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Snorkling with Sea Lions off Floreana. It was amazing as they were so playful, one thought chewing on my flippers was a great game and another liked swimming really close and blowing bubbles in my face!
Galapagos Sea Lion
The Galápagos Sea Lion (Zalophus wollebaeki) breeds on the Galápagos Islands and – in smaller numbers – on Isla de la Plata (to Ecuador). Being fairly social, and one of the most numerous species in the Galápagos archipelago, they are often spotted sun-bathing on sandy shores or rock groups or gliding gracefully through the surf. Their loud “bark”, playful nature, and graceful agility in water make them the “welcoming party” of the islands. They are lightly smaller than their Californian relatives, Galápagos Sea Lions range from 150 to 250 cm in length and weigh between 50 to 400 kg, with the males much larger than females. Adult males also tend to have a thicker, more robust neck, chest, and shoulders in comparison to their slender abdomen. Females are somewhat opposite males with a longer, more slender neck and thick torso. Once sexually mature, a male’s sagittal crest enlarges, forming a small, characteristic bump-like projection on their forehead. Galápagos Sea Lions, compared to California sea lions, have a slightly smaller sagittal crest and a shorter muzzle. Adult females and juveniles lack this physical characteristic altogether with a nearly flat head and little or no forehead. Both male and female sea lions have a pointy, whiskered nose and somewhat long, narrow muzzle. The young pups are almost dog-like in profile. Another characteristic that defines the sea lion are their external ear-like pinnae flaps which distinguish them from their close relative in which they are often confused with, the seal. The fore-flippers have a short fur extending from the wrist to the middle of the dorsal fin surface, but other than that, the flippers are covered in black, leathery skin. Although somewhat clumsy on land with their flippers, sea lions are amazingly agile in water. With their streamline bodies and flipper-like feet, they easily propel themselves through crashing surf and dangerously sharp coastal rocks. They also have the ability to control their flippers independently and thus change directions with ease and have more control over their body on land. When wet, sea lions are a shade of dark brown, but once dry, their color varies greatly. The females tend to be a lighter shade than the males and the pups a chestnut brown. Born with a longer, brownish-black lanugo, a pup's coat gradually fades to brown within the first five months of life. At this time, they undergo their first molt resulting in their adult coat. Feeding mostly on sardines, Galápagos Sea Lions sometimes travel ten to fifteen kilometers from the coast over the span of days to hunt for their prey. This is when they come into contact with their biggest predators: sharks and killer whales. Injuries and scars from attacks are often visible. Galápagos Sea Lions are especially vulnerable to human activity. Their inquisitive and social nature makes them more likely to approach areas inhabited by humans, and thus come into contact with human waste, fishing nets, and hooks. They occupy many different shoreline types from steep, rocky cliff sides to low-lying sandy beaches. To avoid overheating during the day, sea lions will take refuge from the sun under vegetation, rocks, and cliffs, and wade into tidal pools. Not only are sea lions social, they are also quite vocal. Adult male Galápagos Sea Lions often bark in long, repeated sequences that are loud and distinctive. Females and juveniles do not produce this repetitive bark, but both sexes and the younger pups will growl. From birth, a mother sea lion recognizes her pup’s distinct bark and can pin point it from a crowd of thirty or more barking sea lions. On land, sea lions form colonies at their hauling-out areas. Adult males known as Bulls are the head of the Colony, growing up to 7 ft (2 m) long and weighing up to 800 lb (363 kg). As males grow larger, they fight to win dominance of a harem of between 5 and 25 cows and the surrounding territory. Swimming from border to border of his colony, the dominant bull jealously defends his coastline against all other adult males. While patrolling his area, he frequently rears his head out of the water and barks, as an indication of his territorial ownership. The average dominant bull holds his territory for only a few months, until he is challenged by another male. On land, these fights start by stretching out the neck and barking in attempt to test each other’s bravery. If this isn’t enough to scare the opponent off, they begin pushing each other and biting around the neck area. If males weren’t equipped with a thick, muscular neck, their vital organs would be easily damaged during these fights. Blood, is often drawn, however, and many male sea lions have battle scars due to these territorial competitions. Losers are dramatically chased far from their territory by the new dominant bull with much splashing. Because there is only one male in each harem, there is always a surplus of “bachelor” male sea lions. They usually congregate fairly peaceably on less favorable areas of the coastline in “bachelor colonies.”. Because the dominant male of the harem cannot feed while defending his colony, he eventually becomes too tired and weak, and is overpowered by the well-nourished, fresh bull. Breeding takes place from May all the way through to January. Because of this prolonged breeding season and the extensive care required by the pups from their mother, there are dependent pups in the colonies year round. Each cow in the harem has a single pup born a year after conception. After about a week of continuous attention from birth, the female returns to the ocean and begins to forage, and just a week after that, the pup will follow her and begin to develop its swimming skills. When the pup is two to three weeks old the cow will mate again. The mothers will take the young pups with them into the water while nursing until around the 11th month when the pups are weaned from their mother’s milk and become dependent on their own hunting skills. The pups have a strong bond with their mother. The cow will nurture a pup for up to three years. In that time the cow and the pup will recognize each other's bark from the rest of the colony. Within the colony sea lion pups live together in a rookery. Pups can be seen together napping, playing, and feeding. It is not uncommon to see one cow 'baby-sitting' a group of pups while the other cows go off to feed.
