The T-160 Thunderbird (pictured here with pilot Capt Penny Bowman) was an experimental fighter developed by the Palladite Republic. The Palladites, renowned for their inventive but impractical ideas fitted the fighter with twin Arc guns, each one housed in an electrically insulated nacelle at the front of the plane. Each Arc gun was powered by its own generator capable of creating 12,000,000 volts. Although the gun had a range of well over a mile, the weapons were very difficult to aim and pilots eventually resorted to dive-bombing their targets at high speed and firing their weapons when in close proximity to ensure a hit. When they did hit, the Arc guns would cripple their target's electronics, sometimes electrocute the crew, and occasionally ignite the fuel tanks. The guns would often short circuit so eventually a 12mm machine gun was fitted beneath each Arc gun in case the main weapon failed. Although feared for their unpredictable nature, Thunderbirds did little to effect the outcome of the war and only 152 were ever made.

I truly need to start doing more behind the scenes footage because my life is really strange sometimes. Also, I can already tell I'm going to die on set.

Today for example;

I was setting up my shot in the last of the daylight, and as I go to climb the ladder, one strand of lights just gives out. This is what my life is people. So I fiddle with as many of the individual bulbs as I can trying to figure out where the weak link was. Unable to do so, and with my light fading, it was a point where you either trash the shoot or go ahead and deal with it in post later. I do not suggest shooting to edit, but I also don't brush my hair very often so you can bet I climbed that ladder regardless. After about 5 shots I climbed down to check how the exposure and focus was and as I was jumping off the last rung, I felt like I had hit my funny bone and realized I had just gotten a little good old fashioned electrocution. I didn't think it was a big deal but when I put my hand back on the ladder to climb up again, that sucker was live. Needless to say the shoot basically concluded pretty swiftly.

Last week I started a fire ring, and this week I got electrocuted. To be quite honest, I really wouldn't have it any other way.

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This fascinating book describes a cornucopia of amusing experiments, from making fireworks and bombs, often by mixing Flowers of Salts and Oil of Vitriol to an amusing diversion on electrocuting a live Flounder. Frankly I’m surprised that any of its readers survived. I’m sure the Flounders didn’t.

Admission time. This is the kind of hair I always wanted, and always felt I deserved. But no, my hair never did much of anything, and of late it has decided that it doesn't want to Be at all. It is slowly committing suicide, leaving my head less and less covered.

God forbid it all happened at once. But oh no, a batch of baldness here, a receding hairline there.

Thank god I'm black, and can shave my dome without looking like a skinhead.

A racist skinhead, not a non-racist skinhead. Apparently there's a difference.

If I had hair like this, I would probably mind going bald much more. Because this is perfect hair, in my opinion. This is hair that people look at, pine over, crave.

Maybe I'll just steal hers.

A selection of four weapons offered in the Terminus Soldier Programme, secretly managed by Thricell Pharmaceutical.

The weapons included here are:

- MSAR-762 modular suppressed assault rifle

- DPP-45/9 handgun/arc-gun combo

- XNEL-1/A nuclear payload electromagnetic launcher

- MPFT chain sword

[Summary of the Terminus Soldier Programme]

The Terminus Soldier Programme is intended to repurpose dead soldiers and reanimate them into a versatile (human-machine) hybrid autonomous weapon.

The Terminus Soldats created from this program should be able to complete both stealth, defense, and heavy combat operations.

[MSAR-762]

A large-caliber modification of the venerable AAC Honey Badger, chambering the larger 7.62x51mm NATO round. Reducing weight whenever it can, the receiver, barrel and the handguard are made out of titanium, cutting about one kilo off the overall weight. In addition, the short suppressor barrel and retractable stock permits use in close quarters combat, while the enlarged mag-well designed for the 45 round casket magazine improves reload times.

[DPP-45/9]

An experimental handgun that combines a .45 caliber burst fire pistol with a short range arc rifle. The enhanced gas system hidden within the upper receiver reduces the recoil generated by the powerful .45 ACP rounds, allowing tighter shot grouping and faster follow-up bursts.

The sidearm's secondary fire mode is engaged by pressing the button near the slide, transforming the pistol into a high-power yet short range arc caster, which fatally electrocutes any target that is in range. The miniature arc rifle is good for two shots, but can be recharged using a charge pack.

More information to come in a later update...

what if…

It’s quite remarkable how many of Tesla's inventions have proven to be the most efficient technologies of the day, from AC power systems and polyphase transmission lines, to RF lighting, to the AC induction motor in the Tesla car. He is now recognized as the inventor of radio, not Marconi, one of his many competitors.

Edison was so competitive with Tesla (partnered with Westinghouse at the time) that he arranged for the electric chair to use AC power for electrocutions, conveying the marketing message that AC is lethal (versus the DC power systems that Edison sold). Edison’s lab “Westinghoused” 24 dogs purchased from local children for 25 cents apiece before moving to a human criminal.

On his deathbed, Edison volunteered that his biggest mistake was trying to develop DC instead of the vastly superior AC system that his former employee, Nikola Tesla, had put within his grasp.

---------

Image: Stained glass display in Prague (more)

That's the beast, all huge lens and gigantic body. There was actually a midget in the room who carried it around while she was in between shots.

No, Two midgets.

The other side to that shot is HERE.

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© KORBO 2016 - All rights reserved.

For Centre Use Only.

Our 4th Christmas Villain(s) are the Gremlins!

Poor Gizmo... they're turning him into a Xmas tree! Or are they trying to electrocute him? Bad, bad gremlins!!!

The Adams is a traditional dry fly primarily used for trout. It is considered a general imitation of an adult mayfly, flying caddis or midge. It was designed by Leonard Halladay from Mayfield, Michigan in 1922, at the request of his friend Charles Adams. The Adams has been considered one of the most popular, versatile, effective and bestselling dry flies since its creation.

Origin

In 1922, Leonard Halladay, a Michigan fly tyer conceived the Adams as a general mayfly imitation. It was first fished by an Ohio attorney and friend of Halladay, Charles F. Adams on the Boardman River near Traverse City, Michigan. Charles Adams reported his success with the fly to Halladay, who named the fly after his friend.[3] The small community of Mayfield, Michigan, bids itself as the "Birthplace of the Adams Fly"

Variations

The Adams has been tied with a variety of materials and variations. The most common variation is the Parachute Adams where the hackle is tied parachute style around a wing base of white calf hair. The variation gives the fly greater buoyancy and visibility in rough water. Other variations include spentwings, downwings, females tied with a yellow body tag resembling an egg sac, hairwings, and with different tailing material such as elk, deer or moose.

The Mayfield Electric Company:1921-1947

Armed with an engineering degree from the University of Minnesota, Harry Sargent was determined to put it to good use when his family needed electricity in rural Grand Traverse

County in 1921.

So he teamed with his father-in-law, James L. Gibbs, a lumber baron who oversaw the building of the Brown Bridge Dam, and came up with a plan to use hydro power to create electricity for more than 1,200 homes and farms, plus area grist mills and sawmills. Grist mills were used to grind grain into flour. Harry Sargent, James Gibbs and brother L.K. Gibbs then put their plan into action.

They and some friends from Mayfield, Kingsley and Arbutus Lake would erect poles and lines to supply electricity to these areas. “My father knew about the power of turbines at a dam to produce electricity, so he went ahead and made it happen,” says Sargent’s daughter Edna, now 88. “My grandparents were in the lumber business, so my dad had grown up around that. He knew how to make power poles and learned about power lines in college. He saw the need for electricity, so he and his friends and family basically created their own electric company.” After the Brown Bridge Dam was built in 1921, James Gibbs got the ball rolling by converting an old grist mill into a hydroelectric plant.

Harry Sargent and his friend Len Halladay, a renowned fishing expert, then began the task of building the lines and poles for what became the May field Electric Co. Less than a year after completing their work, the company faced its first crisis – The Sleet Storm of 1922 – which left nearly all seven miles of its

poles either down or badly damaged. “I remember my father

saying, when talking about that storm, it was ‘all hands-on deck,’” Edna recalls. Despite being born in 1925, Edna says she never knew what it was like to be without electricity. “I know that’s just the opposite of most people my age, but most people my age didn’t have a father who started their own electric company.”

Edna remembers that an old John Deere motor/generator doing the bulk of the work in generating electricity for the surrounding Kingsley area.

“My dad designed a belt that would work faster or slower, depending on the need for electricity,” she adds. “He would go down to the generator several times a day to make sure

it was working properly. In the morning, he would go down and crank up the generator to run faster and produce more electricity. “At night, he would go down and pull a lever back on the generator to decrease the power.”

Edna and her family, which included her parents, brother James and sister Janet, used electricity in a variety of ways at their Mayfield area home—from lighting to powering the

appliances. Harry Sargent kept food on the table with his electric company.

“If there were power outages, my dad, with help from family and friends, did it all to get the lights back on,” she says. “And when it came time to collect money for the bills, he would go into Kingsley once a month on a Saturday night. That was a big deal. That’s where everyone gathered to watch movies on

the side of a big building. He would go set up and people would pay him there.”

Edna and her siblings attended the one room Mayfield School, for grades K-8, and then were schooled in Traverse City.

When Edna was 14, in 1939, Consumers Power made an offer to her dad to buy out about 1,000 customers that made up the

Village of Kingsley, and he accepted. This left him to keep the electricity flowing for about 200 homes in Mayfield & Arbutus Lake, she says.

In 1947, nine years after Cherryland Rural Electric was established, Rural Electrification Administration representatives came knocking at the Sargents’ door.

“By that time, my father was ready to sell,” Edna says. “He had operated the Mayfield Electric Company for 27 years with the help of Len Holiday, who ran the operation if my father was out of town.”

Sadly, on June 26, 1947 – four days before Cherryland took over the Mayfield Electric Co. – Harry Sargent was electrocuted while working an outage. “Needless to say, it was a very hard time for our family,” Edna says.

“I still have a hard time talking about it. But I can say that Cherryland’s general manager Harry Hall and line foreman Bob Lambert were very, very nice to our family during that time.”

Even though it has been 66 years since the Mayfield Electric Co. went out of business, the thrill of being part of it still makes Edna Sargent smile.

“I think this was one of, if not the last, private electric companies in Michigan,” she recalls. “I remember that it was a lot of work for my father, but he loved it. He made it his

life’s work.

As it is rarer than previously believed, its conservation status was reassessed from Least Concern to Near Threatened in the 2007 IUCN Red List.[5] In 2012 it was further uplisted to Endangered.[6] In October 2015, its status was changed to Critically Endangered because the ongoing decline is more severe than previously thought.

The population of the White Backed Vulture has been decreasing significantly within the past few decades. In 1922, the population was estimated at 270,000. Over the past two decades, its population has noticeably decreased. While not much is known about the current population, a recent study found that the White Backed Vultures have a high survival rate. Individual adults have the highest survival rate, while 2 year old birds have the lowest survival rate. Across all ages, the survival rate is estimated to be 90.7%. This means that the deaths of adult vultures will lead to rapid population declines. The loss of adults will cause less reproduction and with younger birds less likely to survive, the population will drop drastically. A major cause of population decrease is the loss of habitat. Elephants have been endangering the vultures, since they destroy the trees the vultures live and nest in. Vultures tend not to nest in areas with high elephant populations.Fires have also caused the destruction of trees. Humans also have a large impact. Our power lines have caused many vultures to be electrocuted. In Kenya especially, humans are using a very toxic pesticide called Furadan, which has led to many vulture deaths. Vultures are also being poisoned by humans, although not intentionally. In order to kill hyenas, lions, and other predators, herders add poisons into their livestock. Vultures ingest the poison upon eating a deceased animal's carcass. This poisoning generally occurs outside of protected areas, but is a leading factor in the population’s decline. Habitats are being also disturbed by human land management and direct nesting persecution patterns.

More recent studies have indicated a new plausible factor in the current declination of the vultures. Researches have seen that there has been a rise in toxicity in the liver, kidneys, pectoral region, and internal organs. This toxicity is caused by higher levels of lead, cadmium, zinc, and copper. Although most of these metals level out as either non harmful or normal levels, the lead concentrate in the liver of the vultures (8.56 µg/g wet weight) and in the kidneys (9.31 µg/g wet weight) is higher than the average levels.

