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When you are with me i can feel my self complete ...
Taken @ Astoria maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Ironia/23/84/25
Complete with a hula girl on the metal cover behind the front seat and a personalized plate. Seen outside IHOP in Grand Forks. Sweet!
The Kingfisher has been pretty interesting (but also hard) to capture. Next time I will try harder and maybe get closer for even better results.
I know...
You love me
You complete me
You hold my heart in your hands
And it's okay cause i trust that
You'll be the best man that you can
____________
all by me
It sprout, it grew, it blossomed, it got pollenated, now the seeds are ready for the wind to blow, birds to carry...mission completed.
I'm sorry for the delay but I was very busy at work... Finally I can show you the transformation from tadpole to toad complete. A centimeter of beauty!
In the easter day I freed 3 of these in the field near the pond where I found them and I'm waiting that the last two tadpoles have finished the metamorphosis to free them also!
Handheld stack taken with 6D, MP-E, at about 2,7-2,8X, diffused flash MK320. Wide of image is about 13mm.
I hope you like it and I thank you for your visits, faves and comments that are always very appreciated!
Young starlings could take pieces of bread from the palms of people
Dear all, thank you for visits, faves and comments!
I first took a picture of this house in April of 2021 when it was undergoing renovation. See the photo in my first comment. It looks beautiful now. What a fine job of restoration. I would love to sit on that lovely porch. HWW!
... complete, polished wood, gleaming mahogany,
as perfect
as a violin newly
born of the treetops
From "Ode To a Chestnut on the Ground"
by Pablo Neruda
Eurasian Jay (Garrulus glandarius)
My best photos are here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/ticino-best-photos-of-southern-...
More TICINO/TESSIN Wildlife Photos (all taken in my garden in Monteggio/Ti, Switzerland): it.lacerta-bilineata.com/ramarro-occidentale-lacerta-bili...
If you're interested, you'll find a more detailed closeup here (it's the 8th photo from the top): www.lacerta-bilineata.com/western-green-lizard-lacerta-bi...
My latest ANIMAL VIDEO (it's very brief but pretty unusual: a tiny wall lizard attacks two young great tits): www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQqkSsyrm7E
THE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTO: MY LONG AND ARDUOUS JOURNEY TO BIRD PHOTOGRAPHY
If you've set yourself the challenge of exclusively shooting the wildlife in your own back yard, you might find - as I did - that bird photography is really, really hard.
It's not that reptiles are easy to photograph either, mind - but at least the ones in my garden stay (for the most part) on the ground, and one can learn how to carefully approach them with a camera. They're also clearly egoists, which from a photographer's point of view is is a great character trait: if a lizard detects a human in its vicinity, it's only interested in saving its own skin, and it won't alarm its buddies.
But birds... oh man. Over the years, my feathered friends and I have developed a lovely routine that now defines our peaceful co-existence. As soon as I as much as open a window (let alone the door), I'm instantly greeted by an eruption of panicky fluttering and hysterical shouts from my garden: "SAVE YOUR WOMEN AND CHILDREN AND FLY FOR YOUR LIVES: THE HAIRLESS, PINK MONSTER IS COMING!!! (Yes, I speak bird, and I know that this is exactly what they are shouting 😉).
Needless to say, with the exception of the redstart I already showed here, all my efforts to get the kind of detailed shots I usually strive for with my nature photography ended in complete failure and utter disillusionment. I was ready to give up on stalking the winged misanthropes in my garden altogether, but then winter came - and changed everything.
One day this past January I observed my neighbor Signora P - a kind, elderly Italian lady - putting something on the low garden wall in front of my house. At first I thought she was just putting some treat there for her cat Romeo; the young tom patrols that wall constantly (it's his favorite spot in the garden, and during the warmer months he usually lurks in the thick foliage next to it to prey on lizards).
But once I detected a lot of movement on that wall through my window, I understood she had put a little pile of bread crumbs there; she was feeding the birds who soon arrived in flocks. This was certainly well-intended on my neighbor's part, but her noble action came with a catch, and I'm afraid quite literally.
When I took a stroll through my garden the next day I discovered a suspicious amount of feathers on the ground next to the wall. Romeo had apparently switched from his low-calorie summer diet (lizard) to more energy-rich meals consisting of "fowl" (it was winter after all, so from a nutritionist's point of view this made sense).
I would find fresh traces of Romeo's victims (mostly feathers, but also the odd wing) in my garden over the following days; so my first intuition that my neighbor was feeding her cat hadn't been that far off after all, as Romeo was now clearly being "served" fresh birds on a daily basis. And although the hungry visitors seemed to be aware of the danger and became slightly more prudent, they just couldn't resist the tasty snacks Signora P put on that wall - and neither could Romeo.
It was obvious that I had to act, but talking to my neighbor - who is as stubborn as she is kind - would have been futile, I knew that much. I pondered the matter long and hard - until a light bulb went off in my head. The idea was genius. If successful, what I had in mind would not only increase the birds' chances of surviving Romeo's appetite, but also greatly benefit my own photographic endeavors.
I started to enact my master plan the very next day by buying a giant bag of bird feed (consisting mainly of sunflower seeds) from the store. Then I dragged a huge piece of a tree trunk (approx. 120 cm in height) that we normally chop firewood on from the shed out into the garden and emptied almost half of the bag's content on top of it. Signora P's buffet for birds (and cats) was about to get some serious competition 😊.