Floreana (Champions Islet)
Located approximately 4 to 5 hours west of Española and equal distance south of Santa Cruz, this island has long been a favorite site of visitors including pirates, whalers and early settlers. One of the oldest islands Floreana illustrates the aging process of a volcanic island. Unlike the younger western islands, Floreana's volcano has been long extinct and is in the advanced stages of erosion. The erosion process gave the island the nutrients and soils need to sustain plant life. The combination of this rich soil and a good water supply have given the highlands of Floreana a diversified landscaping of native and introduced flora. Floreana is best known for its colorful history of buccaneers, whalers, convicts, and colonists. In 1793 British whalers established the Post Office Barrel to send letters to and from England. This tradition has continued over the years, and even today visitors may drop off and pick up letters, without stamps, to be carried to far destinations. Punta Cormorant offers two highly contrasting beaches. The landing beach is of volcanic origin and is composed of olivine crystals, giving it a greenish tinge. At the end of the short trail is a carbonate beach of extremely fine white sand. Formed by the erosion of coral skeletons, it is a nesting site for green sea turtles. In the 1930's Floreana was the setting for intrigue and mystery. A German dentist and his mistress, a young family (the Wittmer family who still live on the island) and a self-styled baroness with three men came to settle in the island. Shortly after the baroness and her lovers arrived chaos began. The baroness and her entourage terrorized the other inhabitants while planning to build a luxury hotel. Eventually the baroness, two of her lovers and the dentist all turned up missing or dead. There has been much investigation searching for what really happened on Floreana, but there have never been any hard answers. John Treherne wrote of these people in "The Galapagos Affair". Located just off Punta Cormorant, Champions Islet is the best snorkeling in the Galapagos! To see the Devil’s Crown you need to go underwater, an almost completely submerged volcano, which erosion has transformed the cone into a series of jagged peaks creating the "Devil's Crown". The remains of the volcano create a haven for seabirds such as boobies, pelicans and frigates. Red-billed tropical birds can be seen nesting in the crevices. The highlight of the visit is snorkeling in the center of the crater. You will play with sea lions, while swimming with schools of colorful king angel fish, balloon fish, hawkfish, scrawled filefish, yellowtail grunts, tiger snake eels, white-tipped sharks, eagle rays, amberjacks, wrasses, hammerhead sharks, and sea turtles. The water is a bit rough and the current is strong. The east to west current provides a fun ride as it pushes you through the crown. There is a tube on the western side that you can swim through if you are a strong swimmer (approximately 10-15 feet down) and come out on the other side.
Galapagos Islands
The Galápagos Islands (official name: Archipiélago de Colón; other Spanish names: Islas de Colón or Islas Galápagos) are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, some 900 km west of Ecuador. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site: wildlife is its most notable feature. Because of the only very recent arrival of man the majority of the wildlife has no fear of humans and will allow visitors to walk right up them, often having to step over Iguanas or Sea Lions.The Galápagos islands and its surrounding waters are part of a province, a national park, and a biological marine reserve. The principal language on the islands is Spanish. The islands have a population of around 40,000, which is a 40-fold expansion in 50 years. The islands are geologically young and famed for their vast number of endemic species, which were studied by Charles Darwin during the voyage of the Beagle. His observations and collections contributed to the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.
Camus Bridge, Old Railway Bridge Located a few miles from Strabane, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, UK
The old Rail Bridge that my friends, family and I grew up playing around, constructed in 1911 this old bridge was once a major part of the Industrial Era that has since long gone. Makes you think on how fast times change and have moved on from steam trains to planes and cars etc nowadays
Hope you enjoy! Please Favourite & Follow to view my newest upcoming works, Thank you
I noticed the clouds breaking during a rainy day in St Ives. I headed up to the bus station (probably the best bus station in England for the views) and hung around for about 20 minutes, capturing some amazing, changeable lighting. The rainbow skating across the sea was a bonus. Thanks for viewing.
It's October already! The poor flowers in the garden are beginning to look very sad indeed! Getting time to hibernate, methinks!