Studies have also been performed on Gyps africanus and some species of Asian vultures within the Gyps clade to see the effect of veterinary diclofenac.[8] Regardless of whether the vultures were given an oral or intravenous dose of the substance, the effects was nearly identical and the diclofenac eventually poisoned the subjects.[9] This chemical is one of the greatest contaminants for the general vulture population because of its presence in livestock: easy food for the vultures.

Another study shows that there are heightened levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, HPA’s, which isn’t as likely a product in the endangerment resultant, but still concerning. HPA’s, also known as polyaromatic hydrocarbons, are formations of hydrogen atoms surrounding rings of carbon. As common as these compounds are—found in foods, engines/incinerators, fires, combustion—there are many forms, and some carcinogenic. Although there is no direct correlation of the high levels of HPA’s in the vultures, there is still a plausibility that it can result in a negative outcome for the species

#AB_FAV_YELLOW_EASTER_ 🐰

PURE JOY...

IGOR THE WORLD CHAMPION.

Once a horse won that title... it becomes invaluable and is used as a stud.

Igor had just sired a few mares and was feeeeeeeeeling GOOD...

(to sire is to inseminate.)

The Belgian horse, Belgian Heavy Horse, Flemish or Brabant is a horse breed that comes from the West-Brabantian region of Belgium.

They are one of the strongest of the heavy breeds.

The world's Largest Horse was a Belgian named Brooklyn Supreme, who weighed 3,200 pounds, and stood at 19.2 hands.

On average the Brabant will grow to be slightly over 1 ton or 2,000 pounds.

Colours normally are a blond with a brighter mane, or a sorrel/ chestnut colouring.

In history their main use was to work farms.

They are able to pull tremendous amounts of weight-up to over 4,500 pounds for a pair.

They also played an important role in the first World War, where quite a few perished.

I walked around and started to photograph, I discovered another blond stallion in an adjacent field and in order to get his whole head, with the velvet nose and pricked up ears all in, I had pushed through the fences and the top (danger!!!) ribbon... well I got the shot, but what a SHOCKING experience!

I straightened too soon and was electrocuted, in the neck, I called Paul, yelling: IS THE CAMERA GOING TO BE ALL RIGHT???

The horse got as much of a fright as I did, bolted and ran off.

Farmers are the same all over the world, they are only allowed a low voltage BUT... this was 240, my heart felt like I was 25 again. Bouboum.

I turned around into the 'safer' stables, obviously the nursery, since there were about 6 stables all with foals, that's where I captured those two lovelies.

The adventures of a photographer he, tee hee.

The Belgian horse is a much-loved gentle giant.

Thank you and have a super day, M, (*_*)

For more: www.indigo2photography.com

Please do not use any of my images on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit permission. © All rights reserved

Spring, blonde, Flanders, Brabander, horses, foal, farm, stable, working-horse, daylight, natural, suckling, Flanders, horizontal, Nikon D200, "Magda indigo"

Robe OOAK handmade de la nouvelle collection pour pullip de ma marque Electrocute. Le set comprend une robe et un bloomer assorti.

SOLD OUT

nekounette-toxicmushroom.blogspot.com/

Merci ^^

Back when Midian was cool.

You know, back when you could be a human, a hybrid (cat or otherwise), a supernatural (vampire or lycan), a mech, or even a space alien with a toxic green mohawk.

Theme: Dead City

You step away for ONE minute, sheesh! What a crazy town!

Mye's eyelids fluttered. She let out a soft, "Mmmph," as the strange man with the green mohawk and right eye patch held her in his grip. Her eyes veered from him to the blue haired woman that was with him. Mye's breathing became erratic. Her hand went to her beretta once again, taking it out of it its holster and attempted to push the barrel into the man's side, searching for a soft, leathery part of his armor that she was hoping was there.

"Just answer him!" The woman that was with the man blurted out as she watched them from the sidewalk in their struggles on the street. She cringed, still frightened about what was going on.

Meanwhile...

"Nick! What the hell did you call me back for?" Joe called out from the back entrance, though did not see the kid around. "Nick? Nick! Get your butt out here and explain yourself!"

Joe was pissed. He was on his first date of sorts - at least the first one he had been on for a good long while. That pimply faced kid was probably hiding somewhere chatting it up with, in all likelihood, an internet romance with a gay German bear trying to pass for a nineteen year old busty blonde bombshell. This kid had the nerve to call Joe up and claim there's a problem at Madre's Italian restaurant. As Joe waited for Nick to come out of hiding he tapped his foot. That was, until he heard commotion from the front. Joe moved swiftly past the counter where he saw Mye and the black armored, green mowhawk headed man doing something funky outside.

"What the hell is going on here?" Joe asked, murring in a not too happy tone.

The armored man felt the barrel press into his side. His device hummed louder and whirred under her jaw, vibrating against the bone that the twin barrels of the laser gun pressed against. He squeezed the skin between her thighs even harder. Preoccupied with tormenting and interrogating Mye, he doesn't even turn to look at Joe, though he directed what he said next to him, "We're just playin' a game here. Don't mind us." The man focused back on Mye and said to her, "Stop holdin' out information when you have a gun on you."

Mye winced in pain. The humming of the weapon was quite unnerving. Still, she remained quiet. The vibration from it was indeed felt. Whatever it was, it was really strange. Her eyes, filled with fear, gave a quick glance to Joe. Tears welled up from the pain between her legs. She was scared to fire her gun lest she ended up with no head or pelvis or, God only knows what that thing could do that he had pressed up against her.

"Why tonight of all nights?" Joe sighed and grumbled. He headed into the kitchen and came back moments later with a butcher knife and a meat cleaver. He grumbled a few more times when he got back. "Compliments of the chef," he said, pointing the butcher knife at green mohawk man, "Let the girl go or I start hacking shit up."

Out of fear and exhaustion the blue haired woman glanced up, eyeing the butcher knife being pointed at her partner. She looked back towards Mye and started to think that the brunette woman deserved what was happening to her, and was glad she was not the one in Mye's position. "Answer him already. Sheesh!"

Mohawk man's one good eye gazed at Joe this time. He slowly let go of the woman's crotch, lowering her down to the ground. Though he backed away, the barrels of the laser gun moved instead from Mye's jaw to right in front of her face. "Hey, if she would just answer my questions, this would all be over. Then again, you wouldn't know that, would ya'?"

Mye whimpered as Joe disappeared. That bastard cat just left me here out to die! she thought, that is, until he came back out with a - knife and meat cleaver? Oh brother. Well, whatever works, no? Her breathing was tattered and labored. The vibration from it coursed through her bones, running down her spine. God, this just felt so not right. Mye gave a pfft at the blue haired woman's comment. Weak girls. A little threat and they would blab everything. Mye wasn't that kind of girl to a fault. Obviously to a fault. As the armored man lessened his hold, and her feet returned to solid ground, Mye's eyes went cross-eyed, locking in on the barrel of whatever type of device was pointed right at her. Here it was, the moment of truth. She held her breath and abruptly dropped down toward the ground, body tumbling over toward the concrete pillar with a loud whoosh sound as she attempted to get out of the aim of the laser.

Joe grumbled again, then made a false thrust toward mohawk man with the cleaver, just close enough that he would feel the whoosh of the blade come close to his wrist. He snorted, "Next time, it'll be your hand being lobbed off if you don't comply and let the girl go!"

The armored man didn't flinch, though the move of the leopard man did make him glance toward Joe. Because of that, he didn't notice Mye slip away until he saw her movement out the corner of his eye. The laser gun went off as he quickly glanced back. He just barely missed shooting her head. The red laser hit the pillar and went all the way through it, as well as the wall behind it. He quickly turned the device upon Joe. "CHILL! Fuck! Sure, I'll let 'er go!" he barked at Joe, then glared at the blue haired woman.

The blue haired woman watched Joe thrust toward her partner with the butcher knife. She stepped back, feeling more than a little helpless, and wishing she wasn't so useless. Maybe she could kick Joe? No, that wouldn't work. She caught her partner's glare and frowned.

Mye's ears picked up the sound of the laser going through the concrete. She would have sighed relief if she wasn't still feeling fretful about her safety and all. She slipped off behind the green haired mohawk guy, her beretta still in hand, and attempted to grab the blue haired woman, seeking to hold the other woman hostage. If the girl was worth anything to the guy, it would be soon found out.

As she got grabbed, the blue haired woman gasped and swallowed in fear. She looked at Mye with shock on her face. "You BITCH!"

Joe thought with a laser he might have a better chance of survival behind the woman that seemed to be mohawk man's partner of some sort. Thus he went to help Mye gang up on the poor blue haired girl, who had become a hostage at Madre's. He looked toward Mye, "Ok girl, you got us into this mess, now how the fuck are you going to get us out?"

Mye let out a soothing sounding hush in the other woman's ear. "Just stay still." She wrapped around the other woman's torso, pinning her arms down. Mye held her beretta to the temple of the girl's head. "I say we all just let things lie, no? Sounds like a plan to me. That way no one gets hurt." Mye didn't turn to look at Joe. Her eyes remained on the guy with the green mohawk. "Your call," she said to him.

The blue haired girl gasped, looking at her partner, and remained rigid in Mye's grasp as the steel barrel beretta was held to her forehead. She tried to speak but the fear inside her caused her not to say anything.

Mohawk man tilted his head slightly in surprise and confusion. "Sorry Zio," he said in an almost monotone voice as the device fired off. The laser went through Zio, right below her shoulder bone. If anyone was behind her, they would have surely been hit as well.

Zio fell down dramatically as the shot was felt all over her body. Her eyes fluttered shut in pain.

Mye screamed. The laser went right through Zio and straight through her in pretty much the same spot, though a tad bit higher. The hold she had on Zio was no more. Her left arm hanged limply. A searing pain spread from her shoulder. The shot had pierced through bone, fragmenting it, leaving jagged pieces stuck inside of her. The pain was dizzying. Mye held up her beretta, wanting to shoot, but her body grew limp and she hit the ground.

Joe saw the gun come up and that it was pointed at... Zio? WTF?! Shooting his own partner? On the other hand, and the more he thought about it, and thinking on his ex... yep, he probably would have done the same thing. So... every cat for himself, it seemed. Joe tried to guard against the laser with the flat plane of the butcher knife, hoping this laser couldn't cut through stainless steel. If lucky, he would be able to deflect the laser beam. If not, he wound up going down with the other two.

The green haired mohawk man watched everyone hit the floor, because the laser beam indeed went through the steel. He smirked from behind his mask, pretty proud of his work. Not even moving, the device still pointed at them, "So, do you know Red Eye?" he asked again. Simple question, really. He figured she must know, otherwise who the hell would go through all of this otherwise?

Mye still wouldn't answer, even if she were awake. But the pain plus the smack of head against concrete put her in loo loo land. Her body began to twitch as her brain started displaying vivid colors.

Zio laid lifeless on the ground. The bastard shot her!

Joe groaned, and mrred, "Jebus! All this shooting with a laser over red eye? Just go get some damn Visine at the Sari Mart downtown. Fuck!"

Mye would have swatted Joe for that comment. But seeing as she was knocked out at that moment, that didn't happen.

Mohawk man waited for an answer to his question. Oh great, he thought as he realized Mye was passed out. With a sigh, he walked over to her body. He reached around his waist to his back, clipping off something that looked like a syringe. Grabbing a handful of Mye's hair as he squatted over her, he slid the needle into her neck. "Red Eye is a person," he said in passing as he made sure he injected her correctly. He pulled it out, pressing a few buttons on his wrist-pad. Yup, there she was. The tracker was implanted.

Mye drooled a bit as she got pulled up by her hair. Her eyelids fluttered as the needle pierced through her skin. Whether it was because of the prick of pain, or the images in her brain, it would be unknown what made her twitch just then.

