrecked on the beach..
Porphyry
These pebbles most probably come from the Permian breccia in Dawlish, Devon. They are similar to granite in appearance, but the crystal structure is rather different. They are comparatively rare on Chesil Beach.
Tourmalised rock
Pebbles of hard black, finely granular material are common. Somewhat irregular pebble of vein quartz, stained yellowish, and tourmalinised slate, all sheared and partially brecciated. The pebbles are usually irregular in shape as the tourmaline is quite brittle.
Breccia
A breccia is a rock of angular fragments. Only breccias that have been cemented strongly in hard silica can survive on Chesil Beach.
Portland stone
At Chiswell there are some limestone pebbles originating from the local Portland and Purbeck stone formations.
Kimmeridge oil shale
There is evidence that there was once an outcrop of oil shale on the back of Chesil Beach near Victoria Square on Portland. Pieces of shale can still be found on the beach and probably come from an outcrop under the sea off Chiswell.
Fossils
These are mostly found around Burton Bradstock and originate from the local cliffs.
Magnetite
This is believed to originate from the cargos of ships wrecked on Chesil Beach. The major concentration is near Abbotsbury and is believed to come from the SS Dorothea.
Peat
Pieces of peat can be found on Chesil Beach, particularly after storms. It comes from outcrops below the low tide level. It is mostly found at Chiswell and in an area around the tank defences at Abbotsbury
Pumice stone
Pieces of pumice stone are sometimes found washed up on the beach. Pumice is lava foam from volcanoes and contains sufficient air pockets to float. The stones on Chesil almost certainly came from volcanoes in the Caribbean Sea or central America. The colour varies from dark grey to almost white. They can be recognised by the large number of air pockets and that they are very light.
Others
Also found on Chesil Beach are Jasper, Agate, and Madrepores, but these are all very rare.
Further information
For a more detailed discussion of the pebbles that make up Chesil Beach visit Ian West's excellent website at Southampton University.
www.chesilbeach.org/Chesil/speclst.html
Chesil Beach is a major shingle beach and provides a maritime shingle environment. The seaward side of the beach is highly mobile under storm conditions and cannot support any plant communities. The eastern side of the beach is much more stable enabling plant communities to get established. In some areas the beach is sufficiently stable for a turf to form, particularly at Ferrybridge.
Apart from plants, the beach supports a rich variety of lichens and a few mosses. There are very few shrubs and no trees growing on the beach.
There is sufficient food from the plants and other sources to support a few mammals and the beach is used by a number of bird species for nesting.
The lists below show species that actually live, hunt, and/or nest on the beach. Transient species such as migrant birds are not included. Click on the groups below to see the species lists.
www.chesilbeach.org/chesil/specbirds.html
Skylark, Meadow Pipit, Ringed Plover, Linnet, Oystercatcher, Reed Bunting, Pied Wagtail, Common Tern, Little Tern,
www.chesilbeach.org/Chesil/specmamms.html
Fox, Hare, Roe Deer, Hare, Hedgehog, Long-tailed Field Mouse, Short-tailed Vole, Grey Squirrel,
www.chesilbeach.org/chesil/specplants.html
Common nameSpeciesW
Sea couchAgropyron pungens
Silvery hair grassAira caryophylla
Early hair grassAira praecox
Scarlet pimpernelAnagallis arvensis
Kidney vetchAnthyllis vulneraria
ThriftAmeria maritima
Thyme-leaved sandwortArenaria serpyllifolia
Tall oat-grassArrhenatherum elatius
Sea beetBeta vulgaris
Darnel's grassCatapodium marinum
Common centauryCentaurium erythraea
Red valerianCentranthus ruber
Common mouse-earCerastium fontanum
Sea mouse-earCerastium diffusum
Creeping thistleCirsium arvense
Danish scurvygrassCochlearia danica
Sea kaleCrambe maritima
SamphireCrithmum maritimum
CocksfootDactylus glomerata
Sea spurgeEuphorbia paralias
Portland spurgeEuphorbia portlandica
Red fescueFestuca ruba
Lady's bedstrawGalium verum
Herb robertgeranium robertianum
Yellow horned poppyGlaucium flavum
Sea-purslaneHalimione portulacoides
Common velvet grassHolcus lanatus
Tree mallowLavatera arborea
Sea peaLathyrus japonicus
Bird's foot trefoilLotus corniculatus
Common mallowMalva sylvestris
RestharrowOnonis repens
Lesser broomrapeOrobanche minor var minor
Buck's-horn plantainPlantago coronopus
Ribwort plantainPlantago lanceolata
BlackthornPrunus spinosa
BlackberryRubus fruticosa agg.
Curled dockRumex crispus
Procumbent pearlwortSagina procumbens
Biting stonecropSedum acre
Sea campionSilene maritima
Woody nightshadeSolanum dulcamera
Black nightshadeSolanum nigrum
Perennial sow-thistleSonchus arvensis
Shrubby sea blightSuaeda fruticosa
Annual sea blightSuaeda maritima
DandelionTaraxacum officinale
Breckland thymeThymus serpyllum
Haresfoot cloverTrifolium arvense
Lesser trefoilTrifolium dubium
Rough cloverTrifolium scabrum
Sea mayweedTripleurospermum maritimum
The information presented here has been derived from the following sources:
Colombe,S.V., Diaz,A. Plant communities of Chesil Beach. Lyme Bay Environmental Study Vol12. Kerr-McGee Oil(UK) plc, 1995.
Fitzpatrick,J.M. Terrestial plant communities of the Chesil Beach and the shores of the Fleet. In: The Fleet and Chesil Beach Ladle, M. (Ed). Fleet Study Group, 1981.
Eden,S.M. Flowering plants of the shores of the Fleet. In: The Fleet Lagoon and Chesil Beach. Carr,A.P., Seaward,D.R., and Sterling,P.H. (Eds).2000.
and personal observation by Fleet volunteers.