Bits And Pieces
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It rained a bit last night (a rarity in Southern California) so I headed out to a local park to see if the rain had instigated some wildlife action. I spotted this Acorn Woodpecker Chasing Bugs. Didn’t take him long to make a catch…. Life is Good !!
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Acorn Woodpecker
Reminiscent of a troupe of wide-eyed clowns, Acorn Woodpeckers live in large groups in western oak woodlands. Their social lives are endlessly fascinating: they store thousands of acorns each year by jamming them into specially made holes in trees.
A group member is always on alert to guard the hoard from thieves, while others race through the trees giving parrot-like waka-waka calls. Their breeding behavior is equally complicated, with multiple males and females combining efforts to raise young in a single nest.
Acorn Woodpeckers are medium-sized woodpeckers with straight, spike-like bills and stiff, wedge-shaped tails used for support as the birds cling to tree trunks.
These striking birds are mostly black above with a red cap, creamy white face, and black patch around the bill. In flight, they show three patches of white: one in each wing and one on the rump. Females have less red on the crown than males.
Acorn Woodpeckers are very unusual woodpeckers that live in large groups, hoard acorns, and breed cooperatively.
Group members gather acorns by the hundreds and wedge them into holes they’ve made in a tree trunk or telephone pole. Acorn Woodpeckers also spend considerable time catching insects on the wing.
These woodpeckers live in oak and mixed oak-conifer forests on slopes and mountains in the Southwest and West Coast. They’re tolerant of humans, and you can find them in towns where there are acorns and suitable places to store them.
(Nikon, 500/4 + TC 1.4, 1/500 @ f/5.6, ISO 100)
(Edited to Taste)
… the countryside in Gâtinais takes a bit of getting used to. Nothing much to see. A bit like the American Midwest, without any buffaloes :-)
Edited from a shot taken by my wife.
Also known as the Torx drive. These are various sizes of torx drives from T15 up to T40. Shot for Macro Mondays "Stars" theme.
Thanks for viewing and happy Macro Monday!
Switzerland, May 2021
My best photos are here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/ticino-best-photos-of-southern-...
My latest ANIMAL VIDEO (warning, it's a bit shocking): www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T2-Xszz7FI
You find a selection of my 80 BEST PHOTOS (mostly not yet on Flickr) here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/western-green-lizard-lacerta-bi... (the website exists in ESPAÑOL, FRANÇAIS, ITALIANO, ENGLISH, DEUTSCH)
ABOUT THE PHOTO:
So this photo is a bit of a novelty for me - at least here on Flickr, but it's also a journey back in time in a sense. I've always loved b/w and sepia photography; already as a very young teenager I would go out into the woods with an old Pentax Spotmatic (which I had nicked from my father) whenever it was a foggy day to shoot b/w compositions of sunbeams cutting through the ghostlike trees.
I used films with a sensitivity of at least 1600 (for those of you who remember what that means 😉 ), and the resulting photos had an incredibly fine grain which I loved; I blew them up to the size of posters and hung them on the walls of my teenage man-cave next to Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Slash.
But then I abandoned photography altogether for 20 years, and when I finally picked up a camera again, it was one of the digital kind. Now neither film nor grain played any role in my photographic endeavours - let alone b/w compositions: because the reason I fell in love with shooting pictures once more was the rare and incredibly colorful lizard species that had chosen my garden as its habitat.
It's this species - the Lacerta bilineata aka the western green lizard - that my photo website www.lacerta-bilineata.com/ and also my Flickr gallery are dedicated to, but I've since expanded that theme a bit so that it now comprises the whole Lacerta bilineata habitat, which is to say my garden and its immediate surroundings and all the flora and fauna I find in it.
I like that my gallery and the website have this clear theme, because in order to rise to the challenge of portraying all aspects of a very specific little eco system (which also happens to be my home of sorts), it forces me to constantly explore it from fresh angles, and I keep discovering fascinating new motives as my photographic journey continues.
Which brings me to the horse pasture you see in this photo. This playground for happy horsies lies just outside my garden, and it normally only interests me insofar as my green reptile friends claim parts of it as their territory, and I very much prefer it to be horseless (which it thankfully often is).
Not that the horses bother the reptiles - the lizards don't mind them one bit, and I've even seen them jump from the safety of the fly honeysuckle shrub which the pasture borders on right between the deadly looking hooves of the horses to forage for snails, without any sign of fear or even respect.
No, the reason I have a very conflicted relationship with those horses is that they are mighty cute and that there's usually also foals. The sight of those beautiful, happy animals jumping around and frolicking (it's a huge pasture and you can tell the horses really love it) is irresistible: and that inevitably attracts what in the entire universe is known as the most destructive anti-matter and ultimate undoing of any nature photographer: other humans.