Joe groaned and tried to sit up. This whole scene looked something like some sick swap, or a swingers sort of thing. What with the poor, possibly dead, blue haired girl apparently resting on his legs and lap, and mohawk man was doing God knows what with Mye's head. Joe slowly got up and looked at the blue haired girl, then to mohawk man. "What the hell, you killed your own partner?" He mrred and shook his head, then looked at the butcher's knife with the burned out hole in it, "Oh shit! Sam's gonna be pissed now."

Zio got pretty comfortable laying against the cold concrete. At least she got to try some pizza earlier.

Mohawk man lifted Zio up. "She's fine. Dunno about you guys though. I shot her where it wouldn't kill her. Good luck with your own injuries, though."

Leaning over, the man with the green mohawk grabbed Zio's arm. Light suddenly started to flash in the area, illuminating the whole alley with each flicker. The wind picked up as he punched a few things on his wrist pad. A few jolts of lightning shot out above his head as a small electrical ball appeared. It went into mohawk man and split off into Zio. Both of their bodies looked as if they were being electrocuted, but yet were not harmed.

"We'll be back," the man said with a smirk behind his mask. Suddenly their bodies, got sucked up into the two balls, along with any debris that was sitting on the ground around them. The air around all of them vanished for a split second to the point where you couldn't breath, then suddenly returned back to normal as air rushed outward from the point where they got sucked in. Then they were gone.

Mye's body spasmed every now and again. Not noticing what was going on around her, as she was still out cold. She made a gasping sound while struggling to breathe at one point, but that dissipated as soon as the two disappeared into, thin air?

Joe just sat and mrred, looking over at Mye. "It was great knowin' ya." He sniffed.

English Electric Type 4 Class 40 loco number 40126 seen at Blaenau Ffestiniog 27th September 1980 with a 'Special' from the Manchester area.

This is arguably Britain’s most famous diesel locomotive and unfortunately all due to terrifying or fatal events which occurred whilst the loco was numbered D326 in the 1960s.

D326 was hauling the overnight travelling Post Office train from Glasgow to London Euston which was stopped and robbed of over £2.6 million on 8 August 1963 and known henceforth as ‘The Great Train Robbery’.

On Boxing Day the previous year D326 was hauling the Midday Scot to London when allegedly due to driver error, it ran into back of a Liverpool to Birmingham express which had been delayed by signalling. 18 passengers were killed in this accident and over 30 were injured, some seriously. In 1964 a second-man (driver’s assistant) was electrocuted by the overhead cables while working outside the locomotive. In 1965 the loco suffered total brake failure on the approach to Birmingham New Street. Fortunately in this case, the train was diverted into another platform at the last moment by a quick-witted signalman, and it smashed into the back of a freight train, injuring only that train’s guard.

40126 was withdrawn from service in February 1984 and scrapped just over a month later. In their wisdom, the Board of British Rail refused to consider preserving or selling the loco as they decided that the loco was a celebrity for all of the wrong reasons.

Personally I would have preferred to have had this illustrious loco preserved – if only as a static monument to Jack Mills the driver during the Great Train Robbery who was never able to work again after being hit head on the head by one of the robbers. At least one of the mail coaches from that train has been preserved, so why not the locomotive?

Alter Ego: The Kingston's

Real Name: Susan Kingston

Powers: Enhanced physical attributes and super durability

Weapons: Destrite Katana (unbreakable metal) and Destrite built in brass knuckles.

Weakness: Her great love for her brother she will do anything to protect him.

Backstory: As a young child Susan and her younger brother Coby were raised up wealthy in Avalon City by their mother and their super powered hero Father. One day Susan and her brother and mother went out into town for shopping whilst their dad worked. Later that day their fathers arch enemy The Gladiator tracked down the family whilst their super hero father was at work. Susan and Coby witnessed The Gladiator brutally murder their mother with the memorial statue of their father...

Their father then seen the news and flew to the scene where he fought his arch enemy before he could kill Coby and Susan. Susan and Coby watched the two fight to the death as their father flew off with The Gladiator and disappeared forever...

Susan and Coby grew up without their parents and watched Avalon's City crime rise as their father continues to be missing. Susan then decided to avenge her father and trained everyday from that day on and soon became a brutal trained fighter. Susan then hit the streets and fought crime but soon Coby wanted to try it too and against Susan's wishes he joined her in her crime fighting by using his great engineering skills to build his weapon of choice full of non lethal tools.

The two "powerless" heroes soon drove crime back into its gutters until soon super human criminals started to appear and be a great threat to the mortal heroes. Susan and Coby then came across a T.O.X.I.N truck and Susan was abducted and experimented on until Coby saved her. Susan then discovered she had enhanced physical attributes and extreme durability making her a fair match for the new super humans.

Super Human Susan and her younger brother now fight crime and the new super human criminals as well as looking after other heroes which need help and train them to organise a super hero team to fight against the crime in Avalon City.

Alter Ego: The Kingston's

Real Name: Coby Kingston

Powers: None

Weapons: Destrite Chain with non lethal weapons:

His sister Susan

* Sleeping Gas Nozzle

* Hammer Nozzle

* Can extend

* Can electrocute enemy's

* Sprout a grapple hook

Weakness: General

Backstory: When Coby found out his sister was fighting crime Coby engineered his custom "Coby Chain" to take out crime with his super powered older sister Susan.

Another bus queue photograph, taken at Mansfield on Saturday 5th May 1979. The Bristol FLF Lodekka would be from the Mansfield District Traction fleet. The Bristol VRT at the stop behind would be a Midland General vehicle. Note the dreadful National Bus Company standard uniform. The decline of the industry could be measured by the declining quality of its uniforms. I remember seeing the new uniform featured on the front page of Bus, the NBC house magazine and groaning when I saw the peaked cap, which imitated the appearance of American police caps. Under a blasted oak at midnight I swore a solemn oath never to wear one of the ridiculous things.

Though it is spring, the conductor has not yet shed his winter tunic. Many older men felt uncomfortable with the "bum-freezer" summer blouson jacket and declined to wear it. The tunic we see here tended to fade at a different rate to the trousers and was eventually phased out in favour of a darker garment. Uniforms should be black or navy blue anyway. The pockets had flaps whose lower edges were curved, producing pointy corners which tended to curl up. I think you had a choice of raincoat or overcoat, the two alternating with subsequent issues. I never bothered to claim either. But at least this was still a proper uniform. The last item of uniform I received, after the privatisation and de-regulation of the industry, was a preposterous, ill-fitting "fleece", made from some artificial fabric which crackled so much that I wondered whether I was in danger of self-electrocution. I managed to eke out my existing uniform for the few years I remained in the job (I had over 20 blue shirts, still unworn and in their wrapping when I left) and was never obliged to wear the accursed fleece.

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It's becoming a bit of a tradition, now, to do mean things to peeps at the Hackerbot Labs around easter time. Last year, we electrocuted some peeps in a vacuum; this year, we opted for freezing them in liquid nitrogen and then shooting them with a pellet gun, as seen here.

Many thanks to Xander and Phil for their help in setting up the circuit (photo) for doing the triggering (on an Arduino), and to 3ric for supplying the LN2 and a fair bit of the inspiration. Thanks also to Bre for sending his high-speed photography rig our way, though alas it did not arrive in time to use it (which means extra special thanks to Xander and Phil for getting something else together in time), and to Lisa for doing a bunch of the clean-up, and to everyone else who helped out in one way or another.

The flash used was my newly purchased Vivitar 285HV, at 1/16th power, camera right sitting on a box about 18" away in wide angle mode with the diffuser in place, triggered as documented above (more details and more pictures of the setup (including me using "chopsticks" to place a peep) are in Xander's stream).

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Blogged: by Xander, and then by MAKE, Arduino.

The Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus), also called the white scavenger vulture or pharaoh's chicken.

The Egyptian vulture is usually seen singly or in pairs, soaring in thermals along with other scavengers and birds of prey, or perched on the ground or atop a building. On the ground, they walk with a waddling gait. They feed on a range of food, including mammal faeces (including those of humans), insects in dung, carrion, vegetable matter, and sometimes small animals. When it joins other vulture species at a dead animal, it tends to stay on the periphery and waits until the larger species leave.Wild rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) form a significant part of the diet of Spanish vultures.Studies suggest that they feed on ungulate faeces to obtain carotenoid pigments responsible for their bright yellow and orange facial skin. The ability to assimilate carotenoid pigments may serve as a reliable signal of fitness.

Egyptian vultures are mostly silent but make high-pitched mewing or hissing notes at the nest and screeching noises when squabbling at a carcass. Young birds have been heard making a hissing croak in flight.They also hiss or growl when threatened or angry.

Egyptian vultures roost communally on large trees, buildings or on cliffs.Roost sites are usually chosen close to a dump site or other suitable foraging area. In Spain and Morocco,summer roosts are formed mainly by immature birds. The favourite roost trees tended to be large dead pines. The number of adults at the roost increases towards June. It is thought that breeding adults may be able to forage more efficiently by joining the roost and following others to the best feeding areas. Breeding birds that failed to raise young may also join the non-breeding birds at the roost during June.

This species faces a number of threats across its range. Disturbance, lead poisoning (from ammunition used in hunting game), direct and secondary poisoning, electrocution , collisions with wind turbines, reduced food availability and habitat change are currently impacting upon European populations with juveniles showing higher declines and mainland populations showing higher rates of juvenile mortality than island populations. Illegal poisoning against carnivores seems to be the main threat operating on the breeding grounds in Spain and the Balkans. Declines in parts of Africa are likely to have been driven by loss of wild ungulate populations and, in some areas, overgrazing by livestock and improvements in slaughterhouse sanitation. Within the European Union, regulations introduced in 2002, controlling the disposal of animal carcasses, greatly reduced food availability, notably through the closure of traditional "muladares" in Spain and Portugal. However, recently passed regulations will permit the operation of feeding stations for scavengers and guidelines about how to operate them exist, and in eastern Europe dietary diversity has no effect on population sizes, but instead could affect territory size. Poisoning is a threat to the species, often through the use of poison baits targeted at terrestrial predators, and through the consumption of poisoned animals. Recent analyses from many countries including Bulgaria have highlighted potential contamination of Egyptian Vultures that may lead to increased mortality. Antibiotic residues present in the carcasses of intensively-farmed livestock may increase the susceptibility of nestlings to disease (e.g. avian pox has been reported as a cause of mortality in Bulgaria ).

It appears that diclofenac, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) often used for livestock, and which is fatal to Gyps spp. when ingested at livestock carcasses is driving the recent rapid declines in India. NSAIDs are reportedly toxic to raptors, storks, cranes and owls, suggesting that vultures of other genera could be susceptible to its effects. It seems plausible that this species previously had less exposure to the toxin owing to competitive exclusion from carcasses by Gyps spp. vultures In 2007, diclofenac was found to be on sale at a veterinary practice in Tanzania. In addition, it was reported that in Tanzania, a Brazilian manufacturer has been aggressively marketing the drug for veterinary purposes and exporting it to 15 African countries. This drug has recently been approved for veterinary use in Europe, and is commercially available in France and Spain, which is a major concern for the species.

Mortality at power lines has been found to be particularly common on the Canary Islands and potentially risky in other regions of Spain and in Africa, with 17 individuals found killed by electrocution in Port Sudan, over 10 days in 2010, indicating a potentially serious problem that has persisted for decades and will continue to contribute to Egyptian Vulture population declines. In Morocco at least, the species is taken for use in traditional medicine, and it (like all African vultures) may have local commercial value as a traditional medicine throughout Africa. Competition for suitable nest sites with Griffon Vulture (Gyps fulvus) may reduce breeding success in the short-term.

After Bane was sent to a temporary holding cell in Blüdhaven, and I got my suit repaired, Superman and I stood on a rooftop, planning out what we were going to do about the rest of the crime in Gotham.

Batman: I think it's important I take out Joker, Cobblepot, Riddler, and Harvey on my own. You go after the larger gangs in the lower eastern and south sides of the city. Send everyone you can get to Blüdhaven, and when that gets full, try Metropolis.

Superman: Sounds good. And I give you the signal for when each kingpin has their mobs taken out?

Batman: Yes... I'd go for Joker first, he has the highest risk.

Superman: On it.