All day long the clouds were dark and heavy, I was not sure if we were going to get any color at sunset, but I figured what the heck... I'll give it a try, and I am glad I did!
This is a long exposure taken on a hillside above the Scripps Pier. The actual processing of this photo was more difficult than I originally thought because the dark shadow area of the building had so much noise I was not happy with it, so I ended up using a second photo taken at a very quick shutter for the building and masking that in. This eliminated all the noise and gave a much cleaner image. After this, I used a Perspective Warp in Photoshop to eliminate the leaning effect due to the wide angle lens.
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Nothing has changed ...
SINCE 2014 !!!
We are still here trying to play "catch-up" ...
But more importantly ... seriously, WHEN is this Blythe-A-Day group THEME of HEINZ ... ever going to come up again???
(Method to my madness of re-sharing!)
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BLYTHE-A-DAY flickr group
OCTOBER 2017
DAY 11: HEINZ
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Photo Credits:
ALL go to PicMonkey !!
(That is Ruby Rapunzel's head, of course)
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The story goes that a ravishing young princess from Maui was captured by a young warrior from Lanai. He took her as his wife and brought her back to his home island. He was so stricken with her beauty that he was afraid to let other men see her, and thus he confined the princess to a sea cave near the rock.
One day, as the warrior was away, the weather suddenly changed drastically, and the raging surf began to pound this side of the island. The warrior rushed back to the cave, but it was too late: His beloved Puu Pehe had drowned. Heartbroken, he retrieved her body and, with the help of the gods, climbed the steep rock island, where he buried her in a tomb. Overcome with grief, the warrior then leaped off the rock to his death.
Puu Pehe is situated about 150 feet offshore between Manele Bay and Hulopoe Bay along the island’s southern coastline. A closer look at this picturesque sea stack reveals, indeed, a tomb-like structure resting at the summit. Archeologists who have studied the rock will tell you that there are no human remains in this “tomb.” The tomb, in fact, may actually be a bird heiau (temple) constructed by the ancient Hawaiians, as numerous bones from sea birds have been found near the heiau.
I proposed to my wife here.
This image was taken just over a week ago during a explore at a local woodland.
The aim was to capture the change of seasons. The autumn colours were there however summer was still visible.
The foggy conditions helped to motivate an early start as it was still dark when I got to the location. With the fog present I knew that it was going to be a good visit.
I was lucky enough to see one of the Black Swallowtail cats changing out of his 3rd instar outfit into his 4th instar. As is typical of caterpillars, once the skin was fully shed, he/she turned around and ate it. It is believed that they do this so as not to leave an easy sign for predators. Ingenious.
This image was taken minutes before the next image in my stream - amazing how quickly the light can change!
A queen, a change of fate, and the burn of fire to take it all away
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Changes.. that is a thing a highly sensitive person like myself doesn't like very much! Fortunately it was changing into sun and blue sky when I took this picture : )
HUS beach, Hanko, Finland
It's amazing how fast photography is changing. I never gave HDR a thought until just under a year ago when I used my own car for my first HDR experiment on Jan.1st of this year. This photo now just happens to be my #1 most viewed photo at about 50,000 views (mostly because of you do a search for HDR it's usually the #1 or #2 most relevant photo).
And this photo is another in the series I did with my work buddy Jeff. The original Viper photo I posted is now my #1 most interesting photo of all time.
And according to my most interesting photos, the top 14 shots are all HDR shots, all taken this year. My previous #1 shot held that position since I initially posted it over 2 years ago. This was when I was at my peak of doing night-time long exposure shots. At that point, my photography was all about going out somewhere random late at night and taking long exposures at night. I also had my times doing tilt shift miniture fakes and using toy cameras for another way of looking at things as well as using textures to help enhance a photo.
What I'm getting at is that these fads come and go. Who knows what will be next? Years and years ago, improvements in photography came at the advances in use of film, and better lenses, and artificial lighting, but these came at a rate of every few years.
My next goal is to obtain and use slip-in filters to create more natural, even exposures.
I know a lot of people going back to film and understanding the original principles of what makes an out-of-the-camera photo more interesting. I think if we all strive to start there, we'll need to do a lot less enhancing to obtain Explore greatness.. or even the accolades from our peers.
Happy rainy Monday. I hope most of you have all your shopping done.
"Will she be there?" I wondered to myself for the 5th time. Changing yet another outfit, once again unsure of whether or not I was satisfied with the image looking back at me in the mirror. "And if she does show up, what will you say?" The sarcastic side of me sneered almost. Lord knows, I haven't always been great with finding just the right words. As it was, I only hoped she noticed my promoting the event, I'd forgotten to actually send her a personal invite.
(Credits coming soon)