Unlike with the horses, the lizards ARE indeed very much bothered by specimens of loud, unpredictable Homo sapiens sapiens - which makes those (and by extension also the horses) the cryptonite of this here reptile photographer. It's not the horses' fault, I know that, but that doesn't change a thing. I'm just telling you how it is (and some of you might have read about the traumatic events I had to endure to get a particular photo - if not, read at your own risk here: www.flickr.com/photos/191055893@N07/51405389883/in/datepo... - which clearly demonstrated that even when it's entirely horseless, that pasture is still a threat for artistic endeavours).
But back to the photo. So one morning during my vacation back in May I got up quite early. It had rained all night, and now the fog was creeping up from the valley below to our village just as the sky cleared up and the morning sun started to shine through the trees.
And just as I did when I was a teenager I grabbed my camera and ran out to photograph this beautiful mood of ghostlike trees and sunbeams cutting through the mist. There had already been such a day a week earlier (which is when I took this photo: www.flickr.com/photos/191055893@N07/51543603732/in/datepo... ), but this time, the horses were also there.
Because of our slightly strained relationship I only took this one photo of them (I now wish I had taken more: talk about missed opportunities), and otherwise concentrated on the landscape. It was only later when I went through all the photos on my computer that I realized that I actually really liked those horses, even despite the whole composition being such a cliché. And I realized another thing: when I drained the photo of all the color, I liked it even better - because there was almost a bit of grain in it, like in the photos from my youth.
Since then I have experimented quite a bit with b/w and sepia compositions (some of which I will upload here eventually I guess), but this photo here is the first one that helped me rediscover my old passion. I hope you like it even though it builds quite a stark contrast with the rest of my tiny - and very colorful - gallery. But in the spirit of showing you the whole Lacerta bilineata habitat (and also in the spirit of expanding my gallery a bit beyond lizards and insects), I think it's not such a bad fit.
As always, many greetings to all of you, have a wonderful day and don't hesitate to let me know what you think 😊
A bit closer today but maybe too close to her taste. I think she wanted me to go away or maybe it was the strong wind and hard for her to stay on the post ! We never know and, in doubt, I left :-)
I took this shot in the Audubon Marsh near the River Loire Estuary (France)
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D'un peu plus près aujourd'hui mais peut-être un peu trop à son goût. Je crois qu'elle voulait que je parte ou alors c'est le vent, qui soufflait très fort, qui l'empêchait de garder son équilibre ! On ne le saura jamais et, dans le doute, je suis partie :-)
J'ai pris cette photo au Marais Audubon près de l'estuaire de la Loire.
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Pentax K-5
Vivitar 80-200mm F4 MACRO FOCUSING ZOOM MC
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© 2020 stefanorugolo | All rights reserved.
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Thank you for your visit, most appreciated!
Vancouver has hit the rainy season and all that mist up in the mountains makes for dreary days. A bit of colour still hangs on in the leaves of some of the trees. A crow on one of the branches seems to survey the scene. They come to our balcony now and beg for peanuts! Smart birds!
A bit repetitive but I liked the pattern that emerged as I kept folding, distorting and tiling the sample of a syringe image!
Happy Slider Sunday - HSS
FYI: Perhaps this reminds some of "Acid Queen" and Tina Turner's performance in the movie "Tommy". I totally understand...
Mulholland on left was a rescue Thoroughbred (mine at the time) - Bits on right - stablemate friends to the end.
It's a good thing foil came up as a theme for Macro Mondays because now I have a reason for keeping a bag of multicolored foil bits! Perhaps they'll make it into ice cubes some day but for now it's a foil abstract.
The image area measures about 1.5 inches X 1.5 inches.
Nikon 55mm f/2.8 NIKKOR Micro, 9 image photo stack shot at f/11.
Today is the greatest
Day I've ever known
Can't live for tomorrow,
Tomorrow's much too long
I'll burn my eyes out
Before I get out
I wanted more
Than life could ever grant me
Bored by the chore
Of saving face
Today is the greatest
Day I've never known
Can't wait for tomorrow
I might not have that long
I'll tear my heart out
Before I get out
Pink ribbon scars
That never forget
I tried so hard
To cleanse these regrets
My angel wings
Were bruised and restrained
My belly stings
Today is
Today is
Today is
The greatest day
I want to turn you on
I want to turn you on
I want to turn you on
I want to turn you
Today is the greatest
Today is the greatest day
Today is the greatest day
That I have ever really known
A bit of friendly Saturday morning banter in the angling club boat shed. The eternal debate about what are the best fishing flies. Of course the answer is to be out on the water casting your line as you would have more success than drinking coffee in the shed :-D
Bit of a Flickr slow-down while I struggle with a non-Adobe workflow for the first time in a long time (trying to break the addiction). I'm also pausing the 'pro' account on a trial basis, while I save up to buy a dozen eggs.
So hopefully all have a fine weekend. I'll be shooting a little but may or may not get more images up. I won't be Flickring much tonight but will try to fave from the mobile.