He flew off. I remained standing, patrolling the city with some binoculars. I heard the sound of a grapple, almost identical to the sound of mine. I turned my head, and saw a hooded figure grappling towards me...

Batman: Hm?

He landed, and pulled 2, blue, glowing batons off of his back.

???: There you are, Elliott.

He swung one of the batons at me, which I grabbed. It electrocuted me.

Batman: Aghh..!!!

He kicked me back, releasing the baton from my grasp.

???: This is the second time that's happened, you better up your game!

I took two batarangs from my belt, before he swung both batons at me at once, which I blocked with the batarangs. I then did a back flip, and threw both batarangs forward. The figure dropped one of his batons, and got the batarang. The other went behind him, before coming back, and slicing is hood, slightly.

???: Batarangs? You replicated his suit perfectly, I'm impressed!

Batman: It's not a replica, it's the original.

???: Stolen? Now that's very impressive.

Batman: Not stolen...

I grabbed another batarang, and flung it towards his face, but he used a grappling hook mechanism on his arm to bring the batarang towards his hand, catching it. He then flung it up and behind him, used his grappling gauntlet again, this time to grab his baton off the ground, and flipped towards me, squeezing my neck between both batons. I then kicked him back out of the way, and held him to the ground by the throat.

Batman: ...I. am. Batman..!

???: Heh, okay, Thomas. Nice try.

I tried to make out his face, but it was in shadow from the hood. He whacked me off of him with one of his batons, knocking me on my back.

Batman: *uff*...

???: Now, can you end this whole "I'm the real Batman" shtick, and tell me where you're hiding Lucius?!

Batman: Lucius... Lucius Fox?

???: Mhm, now, where is he?

Batman: Listen to me. I am not the man you're looking for, I have no clue who you are-

???: And that's how I know you're not the real Batman.

He pulled down his hood... It... It was Robin..!

Dick: The real Dark Knight would remember my face.

Batman: D-...Dick?

Dick: ...Oh god, it is you, isn't it?

Batman: Haven't I made that clear?!

Dick: Sorry, sorry... Was it the hood? Well, I'm looking for Thomas Elliott. He kidnapped Lucius Fox.

I got up...

Batman: Thomas Elliott? Hush?

Dick: That's the one.

Batman: I haven't seen him since my first year... Honestly thought he was dead.

Dick: Me too. But criminals never really are, are they?

Batman: Guess not. Should I help you, or?

Dick: No, I think I'm fine on my own. You're useful elsewhere.

He grappled to the edge of the building...

Dick: Welp, see ya'.

Batman: Wait, before you go.

He turned to me.

Dick: Hm?

Batman: Do you have a new name?

Dick: ...Call me Nightwing.

He grappled away.

~Madam Web

Here are 30 illustrations from the book Elektroschutz in 132 Bildern. These diagrams outline causes of electrical accidents

If you end up linking to this, it would be nice if you attributed me as bre pettis and linked to brepettis.com/blog.

#AbFav_animals

ALL MY IMAGES BETTER SEEN ON BLACK, (yours too)

I walked around and started to photograph, I discovered another blond stallion in an adjacent field and in order to get his whole head, with the velvet nose and pricked up ears all in, I had pushed through the fences and the top (danger!!!) ribbon... well I got the shot, but what a SHOCKING experience! I straightened too soon and was electrocuted, in the neck, I called Paul, yelling: IS THE CAMERA GOING TO BE ALL RIGHT??? The horse got as much of a fright as I did, bolted and ran off.

Farmers are the same all over the world, they are only allowed a low voltage BUT... this was 240, my heart felt like I was 25 again. Bouboum.

I turned around into the 'safer' stables, obviously the nursery, since there were about 6 stables all with foals, that's where I captured those two lovelies.

The adventures of a photographer he, tee hee.

The Belgian horse is a much-loved gentle giant. This large heavily muscled horse most likely descended from the heavy prehistoric horses and was indispensable as a workhorse in the Middle Ages when this horse was known as the Flanders (Flemish) Horse, now it is known as the Brabant.

Thank you and have a super day, M, (*_*)

For more of my work visit here: www.indigo2photography.com

Please do not use any of my images on websites, blogs or any other media without my explicit permission. © All rights reserved

Afghanistan's infamous Pul-e Charkhi Prison on the eastern edge of Kabul. Inmates reported being beaten and electrocuted there during in the 1980s and 90s. Others were allegedly buried alive and human rights groups suspect the grounds contain many mass graves, as yet undocumented. In 2006, just weeks after seven inmates escaped, five people were killed during a four-day riot in which inmates seized control of the prison. Today it houses a volatile mixture of criminals, insurgents and political prisoners. It is also where Afghanistan carries out its capital punishments. President Hamid Karzai rarely signs execution warrants, but 14 people were executed in November 2012 and 15 people were executed in chaotic conditions in October 2007.

I have recently checked houseboating off my bucket list. I wasn’t quite sure that it was on there in the first place, but it’s off the list now. On this particular adventure our houseboat crew had the distinct “pleasure” of renting from R&R Houseboats in Bobcaygeon. Now, the good people at R&R are a friendly and helpful bunch. Their boats however have suffered under the command of many a drunken captain. Our four-day cruise included the following highlights:

1. Critical engine failure.

2. Non-responsive steering.

3. Propane air freshener.

4. Oil where oil should not be.

5. A barbeque with a maximum cooking temperature of 25 Celsius.

6. A “for decorative purposes only” set of above deck controls.

7. Outlets that are 100% guaranteed not to cause electrocutions.

8. Pull out beds that pull out and collapse into a pile of awkward angles.

9. An ever-present fear for your general safety and well-being.

The photograph above was taken on the last night of the voyage. One thing I will say for houseboating, it does give you access to some pretty decent scenery. As for a song to go with this photograph, I’ll leave you with Bobcaygeon by the Tragically Hip. I have to; the CRTC will fine me if I don’t.

Pandion hailaetus

Ospreys are highly adaptable to urban environments:

conflicts between Ospreys and humans are seasonal -

(during the nesting season).

ELECTROCUTION HAZARD !

Osprey can touch parts of the energized structure with they body.

Nest on utility poles can pose a significant risk to the adult and juvenile osprey.

Prevention: nest platform - contact electric utiliuty and ask to speak to their environmental staff.

This Sri Lankan Fruit Bat was on the road between our hotel and the town of Udawalawe. Probable COD was electrocution as their were power lines overhead. I didn't take a picture of it when I first walked past, then I walked back to grab an image because of the combination of interesting background (the road), the positioning of the bat and the over all tone.

© 2016 Paul Chan - Canada. Photos are copyrighted. All rights reserved. Pictures can not be used without explicit permission by the creator.

I feel I did well here at Showbus - £15 for a low floor decker which I saw being sold for £20-£30 on other stalls. I got the cheapest one I found, which is missing the nearside mirror. However, the absence of mirrors and wipers isn't really a thing that concerns be on buses I want to repaint.

So then, what to do with this thing?

I would have plenty of uses for a Plaxton President bodied Trident - if it were closed top!

The model fleet doesn't really need an open top bus, especially as Nottingham isn't really a city which suits a bus tour. Going under the tram wires would be a bit problematic too, since electrocuting the top deck passengers probably isn't a good idea (I know this is unlikely, but if one of them had an umbrella that they held up in the air...)

Outside of the city, I realise there is nowhere in RB's operating area which is scenic enough to warrant an open top bus! Sure, hop on board for a trip to Sawley Marina via Tesco Extra Long Eaton - I think not!

NCT had some Presidents, single door but closed top. I have a pretty awful model of one in 1:148 scale. If this had been a closed top I'd have probably done it as one of them, or just added it to RB's decker fleet, either normal or for the P&R.

So - what about open top Presidents? There are loads like this in the red City Sightseeing livery of various places - Llandudno, York, London etc - but I might as well leave it as it is if I want this livery.

Another thing is some will be dual door, or part-open top. I think if I tried to scratch build a partial, or even full, President roof back on it wouldn't look convincing.

Conversions I would consider are changing the windows to gasket glazing (with the stupid lower deck window line) or changing the chassis to be Volvo B7TL or DAF - although length and number of windows might become an issue! One of York's electric Presidents would be an interesting one to say that I did it - but it would be a bit boring to do.

Moving away from the City Sightseeing fleets, I found some other open top or part-open top Presidents operated by EYMS, Southern Vectis, Stagecoach in their Lake District green livery, First Kernow in a nice blue livery, Whitby Town Tour, Reading Buses and Ensign Bus - none of which I can be bothered to model.

So basically, I either:

Leave it as it is (which it will be anyway for at least some time because of reasons)

Paint it in a fictional NCT open top livery

Paint it in a fictional open top livery for some other operator

Try and build a top deck and make it just another President

Add it to the model fleet

The Electric Head: Domestica

The West Virginia Penitentiary in Moundsville, was first opened in 1876, but closed in 1995. It's seen riots, fires and the execution of nearly 100 prisoners through either hanging or electrocution.

And you thought I was crazy before :P

No need to worry though, I didn't get electrocuted and I never left them on more than 20 seconds at a time. But there was this weird buzzing sound and I felt this tingling sensation while there were on and i felt kind if faint when I was done.

Just kidding :P

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In all seriousness, this is one that I do not recommend you try. I was honestly a little afraid the first time I plugged them in.

Wet outside. Wet inside.

Not a day for being outside, which leads to the inevitable question of what to shoot.

Then I recalled that Patrick LaRoque, whose blog I follow, had done something with his old Fuji X100 some years back. As a challange. So, emulation time. Now, Patrick is far better than moi, has a lot more knowledge about lighting than moi, but ran the risk of electrocuting himself by using mains lighting. That, fortunately was unlikely for me using two Godox AD200's. You can read about his exploits at: www.laroquephoto.com/blog/2013/2/15/a-challenge-a-shower-...

The Dalmatian pelican (Pelecanus crispus) is the most massive member of the pelican family, and perhaps the world's largest freshwater bird, although rivaled in weight and length by the largest swans. They are elegant soaring birds, with wingspans that rival that of the great albatrosses, and their flocks fly in graceful synchrony. It is a short to medium distance migrant between breeding and overwintering areas. No subspecies are known to exist over its wide range, but based on size differences, a Pleistocene paleosubspecies, P. c. palaeocrispus, has been described from fossils recovered at Binagady, Azerbaijan.

As with other pelicans, the males are larger than the females, and likewise their diet is mainly fish. Their curly nape feathers, grey legs and silvery-white plumage are distinguishing features, and the wings appear solid grey in flight. The adults acquire a drabber plumage in winter, however, when they may be mistaken for great white pelicans. Their harsh vocalizations become more pronounced during the mating season. They breed from southeastern Europe to Russia, India and China in swamps and shallow lakes. They usually return to traditional breeding sites, where they are less social than other pelican species. Their nests are crude heaps of vegetation, which are placed on islands or on dense mats of vegetation.

The species' numbers underwent a dramatic decline during the 20th century, partly due to land use, disturbance and poaching activities. The core population survives in Russia, but in its Mongolian range it is critically endangered. Removal of power lines to prevent collisions or electrocution, and the construction of nesting platforms or rafts have reversed declines locally.

This huge bird is by a slight margin the largest of the pelican species and one of the largest living bird species. It measures 160 to 183 cm (5 ft 3 in to 6 ft 0 in) in length, 7.25–15 kg (16.0–33.1 lb) in weight and 245 to 351 cm (8 ft 0 in to 11 ft 6 in) in wingspan. Its median weight is around 11.5 kg (25 lb), which makes it perhaps the world's heaviest flying bird species, although the largest individuals among male bustards and swans may be heavier than the largest individual Dalmatian pelican. More recently, six male Dalmatians were found to average 10.4 kg (23 lb) and four females 8.7 kg (19 lb), around the same average weight as the great white pelican (Pelecanus onocrotalus) and slightly lighter than mean body masses from other huge birds such as the trumpeter swan (Cygnus buccinator) or Andean condor (Vultur gryphus). A mean estimated body mass for the Dalmatian pelican of 10.9 kg (24 lb) was also published, around the same mass as the aforementioned largest swan and condor. It is either the heaviest or one of the heaviest birds native to Europe, its closest rivals in mass being mute swans (Cygnus olor) and cinereous vultures (Aegypius monachus), which both weigh on average around 10 kg (22 lb), followed closely by great white pelicans and the whooper swans (Cygnus cygnus). It also appears to have one of the largest wingspans of any living bird, rivaling those of the great albatrosses (Diomedea ssp., in particular the two largest species, the wandering albatross and southern royal albatross) and the great white pelican. These four species are the only modern birds with verified wingspans that range over 350 cm (11 ft 6 in).