My reasoning was as follows: not only would the birds be lured away from the fatally low garden wall to a place where they were safe from the cat - there was nothing around that tree trunk that provided cover for a predator, and the birds had a nice 360° view around it at all times - but I was also able to photograph them while hiding in the shed.
However, in order for my plan to work there was one little extra measure I had to take, and it was one that risked lowering my own life expectancy considerably once the owner of the property - my mom - discovered it. You see, our shed is completely windowless, so if I wanted to use it as a blind, I had no choice but to cut a hole into one of its wooden walls... which I promptly did (I figured all's fair in love - and photography 😉).
Granted, I have absolutely zero carpentering skills, and it showed. That hole was an ugly mess: the shed's wall seemed to have had an encounter with Jack Nicholson's ax-wielding lunatic character from the film 'The Shining'. Needless to say, I was incredibly proud of my work (I mean, come on: there now was a hole where before there wasn't a hole, and it was big enough for the lens of my camera to peek through, so it was mission accomplished as far as I was concerned).
Now all I had to do was wait for the birds to discover the tree trunk. In the meantime I started to mentally prepare myself for the inevitable confrontation with my mom and go through possible explanations for that splintering hole in the wall (it was either gonna be a rabid woodpecker attack or an emergency rescue mission with a feeding tube for a little kid that had accidentally locked himself inside the shed - both seemed valid options, though I slightly preferred the locked-in kid due to the involved drama and heroism 😉).
A whole day went by, and not a single bird visited the sunflower seeds. I had expected that it might take a few hours until the first of the ever curious great tits or blue tits would show up, but given how tiny my garden is, an entire day seemed excessive. Then another day came and went: the birds kept flocking to the bread crumbs on the wall, and my tree trunk kept collecting dust. To add injury to insult, a few fresh feathers on the ground were proof that Romeo was still feasting.
It was incredibly frustrating: I provided my winged guests with a much better view - plus a higher chance of surviving the cuisine - than Signora P's place; I risked (almost) certain death at the hands of my own mother (OK, the act of vandalism on the shed I had committed for my own benefit, but still), yet the birds kept ignoring me.
Then, after three days, just before sunset, I spotted a single blue tit on the tree trunk picking away at the sunflower seeds.
When I got up the next morning I immediately realized that the loud noise that accompanies each and every tit activity had shifted from the wall to the shed. At last the dam had broken: there was a flurry of movement around the tree trunk, and I counted at least 5 different species of birds feasting on the sunflower seeds.
From day 4 onward my plan worked beautifully: the birds now indeed mostly ignored Romeo's "snack wall" and kept to the tree trunk. And yes, I was able to play peeping tom from behind the shed's wall and photograph them!! 😊
Thus, dear readers, I finally managed to produce some acceptable bird photos, and I had even saved my feathered friends from a deadly foe in the process. All through winter and spring I took advantage of my new bird hide, and in late May I started mixing some cherries with the sunflower seeds. The idea was to attract a Eurasian jay (Garrulus glandarius), and as you can see, it worked!
It took me almost three weeks and more than a few tricks to capture that clever fella, but given how long I've been rambling here already, that's a story for another day. As for my mom, she still doesn't know about the hole in the wall, so please don't snitch! 😉.
I hope you like the photo and wish you all a wonderful weekend! Many greetings from Switzerland, and as always: let me know what you think in the comments 🙏 😊 ❤!
P.S. if anyone has their own funny tale about the obstacles we photographers are prepared to overcome for a desired photo, please write it in the comments: I love such stories 😊
It's taking way too long, people. They shut this road down some time during trump's tenure. The Germans could have completed this in six months, at twice the thickness of a standard American road. On most days, no work is being performed here. On 9-21-2023, the bridge was finally completed and is open to traffic.
You have to enlarge the image and look closely to make out the thin "hairs" around the head of this hair-crested drongo (dicrurus hottentottus). Photographed in Kanchanaburi, Thailand.
Un numéro de l'acrobate Una au spectacle "Fracas"
Festival Complètement Cirque juillet 2016
An acrobatic act by Una from the free outdoor show "Fracas" Montreal Complètement Cirque Festival July 2016
A group of pretty and similar looking butterflies.
On the forewing underside, this species is characterised in a red strut marking, a subapical spot, and a relatively small patch (compared to the related species).
DSCN0788-CU-EXP0P60-CONTN10-DPP60-WCP30-FIN_AE_M_CM-CLA10-VAL05
We se Bünsowska huset
At nrs 29-33 on Strandvägen, is Bünsowska Huset, completed in 1888 and the most impressive of all buildings at Strandvägen. The architect, Isak Gustaf Clason, was inspired by the architecture of the castles of the Loire Valley in France when he designed this magnificent brick building with turrets and round towers.
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Completed in 1810 by John Rennie, the spectacular Dundas Aqueduct carries the Kennet & Avon Canal over the River Avon and is a Scheduled Monument. It was the first canal structure to be designated as a Scheduled Ancient Monument in 1951.
Named after Charles Dundas, the first chairman of the Kennet and Avon Canal Company, the aqueduct forms the junction between the Kennet and Avon Canal and the largely derelict Somerset Coal Canal. The short stretch of the Somerset Coal Canal still in water forms Brassknocker Basin, used for boat moorings, cycle hire and a cafe. A short walk further there is the Dundas Wharf where the small tollhouse, warehouse and crane still stand.