"A Million Dreams"
I close my eyes and I can see
A world that's waiting up for me that I call my own
Through the dark, through the door
Through where no one's been before
But it feels like home
They can say, they can say it all sounds crazy
They can say, they can say I've lost my mind
I don't care, I don't care, if they call me crazy
We can live in a world that we design
'Cause every night, I lie in bed
The brightest colors fill my head
A million dreams are keeping me awake
I think of what the world could be
A vision of the one I see
A million dreams is all it's gonna take
Oh, a million dreams for the world we're gonna make
There's a house we can build
Every room inside is filled with things from far away
Special things I compile
Each one there to make you smile on a rainy day
They can say, they can say it all sounds crazy
They can say, they can say we've lost our minds
See, I don't care, I don't care if they call us crazy
Run away to a world that we design
'Cause every night, I lie in bed
The brightest colors fill my head
A million dreams are keeping me awake
I think of what the world could be
A vision of the one I see
A million dreams is all it's gonna take
Oh, a million dreams for the world we're gonna make
However big, however small
Let me be part of it all
Share your dreams with me
We may be right, we may be wrong
But I wanna bring you along to the world I see
To the world we close our eyes to see
We close our eyes to see
Every night, I lie in bed
The brightest colors fill my head
A million dreams are keeping me awake
I think of what the world could be
A vision of the one I see
A million dreams is all it's gonna take
A million dreams for the world we're gonna make
For the world we're gonna make
💖💖 In advance I want to thank you all for your always kindness and support. Please Know that I appreciate each one of you very much for taking the time to look at my pictures. You all mean a lot to me, you make Flickr a lovely place to be and to share pictures. Huge, huge hugs, peace and lots of love to you all💖💖
I'm a little bit shy
I’m a little bit right on time
And I know that you don't operate the same
Are you feeling alright?
Cause I really can't tell sometimes
I wanna know what's going on inside your brain
Just come a little bit closer
Cause I don't know if I know you yet
Yeah, there seems to be something new everyday
Why do I really wanna hold you?
Why do I want you so bad?
Yeah, you're beautiful but something's in my way
This location is near motorway A95 in Germany. Because the A 95 was closed for the rescue-works of a accident (as you see my whole life turns around accidents :D), I found the way to the tree I admired for years. I waited a few moments that the sunset was perfect and pushed my trigger ;-)
I'm a little bit busy, but I'll catch up ;-)
Klaus
--->>> The best stuff out of my stream is here! <<<---
Please don't use this image on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit permission. © All rights reserved.
A bit quieter and much smaller version of the Main Square but with as much beauty and charm the Mały Rynek, or Small Square, is another spot to enjoy.
Located right behind Saint Mary's Basilica this is a great spot to hear the Trumpeter play without the crowds of the Main Square.
From the 16th century onward sellers of antiques also made a home for themselves on the square, when it was known as ‘Forum Antiquum’ (the Old Market), though the locals liked to call it ‘Tandeta’ (the ‘tacky market’) or - in a rhyming pun related to the grisly meats on display - even ‘Wendeta’ (Vendetta).
Serving as an intermediate point between the nobility of the Main Square and the impoverished denizens living near the city walls, Mały Rynek also housed a soup kitchen for the poor and the 13th-century School of the Virgin Mary, which predated the founding of the square.
Maly Rynek, Kraków, Poland
♡ ƁƖσg♡ bit.ly/3DGKPWd
HEAD: LeLUTKA Siwa Head 3.1
BODY: REBORN by eBODY v1.69.4
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HAIR:
CHAIN – Bunny Hair – Reds
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ACCESORIES:
:CAZIMI: Lakshmi Jhumka
Tentacio Lily headpiece
Tentacio Gabrielle fatpack
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OUTFIT:
SHOOSH – Luna Jumpsuit & Chain Sense Event ➥ Opens: 18th at 04:00 PM SLT ➥ Closes: 28th
1 pack = 40 options, changeable metals
Belleza Gen X Curvy, Kupra, Legacy, Legacy Perky, Maitreya & Reborn.
Think I will have a "Bit of Something on Blue week" (bound to be fairly minimal so no offence if you decide to pop back when it's all over :-)
I always pass this pump station at Elan in mid Wales and think tilt-shift would work, finally the miniature version is here!!!
After a bit of a wait, 250 rolls across the 1200' long trestle in Onawa, led by CP SD70ACu 7020, the first of CP's military units to run over the CMQ. Borestone Mountain can be seen looming in the distance to the right of the train, while some lingering fall colors add some nice color to the hillside.
Bit of an odd one his. A lone tree, a bit knackered, lonely and cold out in the snow. I may be way off with this one, but I just find there is something in the composition. Perhaps, a bit weirdly, but in my own way I love it. So I'm putting it out here.
"Macro Mondays" – "Stack"
Jörg Schubert / #schubertj73
Titel: Stapel Bit Sammlung - Industrie Produkt Makro Kunst Fotografie.
Jörg Schubert / #schubertj73
Title: Stack Bit Collection - Industrial Product Macro Art Photography.