For more information, please visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalmatian_pelican

The Stravinsky Fountain (French: La Fontaine Stravinsky) is a whimsical public fountain ornamented with sixteen works of sculpture, moving and spraying water, representing the works of composer Igor Stravinsky. It was created in 1983 by sculptors Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle, and is located on Place Stravinsky, next to the Centre Pompidou, in Paris.

Description

The Stravinsky Fountain is a shallow basin of 580 square metres (6,200 sq ft) located in Place Stravinsky, between the Centre Pompidou and the Church of Saint-Merri. Within the basin are sixteen works of sculpture inspired by the compositions of Igor Stravinsky. The black mechanical pieces of sculpture are by Jean Tinguely; the brightly colored works are by Niki de Saint Phalle.

The sculptures in the fountain represent:

L'Oiseau de feu (The Firebird)

La Clef de Sol (The Musical Key of G)

La Spirale (The Spiral)

L'Elephant (The Elephant)

Le Renard (The Fox)

Le Serpent (The Serpent)

La Grenouille (The Frog)

La Diagonale (The Diagonal)

La Mort (Death)

La Sirène (The Mermaid)

Le Rossignol (The Nightingale)

L'Amour (Love)

La Vie (Life)

Le Cœur (The Heart)

Le Chapeau de Clown (The Clown's Hat)

Ragtime (Ragtime)

The basin covers some of the rooms and offices of IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique), an organization devoted to promoting modern music and musicology, connected with the Pompidou Center. The founder of IRCAM, composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, suggested the work of Stravinsky as a theme for the fountain. Because of the offices and rooms below, the fountain was designed to be as lightweight as possible, with very shallow water, a lining of stainless steel, and sculptures composed of plastics and other light materials.

History

The Stravinsky Fountain was part of a sculptural program, launched by the City of Paris in 1978, to build seven contemporary fountains with sculpture in different squares of the city. This project also included new fountains at the Hotel de Ville and within the gardens of the Palais Royal. They were to be the first public fountains built in Paris since the fountains of the Palais de Chaillot were built for the Paris Exposition of 1937. It was also a major project by the City of Paris to redevelop the area around the old city markets, Les Halles, which had been torn down in 1971, and to re-animate the area with pedestrian streets, squares, and works of art.

In October, 1981, the mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac, announced that a new fountain would be built near the Centre Pompidou, and announced that Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle had been selected to design the fountain. "Such a work must necessarily have modern lines, marrying with those of the Centre Pompidou", Chirac said, and he noted the success of a fountain that Tinguely had recently installed. The City of Paris paid two million French francs for the project, which was matched by two million francs from Jack Lang, the Minister of Culture. The financial agreement was formally signed on December 15, 1982, allowing the project to go ahead. Other contributions came from private sponsors: the Société Lyonnaise des eaux (500,000 francs), the Fondation Scaler (150,000 francs), and the Swiss government.

One sensitive artistic issue had to be resolved: the commission had originally been given to Jean Tinguely alone, and therefore the work would have been entirely composed of his black-painted mechanical sculptures. But in May 1982, he asked that brightly colored works by Niki de Saint Phalle (who was also Tinguely's wife) be included. This caused concerns at the Sous-Direction du Patromoine culturel of the Bureau of Monuments of Paris, which had originally commissioned the sculpture; they feared that the brightly colored works of Niki de Saint Phalle would visually overwhelm the dark-colored works of Tinguely. Officials of the Ministry of Culture and Sous-Direction du Patrimoine persuaded Tinguely to reduce the number of works by Niki de Saint Phalle to four or five, and both the Ministry of Culture and City of Paris then agreed that it would be a joint project by Tinguely and Saint Phalle.

A few technical issues also needed to be resolved. Tingueley did not want the water to be chemically treated, and preferred that moss be allowed to grow. Tinguely also wanted to use very-low-power electric motors for the fountains, to avoid any danger of electrocuting people wading in the fountains. The sculptures were not attached to the bottom of the basin, but simply placed there.

The finished fountain was dedicated on March 16, 1983, by Mayor Chirac, Minister of Culture Jack Lang, and Madame Pompidou, the widow of President Georges Pompidou. During the ceremony, Chirac and Lang, who were political enemies, avoided looking or speaking to each other.

Under French law and practice, the French state has the legal obligation to maintain fountains, but artists and their descendants have the moral right to control their work. In 1985, Niki de Saint Phalle asked for modifications to be made to one part of the sculpture, Rossignol, to make it more harmonious with other parts of the work. Five years later, she asked that one sculpture, Sirène, be replaced by another earlier work by her, called Nana, seated in a bathing suit. Because of the cost, the substitution was never made.

Tinguely on the fountain

"I wanted [the fountain] to have charm, with the colors of Niki, the movement of the water, and a certain attachment of the heart that I gave to my sculptures. I didn't want artifices of color in the California style, with jets of water that were electronically controlled, things mysterious and bizarre. I wanted sculptures like street performers, a little bit like a circus, which was at the heart of Stravinsky's style itself when in 1914 he had his first encounter with jazz, thanks to the recordings which Ernest Ansermet brought from the United States, or when he wrote an homage to a circus elephant, all made up in colors, which he saw in a circus in Evian or Lausanne."

"... the first model that I made for Pierre Boulez, even though it was very small, had lots of colors. I didn't want, after Basel, to install another black machine. Paris has a completely different speed than Basel. It's a city of light, it's practically the center of the world, and there was that superb monstrosity, the Centre Pompidou – it was an enormous provocation, and I couldn't put something monumental next to it..."

"The only way to do it was to go to the opposite [of the Pompidou Centre]; to think in terms of psychology, of speed, of movement, of charm, of games, of jokes, of competing with the street performers, the Afro-Cuban orchestras, the fire-eaters, who were in front of the Centre. That's why it had to have colors, the gold of the Firebird. I wanted an alarm clock, an answer to the daylight...."

"...I studied the place during an entire year. I looked at the sun. I observed the wind. That determined for me the placement of the sculptures, and the orientation of the fountains...."

"[Niki de Saint Phalle] began by making a large number of models; hats by the dozen, numbers of elephants, serpents, things, tricks... the Firebird was a found object in the work of Niki de Saint Phalle, but she redrew it, repainted it, until we had exactly what we needed, not too big and with holes to let the wind pass through to avoid it being carried away by the wind which is always blowing in the square of the Beaubourg...<

Critical reaction

"...Niki de Saint Phalle has never better realized her phantasmagoric menagerie of symbols, painted with knowing truculence. She takes charge of the stage, and that's normal; she has color going for her, as violent and brilliant as the flowing water. Tinguely, who is the creator of the ensemble, dealt with the mechanical components of the work. A sculptor in the dada tradition, his visual humor plays with absurdity and provocation....Tinguely has made a Parisian fountain, picturesque and with the charm of a mechanical music box of the eighteenth century.." (Le Monde, March 19, 1983)

"Niki de Saint Phalle was very beautiful, Madame Claude Pompidou was very dignified, the fountain is droll and gay, and the children laughed, It was a beautiful opening. " (Le Matin, March 17, 1983).

The Centre Pompidou more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou (lit. 'National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture'), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of the 4th arrondissement of Paris, near Les Halles, rue Montorgueil, and the Marais. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of Richard Rogers, Su Rogers, Renzo Piano, along with Gianfranco Franchini.

It houses the Bibliothèque publique d'information (Public Information Library), a vast public library; the Musée National d'Art Moderne, which is the largest museum for modern art in Europe; and IRCAM, a centre for music and acoustic research. Because of its location, the centre is known locally as Beaubourg (IPA: [bobuʁ]). It is named after Georges Pompidou, the President of France from 1969 to 1974 who commissioned the building, and was officially opened on 31 January 1977 by President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.

The centre had 3.1 million visitors in 2022, a large increase from 2021 but still below 2019 levels, due to closings caused by the COVID pandemic. It has had over 180 million visitors since 1977 and more than 5,209,678 visitors in 2013, including 3,746,899 for the museum.

The sculpture Horizontal by Alexander Calder, a free-standing mobile that is 7.6 m (25 ft) tall, was placed in front of the Centre Pompidou in 2012.

History

The idea for a multicultural complex, bringing together in one place different forms of art and literature, developed, in part, from the ideas of France's first Minister of Cultural Affairs, André Malraux, a proponent of the decentralisation of art and culture by impulse of the political power.[citation needed] In the 1960s, city planners decided to move the foodmarkets of Les Halles, historically significant structures long prized by Parisians, with the idea that some of the cultural institutes be built in the former market area. Hoping to renew the idea of Paris as a leading city of culture and art, it was proposed to move the Musée d'Art Moderne to this new location. Paris also needed a large, free public library, as one did not exist at this time. At first the debate concerned Les Halles, but as the controversy settled, in 1968, President Charles de Gaulle announced the Plateau Beaubourg as the new site for the library. A year later in 1969, Georges Pompidou, the new president, adopted the Beaubourg project and decided it to be the location of both the new library and a centre for the contemporary arts. In the process of developing the project, the IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique) was also housed in the complex.

The Rogers and Piano design was chosen among 681 competition entries. World-renowned architects Oscar Niemeyer, Jean Prouvé and Philip Johnson made up the jury. It was the first time in France that international architects were allowed to participate. The selection was announced in 1971 at a "memorable press conference" where the contrast between the sharply-dressed Pompidou and "hairy young crew" of architects represented a "grand bargain between radical architecture and establishment politics."

Architecture

It was the first major example of an 'inside-out' building with its structural system, mechanical systems, and circulation exposed on the exterior of the building. Initially, all of the functional structural elements of the building were colour-coded: green pipes are plumbing, blue ducts are for climate control, electrical wires are encased in yellow, and circulation elements and devices for safety (e.g., fire extinguishers) are red. According to Piano, the design was meant to be “not a building but a town where you find everything – lunch, great art, a library, great music”.

National Geographic described the reaction to the design as "love at second sight." An article in Le Figaro declared: "Paris has its own monster, just like the one in Loch Ness." But two decades later, while reporting on Rogers' winning the Pritzker Prize in 2007, The New York Times noted that the design of the Centre "turned the architecture world upside down" and that "Mr. Rogers earned a reputation as a high-tech iconoclast with the completion of the 1977 Pompidou Centre, with its exposed skeleton of brightly coloured tubes for mechanical systems". The Pritzker jury said the Pompidou "revolutionised museums, transforming what had once been elite monuments into popular places of social and cultural exchange, woven into the heart of the city."

Construction

The centre was built by GTM and completed in 1977. The building cost 993 million French francs. Renovation work conducted from October 1996 to January 2000 was completed on a budget of 576 million francs. The principal engineer was the renowned Peter Rice, responsible for amongst other things the Gerberette. During the renovation, the centre was closed to the public for 27 months, re-opening on 1 January 2000.

In September 2020, it was announced that the Centre Pompidou would begin renovations in 2023 which will require either a partial closure for seven years, or a full closure for three years. The projected cost for the upcoming renovations is $235 million. In January 2021 Roselyne Bachelot, France's culture minister, announced that the centre would close completely in 2023 for four years.

Stravinsky Fountain

The nearby Stravinsky Fountain (also called the Fontaine des automates), on Place Stravinsky, features 16 whimsical moving and water-spraying sculptures by Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint-Phalle, which represent themes and works by composer Igor Stravinsky. The black-painted mechanical sculptures are by Tinguely, the coloured works by de Saint-Phalle. The fountain opened in 1983.

Video footage of the fountain appeared frequently throughout the French language telecourse, French in Action.

Place Georges Pompidou

The Place Georges Pompidou in front of the museum is noted for the presence of street performers, such as mimes and jugglers. In the spring, miniature carnivals are installed temporarily into the place in front with a wide variety of attractions: bands, caricature and sketch artists, tables set up for evening dining, and even skateboarding competitions.

In 2021 artists duo Arotin And Serghei realized for the re-inaugaration of the Place Georges Pompidou after years of works, and in the context of IRCAM's festival Manifeste the intermedial large-scale installation Infinite Light Columns / Constellations of The Future 1-4, Tribute to Constantin Brancusi, installed along Renzo Piano's IRCAM Tower, on the opposite site of Brancusi's studio, visible from both, the Place Igor Stravinsky and Place Georges Pompidou. The president of the Centre Pompidou, Serge Lasvignes, highlighted in his inauguration speech: "The installation symbolizes what the Centre Pompidou wants to be, ... a multidisciplinary ensemble, ... it is the resurrection of the initial spirit of the Centre Pompidou with the Piazza, the living heart of creation".

Attendance

By the mid-1980s, the Centre Pompidou was becoming the victim of its huge and unexpected popularity, its many activities, and a complex administrative structure. When Dominique Bozo returned to the Centre in 1981 as Director of the Musée National d'Art Moderne, he re-installed the museum, bringing out the full range of its collections and displayed the many major acquisitions that had been made. By 1992, the Centre de Création Industrielle was incorporated into the Musée National d'Art Moderne, henceforth called "MNAM/CCI". The CCI as an organisation with its own, design-oriented programme ceased to exist, while the MNAM started to develop a design and architecture collection, in addition to its modern and contemporary art collection.

The Centre Pompidou was intended to handle 8,000 visitors a day. In its first two decades it attracted more than 145 million visitors, more than five times the number first predicted. As of 2006, more than 180 million people have visited the centre since its opening in 1977. However, until the 1997–2000 renovation, 20 percent of the centre's eight million annual visitors—predominantly foreign tourists—rode the escalators up the outside of the building to the platform for the sights.

Since re-opening in 2000 after a three-year renovation, the Centre Pompidou has improved accessibility for visitors. Now they can only access the escalators if they enter, though entrance to the building is free.

Since 2006, the global attendance of the centre is no longer calculated at the main entrance, but only the one of the Musée National d'Art Moderne and of the public library (5,209,678 visitors for both in 2013), but without the other visitors of the building (929,431 in 2004 or 928,380 in 2006, for only the panorama tickets or cinemas, festivals, lectures, bookshops, workshops, restaurants, etc.). In 2017, the museum had 3.37 million visitors. The public library had 1.37 million.

The Musée National d'Art Moderne itself saw an increase in attendance from 3.1 million (2010) to 3.6 million visitors in 2011[27] and 3.75 million in 2013.

The 2013 retrospective "Dalí" broke the museum's daily attendance record: 7,364 people a day went to see the artist's work (790,000 in total).

Exhibitions

Several major exhibitions are organised each year on either the first or sixth floors. Among them, many monographs:

Marcel Duchamp (1977)

Paul Davis (1977)

Henri Michaux (1978)

Dalí (1979)

Pollock (1982)

Bonnard (1984)

Kandinsky (1984)

Étienne Martin (1984)

Paul Klee (1985)

Cy Twombly (1988)

Frank Stella (1988)

Andy Warhol (1990)

Max Ernst (1991)

Matisse (1993)

Joseph Beuys (1994)

Kurt Schwitters (1994)

Gerard Gasiorowski (1995)

Brâncuși (1995)

Sanejouand (1995)

Bob Morris (1995)

Francis Bacon (1996)

Fernand Léger (1997)

David Hockney (1998)

Philip Guston (2000)

Picasso (2000)

Jean Dubuffet (2001)

Roland Barthes (2002)

Max Beckmann (2002)

Nicolas de Staël (2003)

Sophie Calle (2003)

Cocteau (2003)

Philippe Starck (2003)

Miró (2004)

Aurelie Nemours (2004)

Charlotte Perriand (2005)

Robert Rauschenberg (2006)

Claude Closky (2006)

Jean-Luc Godard (2006)

Yves Klein (2006)

Hergé (2006)

Annette Messager (2007)

Richard Rogers (2007)

Samuel Beckett (2007)

David Claerbout (2007)

Julio González (2007)

Alberto Giacometti (2007)

Louise Bourgeois (2008)

Pol Abraham (2008)

Tatiana Trouvé (2008)

Miroslav Tichy (2008)

Dominique Perrault (2008)

Jean Gourmelin (2008)

Jacques Villeglé (2008)

Ron Arad (2008)

Alexander Calder (2009)

Philippe Parreno (2009)

Kandinski (2009)

Pierre Soulages (2009)

Étienne Martin (2010)

Lucian Freud (2010)

Arman (2010)

François Morellet (2011)

Edvard Munch (2011)

Gerhard Richter (2012)

Salvador Dalí (2013)

Roy Lichtenstein (2013)

Mike Kelley (2013)

Pierre Huyghe (2013)

Henri Cartier-Bresson (2014)

Simon Hantaï (2014)

Jeff Koons (2014)

Mona Hatoum (2015)

Wifredo Lam (2015)

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster (2015)

André Derain (2017)

Latiff Mohidin (2018)

Richard Linklater (2019)

Vasarely (2019)

Christo and Jeanne-Claude (2020)

Hito Steyerl (2020)

Alice Neel (2020)

Matisse (2020)

Catherine Meurisse (2020–21)

Group exhibitions

Photography as a weapon of class (2018 Group Exhibition)

Coder le monde (2018 Group Exhibition)

La Fabrique Du Vivant (2019 Group Exhibition)

Jo-Ey Tang & Thomas Fougeirol – Dust. The Plates Of The Present (2020 Group Exhibition)

Les Moyens Du Bord (2020 Group Exhibition)

Global(e) Resistance – Pour une histoire engagée de la collection contemporaine de Jonathas de Andrade à Billie Zangewa (2020 Group Exhibition)

NEURONS Simulated intelligence (2020 Group Exhibition)

L'écologie des images (2021 Group Exhibition)

Regional branches

In 2010, the Centre Georges Pompidou opened a regional branch, the Centre Pompidou-Metz, in Metz a city 250 kilometres east of Paris. The new museum is part of an effort to expand the display of contemporary arts beyond Paris's large museums. The new museum's building was designed by the architect Shigeru Ban with a curving and asymmetrical pagoda-like roof topped by a spire and punctured by upper galleries. The 77-metre central spire is a nod to the year the Centre Georges Pompidou of Paris was built – 1977. The Centre Pompidou-Metz displays unique, temporary exhibitions from the collection of the Musée National d'Art Moderne, which is not on display at the main Parisian museum. Since its inauguration, the institution has become the most visited cultural venue in France outside Paris, accommodating 550,000 visitors/year.

Launched in 2011 in Chaumont, the museum for the first time went on the road to the French regions with a selection of works from the permanent collection. To do this, it designed and constructed a mobile gallery, which, in the spirit of a circus, will make camp for a few months at a time in towns throughout the country. However, in 2013, the Centre Pompidou halted its mobile-museum project because of the cost.

In 2014, plans were released for a temporary satellite of the Centre Pompidou in the northern French town of Maubeuge close to the Belgian border. The 3,000-square-metre outpost, to be designed by the architects Pierre Hebbelinck and Pierre de Wit, is said to be located at the 17th-century Maubeuge Arsenal for four years. The cost of the project is €5.8 million.

In 2015, the city authorities in Libourne, a town in south-western France, proposed a Pompidou branch housed in a former military base called Esog.

In 2019, the Centre Pompidou announced plans to open a 22,000 m2 (240,000 sq ft) conservation, exhibition and storage space in Massy (Essonne) by 2025. Project backers include the Région Ile-de-France and the French state.

Management

Presidents

since 2021 : Laurent Le Bon

2015 – 2021 : Serge Lasvignes

2007 – 2015: Alain Seban

2002 – 2007: Bruno Racine

1996 – 2002: Jean-Jacques Aillagon

1993 – 1996: François Barré

1991 – 1993: Dominique Bozo

1989 – 1991: Hélène Ahrweiler

1983 – 1989: Jean Maheu

1980 – 1983: Jean-Claude Groshens

1977 – 1980: Jean Millier

1976 – 1977: Robert Bordaz

1969 – 1977: Georges Pompidou

Funding

As a national museum, the Centre Pompidou is government-owned and subsidised by the Ministry of Culture (64.2% of its budget in 2012 : 82.8 on 129 million €), essentially for its staff. The Culture Ministry appoints its directors and controls its gestion, which is nevertheless independent, as Etablissement public à caractère administratif since its creation. In 2011, the museum earned $1.9 million from travelling exhibitions.

Established in 1977 as the institution's US philanthropic arm, the Georges Pompidou Art and Culture Foundation acquires and encourages major gifts of art and design for exhibition at the museum. Since 2006, the non-profit support group has brought in donations of 28 works, collectively valued at more than $14 million, and purchased many others. In 2013, New York-based art collectors Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner announced their intention to donate about 300 works by 27 European and international artists to the Centre Pompidou, thereby making one of the largest gifts in the institution's history.

Nazi-looted art

In 1999, the heirs of Alphonse Kann requested the return of Georges Braque's The Guitar Player, which the Centre Pompidou had acquired from Heinz Berggruen in 1981.

In 2011, Centre Pompidou admitted that it held three paintings, Les Peupliers (Poplars), Arbres (Trees), and Composition by the artist Fédor Löwenstein that had been looted during the Nazi occupation of France.

In 2021, after the French government restituted a looted Max Pechtstein painting to the heirs of Hugo Simon, the Centre Pompidou held an exhibition in a tribute to the persecuted art collector.

Ricky : “We went for a bike ride to see the damage from Tropical Storm Isaias. Lots of big trees came down, but they aren’t blocking the road anymore. Mom? Why is this road closed if the trees aren’t in the way??”

Me : “Because there’s still power lines down.. Some of the wires are hanging way down and some are just laying in the road.”

Ricky : “So, you’re bringing me on a bike ride to danger??! We could get electrocuted!!”

Me : “We’re not going to get electrocuted. When we see wires, we go around them. Easy peasy.”

Ricky : “What if we’re going fast, and you don’t see the wire in time?!”

Me : “I’ll probably see it in time..”

Ricky : “Probably? PROBABLY??! UGH.”

Me : “Relax.. The wires are probably not live anyway..”

Ricky : “Omg... This is too stressful!”

The West Virginia Penitentiary in Moundsville, was first opened in 1876, but closed in 1995. It's seen riots, fires and the execution of nearly 100 prisoners through either hanging or electrocution.

You would NOT want to be this little darlings dinner.

He's very dead - electrocuted by the fence he was trying to get through - I guess he got zapped when he turned around and bit it ?

Not my photo - one I got sent - doing the email rounds....

My interactions with technology have been kind of going this way lately.

The white stork went extinct in Switzerland in 1950. Due to the reintroduction project by Max Bloesch and Storch Schweiz the population has increased again to more than 200 breeding pairs. Will this increase continue, or will the population start to decline again?

The project aims at understanding which environmental factors affect the population dynamics of white storks. This may help to derive conservation actions suited to maintain the positive trend of white stork populations in Switzerland.

The white stork population has been accurately surveyed for more than 100 years. The nestlings are, with few exceptions, systematically marked with rings. Ring resightings and ring recoveries from Switzerland and abroad give valuable information on behaviour, life histories, mortality causes, age structure, migratory flyways as well as on stopover and wintering sites. These data are being analysed with modern statistical methods. Similar data are available from other countries, which allows for interesting comparisons.

The history of the white stork in Switzerland in the 20th century was characterized by ups and downs. To prevent that the species goes extinct for a second time in Switzerland, all the available data needs to be analysed to derive useful conclusions for conservation steps.

ResultsIs the future of the white stork bright? Statistical analyses give a clear answer: the Swiss population is nowadays self-sustaining and increases at a rate of 3% annually. The high survival rate of adults (annual survival: 86%) plays a key role for this positive development. However, because the populations are very sensitive to small changes in adult survival, it is crucial to mitigate potential dangers for storks. The most important factors threatening adults are electrocution and poaching in Africa. Newly created wet meadows at several places in Switzerland shall help to increase reproductive output, which still is low (1.65 fledglings/pair) compared to that from other populations.

Also an "O' Bedlam" shot, but one I feel compelled to take at least once a shoot. Close on the face, ignore the rest of the surroundings.

Because that's my favorite part of a person, that's the part with which you do all the interacting.

Maybe that's why nudity, as a photography subject, doesn't interest me all that much. The face is the same, clothes on or off. Oh sure, I love looking at nudes, am I not a man? But taking them, not so much.

The story's in the face.

The Eurasian eagle-owl (Bubo bubo) is a species of eagle-owl that resides in much of Eurasia. It is also called the Uhu and it is occasionally abbreviated to just the eagle-owl in Europe. It is one of the largest species of owl, and females can grow to a total length of 75 cm (30 in), with a wingspan of 188 cm (6 ft 2 in), with males being slightly smaller. This bird has distinctive ear tufts, with upper parts that are mottled with darker blackish colouring and tawny. The wings and tail are barred. The underparts are a variably hued buff, streaked with darker colouring. The facial disc is not very defined and the orange eyes are distinctive.

Eurasian eagle-owls are found in many habitats, but are mostly birds of mountainous regions or other rocky areas, often those near varied woodland edge and shrubby areas with openings or wetlands to hunt a majority of their prey. Additionally, they inhabit coniferous forests, steppes, and other areas at varied elevations that are typically relatively remote. Eurasian eagle-owls are occasionally found amongst farmland and in park-like settings within European cities, even rarely within busier urban areas. The eagle-owl is mostly a nocturnal predator, hunting for a range of different prey species. Predominantly, their diet is composed of small mammals such as rodents and rabbits, but they also prey on larger mammals and birds of varying sizes. Other secondary prey can include reptiles, amphibians, fish, large insects and other assorted invertebrates. The species typically breeds on cliff ledges, in gullies, among rocks, or in other concealed locations. The nest is a scrape containing a clutch of 2–4 eggs typically, which are laid at intervals and hatch at different times. The female incubates the eggs and broods the young, and the male provides food for her, and when they hatch, for the nestlings, as well. Continuing parental care for the young is provided by both adults for about five months. At least 12 subspecies of the Eurasian eagle-owl are described.

In addition to being one of the largest living species of owl, the Eurasian eagle-owl is also one of the most widely distributed.[9] With a total range in Europe and Asia of about 51.4 million km2 (19.8 million sq mi) and a total population estimated to be between 100,000 and 500,000 individuals, the IUCN lists the bird's conservation status as being of least concern, although the trend is listed as decreasing. The vast majority of eagle-owls live in Continental Europe, Scandinavia, Russia (which is almost certainly where the peak numbers and diversity of race occurs), and Central Asia. Additional minor populations exist in Anatolia, the northern Middle East, the montane upper part of South Asia, China, Korea and in Japan; in addition, an estimated 12 to 40 pairs are thought to reside in the United Kingdom as of 2016 (where they are arguably non-native), a number which may be on the rise, and have successfully bred in the UK since at least 1996. Tame eagle-owls have occasionally been used in pest control because of their size to deter large birds such as gulls from nesting.

Description

The Eurasian eagle-owl is among the larger birds of prey, smaller than the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos), but larger than the snowy owl (Bubo scandiacus), despite some overlap in size with both of those species. It is sometimes referred to as the world's largest owl, although Blakiston's fish owl (B. blakistoni) is slightly heavier on average and the much lighter weight great grey owl (Strix nebulosa) is slightly longer on average. Heimo Mikkola reported the largest specimens of eagle-owl as having the same upper body mass, 4.6 kg (10 lb), as the largest Blakiston’s fish owl and attained a length around 3 cm (1.2 in) longer. In terms of average weight and wing size, the Blakiston’s is the slightly larger species seemingly, even averaging a bit larger in these aspects than the biggest eagle-owl races from Russia. Also, although 9 cm (3.5 in) shorter than the largest of the latter species, the Eurasian eagle-owl can weigh well more than twice as much as the largest great grey owl. The Eurasian eagle-owl typically has a wingspan of 131–188 cm (4 ft 4 in – 6 ft 2 in), with the largest specimens possibly attaining 2 m (6 ft 7 in). The total length of the species can vary from 56 to 75 cm (22 to 30 in). Females can weigh from 1.75 to 4.6 kg (3.9 to 10.1 lb), and males can weigh from 1.2 to 3.2 kg (2.6 to 7.1 lb). In comparison, the barn owl (Tyto alba), the world's most widely distributed owl species, weighs about 0.5 kg (1.1 lb) and the great horned owl (B. virginianus), which fills the eagle-owl's ecological niche in North America, weighs around 1.4 kg (3.1 lb).

Eurasian eagle-owl in captivity

Besides the female being larger, little external sexual dimorphism is seen in the Eurasian eagle-owl, although the ear tufts of males reportedly tend to be more upright than those of females. When an eagle-owl is seen on its own in the field, distinguishing the individual’s sex is generally not possible. Gender determination by size is possible by in-hand measurements. In some populations, the female typically may be slightly darker than the male. The plumage coloration across at least 13 accepted subspecies can be highly variable. The upper parts may be brown-black to tawny-buff to pale creamy gray, typically showing dense freckling on the forehead and crown, stripes on the nape, sides, and back of the neck, and dark splotches on the pale ground colour of the back, mantle, and scapulars. A narrow buff band, freckled with brown or buff, often runs up from the base of the bill, above the inner part of the eye, and along the inner edge of the black-brown ear tufts. The rump and upper tail-coverts are delicately patterned with dark vermiculations and fine, wavy barring, the extent of which varies with subspecies. The underwing coverts and undertail coverts are similar, but tend to be more strongly barred in brownish-black.

The primaries and secondaries are brown with broad, dark brown bars and dark brown tips, and grey or buff irregular lines. A complete moult takes place each year between July and December. The facial disc is tawny-buff, speckled with black-brown, so densely on the outer edge of the disc as to form a "frame" around the face. The chin and throat are white with a brownish central streak. The feathers of the upper breast generally have brownish-black centres and reddish-brown edges except for the central ones, which have white edges. The chin and throat may appear white continuing down the center of the upper breast. The lower breast and belly feathers are creamy-brown to tawny buff to off-white with a variable amount of fine dark wavy barring, on a tawny-buff ground colour. The legs and feet (which are feathered almost to the talons) are likewise marked on a buff ground colour but more faintly. The tail is tawny-buff, mottled dark grey-brown with about six black-brown bars. The bill and feet are black. The iris is most often orange but is fairly variable. In some European birds, the iris is a bright reddish, blood-orange colour but then in subspecies found in arid, desert-like habitats, the iris can range into an orange-yellow colour (most closely related species generally have yellowish irises, excluding the Indian eagle-owl).

Standard measurements and physiology

Among standard measurements for the Eurasian eagle-owl, the wing chord measures 378 to 518 mm (14.9 to 20.4 in), the tail measures 229–310 mm (9.0–12.2 in) long, the tarsus measures 64.5–112 mm (2.54–4.41 in), and the total length of the bill is 38.9–59 mm (1.53–2.32 in). The wings are reportedly the smallest in proportion to the body weight of any European owl, when measured by the weight per area of wing size, was found to be 0.72 g/cm2. Thus, they have quite high wing loading. The great horned owl has even smaller wings (0.8 g/cm2) relative to its body size. The golden eagle has slightly lower wing loading proportionately (0.65 g/cm2), so the aerial abilities of the two species (beyond the eagle’s spectacular ability to stoop) may not be as disparate as expected. Some other owls, such as barn owls, short-eared owls (Asio flammeus), and even the related snowy owls have lower wing loading relative to their size, so are presumably able to fly faster, with more agility, and for more extended periods than the Eurasian eagle-owl. In the relatively small race B. b. hispanus, the middle claw, the largest talon, (as opposed to rear hallux-claw, which is the largest in accipitrids) was found to measure from 21.6 to 40.1 mm (0.85 to 1.58 in) in length. A 3.82 kg (8.4 lb) female examined in Britain (origins unspecified) had a middle claw measuring 57.9 mm (2.28 in), on par in length with a large female golden eagle hallux-claw. Generally, owls do not have talons as proportionately large as those of accipitrids, but have stronger, more robust feet relative to their size. Accipitrids use their talons to inflict organ damage and blood loss, whereas typical owls use their feet to constrict their prey to death, the talons serving only to hold the prey in place or provide incidental damage. The talons of the Eurasian eagle-owl are very large and not often exceeded in size by diurnal raptors. Unlike the great horned owls, the overall foot size and strength of the Eurasian eagle-owl is not known to have been tested, but the considerably smaller horned owl has one of the strongest grips ever measured in a bird.

The feathers of the ear tufts in Spanish birds (when not damaged) were found to measure from 63.3 to 86.6 mm (2.49 to 3.41 in).[26] The ear openings (covered in feathers as in all birds) are relatively uncomplicated for an owl, but are also large, being larger on the right than on the left as in most owls, and proportionately larger than those of the great horned owl. In the female, the ear opening averages 31.7 mm (1.25 in) on the right and 27.4 mm (1.08 in) on the left, and in males, averages 26.8 mm (1.06 in) on the right and 24.4 mm (0.96 in) on the left. The depth of the facial disc and the size and complexity of the ear opening are directly correlated to the importance of sound in an owl’s hunting behaviour. Examples of owls with more complicated ear structures and deeper facial disc are barn owls, long-eared owls (Asio otus), and boreal owls (Aegolius funereus). Given the uncomplicated structure of their ear openings and relatively shallow, undefined facial discs, hunting by ear is secondary to hunting by sight in eagle-owls; this seems to be true for Bubo in general. More sound-based hunters such as the aforementioned species likely focus their hunting activity in more complete darkness. Also, owls with white throat patches such as the Eurasian eagle-owl are more likely to be active in low-light conditions in the hours before and after sunrise and sunset rather than the darkest times in the middle of the night. The boreal and barn owls, to extend these examples, lack obvious visual cues such as white throat patches (puffed up in displaying eagle-owls), again indicative of primary activity being in darker periods.

Distinguishing from other species

The great size, bulky, barrel-shaped build, erect ear tufts, and orange eyes render this as a distinctive species. Other than general morphology, the above features differ markedly from those of two of the next largest subarctic owl species in Europe and western Asia, which are the great grey owl and the greyish to chocolate-brown Ural owl (Strix uralensis), both of which have no ear tufts and have a distinctly rounded head, rather than the blocky shape of the eagle-owl’s head. The snowy owl is obviously distinctive from most eagle-owls, but during winter the palest Eurasian eagle-owl race (B. b. sibiricus) can appear off-white. Nevertheless, the latter is still distinctively an ear-tufted Eurasian eagle-owl and lacks the pure white background colour and variable blackish spotting of the slightly smaller species (which has relatively tiny, vestigial ear tufts that have only been observed to have flared on rare occasions).

Unique camouflage pattern

The long-eared owl has a somewhat similar plumage to the eagle-owl, but is considerably smaller (an average female eagle-owl may be twice as long and 10 times heavier than an average long-eared owl). Long-eared owls in Eurasia have vertical striping like that of the Eurasian eagle-owl, while long-eared owls in North America show a more horizontal striping like that of great horned owls. Whether these are examples of mimicry either way is unclear but it is known that both Bubo owls are serious predators of long-eared owls. The same discrepancy in underside streaking has also been noted in the Eurasian and American representations of the grey owl. A few other related species overlap minimally in range in Asia, mainly in East Asia and the southern reaches of the Eurasian eagle-owl’s range. Three fish owls appear to overlap in range, the brown (Ketupa zeylonensis) in at least northern Pakistan, probably Kashmir, and discontinuously in southern Turkey, the tawny (K. flavipes) through much of eastern China, and Blakiston's fish owl in the Russian Far East, northeastern China, and Hokkaido. Fish owls are distinctively different looking, possessing more scraggy ear tufts that hang to the side rather than sit erect on top of the head, and generally have more uniform, brownish plumages without the contrasting darker streaking of an eagle-owl. The brown fish owl has no feathering on the tarsus or feet, and the tawny has feathering only on the upper portion of the tarsi, but the Blakiston’s is nearly as extensively feathered on the tarsi and feet as the eagle-owl. Tawny and brown fish owls are both slightly smaller than co-occurring Eurasian eagle-owls, and Blakiston’s fish owls are similar or slightly larger than co-occurring large northern eagle-owls. Fish owls, being tied to the edges of fresh water, where they hunt mainly fish and crabs, also have slightly differing, and more narrow, habitat preferences.

In the lower Himalayas of northern Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir, along with the brown fish owl, the Eurasian eagle-owl at the limit of its distribution may co-exist with at least two to three other eagle-owls. One of these, the dusky eagle-owl (B. coromandus) is smaller, with more uniform tan-brownish plumage, untidy uniform light streaking rather than the Eurasian’s dark streaking below and an even less well-defined facial disc. The dusky is usually found in slightly more enclosed woodland areas than Eurasian eagle-owls. Another is possibly the spot-bellied eagle-owl (B. nipalensis), which is strikingly different looking, with stark brown plumage, rather than the warm hues typical of the Eurasian, bold spotting on a whitish background on the belly, and somewhat askew ear tufts that are bold white with light brown crossbars on the front. Both species may occur in some parts of the Himalayan foothills, but they are not currently verified to occur in the same area, in part because of the spot-bellied’s preference for dense, primary forest. Most similar, with basically the same habitat preferences and the only one verified to co-occur with the Eurasian eagle-owls of the race B. b. turcomanus in Kashmir is the Indian eagle-owl (B. bengalensis). The Indian species is smaller, with a bolder, blackish facial disc border, more rounded and relatively smaller wings, and partially unfeathered toes. Far to the west, the pharaoh eagle-owl (B. ascalaphus) also seemingly overlaps in range with the Eurasian, at least in Jordan. Although also relatively similar to the Eurasian eagle-owl, the pharaoh eagle-owl is distinguished by its smaller size, paler, more washed-out plumage, and the diminished size of its ear tufts.

Moulting

The Eurasian eagle-owls’ feathers are lightweight and robust, but nevertheless need to be replaced periodically as they become worn. In the Eurasian eagle-owl, this happens in stages, and the first moult starts the year after hatching with some body feathers and wing coverts being replaced. The next year, the three central secondaries on each wing and three middle tail feathers are shed and regrow, and the following year, two or three primaries and their coverts are lost. In the final year of this postjuvenile moult, the remaining primaries are moulted and all the juvenile feathers will have been replaced. Another moult takes place during years 6-12 of the bird's life. This happens between June and October after the conclusion of the breeding season, and again it is a staged process with six to nine main flight feathers being replaced each year. Such a moulting pattern lasting several years is repeated throughout the bird's life.

Taxonomy

The Eurasian eagle-owl was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Strix bulbo. Although Linnaeus specified the "habitat" as "Europa" the type locality is restricted to Sweden. The Eurasian eagle-owl is now placed in the genus Bubo that was introduced by André Duméril in 1805.

The genus Bubo with 20 extant species includes most of the larger owl species in the world today. Based on an extensive fossil record and a central distribution of extant species on that continent, Bubo appears to have evolved into existence in Africa, although early radiations seem to branch from southern Asia, as well. Two genera belonging to the scops owls complex, the giant scops owls (Otus gurneyi) found in Asia and the Ptilopsis or the white-faced scops owl found in Africa, although firmly ensconced in the scops owl group, appear to share some characteristics with the eagle-owls. The Strix genus is also related to Bubo, and is considered a "sister complex", with Pulsatrix possibly being intermediate between the two. The Eurasian eagle-owl appears to represent an expansion of the genus Bubo into the Eurasian continent. A few of the other species of Bubo seem to have been derived from the Eurasian eagle-owl, making it a "paraspecies", or they at least share a relatively recent common ancestor.

The pharaoh eagle-owl, distributed in the Arabian Peninsula and sections of the Sahara Desert through North Africa where rocky outcrops are found, was until recently considered a subspecies of the Eurasian eagle-owl. The pharaoh eagle-owl apparently differs about 3.8% in mitochondrial DNA from the Eurasian eagle-owl, well past the minimum genetic difference to differentiate species of 1.5%. Smaller and paler than Eurasian eagle-owls, the pharaoh eagle-owl can also be considered a distinct species largely due to its higher-pitched and more descending call, and the observation that Eurasian eagle-owls formerly found in Morocco (B. b. hispanus) apparently did not breed with the co-existing pharaoh eagle-owls. On the contrary, the race still found together with the pharaoh eagle-owl in the wild (B. b. interpositus) in the central Middle East has been found to interbreed in the wild with the pharaoh eagle-owl, although genetical materials have indicated B. b. interpositus may itself be a distinct species from the Eurasian eagle-owl, as it differs from the nominate subspecies of the Eurasian eagle-owl by 2.8% in mitochondrial DNA. For three Asian Eurasian eagle-owl subspecies (B. b. ussuriensis, B. b. kiautschensis and B. b. hemachlana, respectively), it was found that they met the criterion for subspecies well, with a high haplotype diversity and in spite of a relatively recent common ancestor and low genetic diversity. The Indian eagle-owl (B. bengalensis) was also considered a subspecies of the Eurasian eagle-owl until recently, but its smaller size, distinct voice (more clipped and high-pitched than the Eurasian), and the fact that it is largely allopatric in distribution (filling out the Indian subcontinent) with other Eurasian eagle-owl races has led to it being considered a distinct species. The mitochondrial DNA of the Indian species also appears considerably distinct from the Eurasian species. The Cape eagle-owl (B. capensis) appears to represent a return of this genetic line back into the African continent, where it leads a lifestyle similar to Eurasian eagle-owls, albeit far to the south. Another offshoot of the northern Bubo group is the snowy owl. It appears to have separated from other Bubo species at least 4 million years ago.

The fourth and most famous derivation of the evolutionary line that includes the Eurasian eagle-owl is the great horned owl, which appears to have been the result of primitive eagle-owls spreading into North America. According to some authorities, the great horned owls and Eurasian eagle-owls are barely distinct as species, with a similar level of divergence in their plumages as the Eurasian and North American representations of the great grey owl or the long-eared owl. More outward physical differences exist between the great horned owl and the Eurasian eagle-owl than in those two examples, including a great size difference favoring the Eurasian species, the great horned owl’s horizontal rather than vertical underside barring, yellow rather than orange eyes, and a much stronger black bracket to the facial disc, not to mention a number of differences in their reproductive behaviour and distinctive voices. Furthermore, genetic research has revealed that the snowy owl is more closely related to the great horned owl than are Eurasian eagle-owls. The most closely related species beyond the pharaoh, Indian, and Cape eagle-owls to the Eurasian eagle-owl is the smaller, less powerful and African spotted eagle-owl (B. africanus), which was likely to have divided from the line before they radiated away from Africa. Somehow, genetic materials indicate the spotted eagle-owl appears to share a more recent ancestor with the Indian eagle-owl than with the Eurasian eagle-owl or even the sympatric Cape eagle-owl. Eurasian eagle-owls in captivity have produced apparently healthy hybrids with both the Indian eagle-owl and the great horned owl. The pharaoh, Indian, and Cape eagle-owls and the great horned owl are all broadly similar in size to each other, but all are considerably smaller than the Eurasian eagle-owl, which averages at least 15–30% larger in linear dimensions and 30–50% larger in body mass than these other related species, possibly as the eagle-owls adapted to warmer climates and smaller prey. Fossils from southern France have indicated that during the Middle Pleistocene, Eurasian eagle-owls (this paleosubspecies is given the name B. b. davidi) were larger than they are today, even larger were those found in Azerbaijan and in the Caucasus (either B. b. bignadensis or B. bignadensis), which were deemed to date to the Late Pleistocene. About 12 subspecies are recognized today.

Habitat

Eagle-owls are distributed somewhat sparsely, but can potentially inhabit a wide range of habitats, with a partiality for irregular topography. They have been found in habitats as diverse as northern coniferous forests to the edge of vast deserts. Essentially, Eurasian eagle-owls have been found living in almost every climatic and environmental condition on the Eurasian continent, excluding the greatest extremities, i.e. they are absent from humid rainforest in Southeast Asia, and the high Arctic tundra, both of which they are more or less replaced by other species of Bubo owls. They are often found in the largest numbers in areas where cliffs and ravines are surrounded by a scattering of trees and bushes. Grassland areas such as alpine meadows or desert-like steppe can also host them so long as they have the cover and protection of rocky areas. The preference of eagle-owls for places with irregular topography has been reported in most known studies. The obvious benefit of such nesting locations is that both nests and daytime roosts located in rocky areas and/or steep slopes would be less accessible to predators, including man. Also, they may be attracted to the vicinity of riparian or wetlands areas, because the soft soil of wet areas is conducive to burrowing by the small, terrestrial mammals normally preferred in the diet, such as voles and rabbits.

Due to their preference for rocky areas, the species is often found in mountainous areas, and can be found up to elevations of 2,100 m (6,900 ft) in the Alps, 4,500 m (14,800 ft) in the Himalayas, and 4,700 m (15,400 ft) in the adjacent Tibetan Plateau. They can also be found living at sea level and may nest amongst rocky sea cliffs. Despite their success in areas such as subarctic zones and mountains that are frigid for much of the year, warmer conditions seem to result in more successful breeding attempts per studies in the Eifel region of Germany. In a study from Spain, areas primarily consisting of woodlands (52% of study area being forested) were preferred with pine trees predominating the oaks in habitats used, as opposed to truly mixed pine-oak woodland. Pine and other coniferous stands are often preferred in great horned owls, as well, due to the constant density, which make overlooking the large birds more likely. In mountainous forest, they are not generally found in enclosed wooded areas, as is the tawny owl (Strix alucco), instead usually near forest edge. Only 2.7% of the habitat included in the territorial ranges for eagle-owls per the habitat study in Spain consisted of cultivated or agricultural land. Compared to golden eagles, though, they can visit cultivated land more regularly in hunting forays due to their nocturnal habits, which allow them to largely evade human activity. Other accounts make clear that farmland is only frequented where its less intensively farmed, holds more extensive treed and bushy areas, and often has limited to no irrigation; farmland areas with fallow or abandoned fields are more likely to hold more prey, so are prone to less frequent human disturbance. In the Italian Alps, almost no pristine habitat remained, and eagle-owls nested locally in the vicinity of towns, villages, and ski resorts.

Although found in the largest numbers in areas sparsely populated by humans, farmland is sometimes inhabited, and they even have been observed living in park-like or other quiet settings within European cities. Since 2005, at least five pairs have nested in Helsinki. This is due in part to feral European rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) having recently populated the Helsinki area, originally from pet rabbits released to the wild. The number is expected to increase due to the growth of the European rabbit population in Helsinki. European hares (Lepus europaeus), the often preferred prey species by biomass of the eagle-owls in their natural habitat, live only in rural areas of Finland, not in the city centre. In June 2007, an eagle-owl nicknamed 'Bubi' landed in the crowded Helsinki Olympic Stadium during the European Football Championship qualification match between Finland and Belgium. The match was interrupted for six minutes. After tiring of the match, following Jonathan Johansson's opening goal for Finland, the bird left the scene. Finland's national football team have had the nickname Huuhkajat (Finnish for "Eurasian eagle-owls") ever since. The owl was named "Helsinki Citizen of the Year" in December 2007. In 2020, a brood of three eagle-owl chicks was raised by their mother on a large, well-foliaged planter on an apartment window in the city centre of Geel, Belgium.

Distribution

The Eurasian eagle-owl is one of the most widely distributed of all owl species, although it is far less wide-ranging than the barn owl, the short-eared owl (Asio flammeus) and long-eared owl and lacks the circumpolar range of boreal species such as great grey owl, boreal owl and northern hawk owl (Surnia ulula). This eagle-owl reaches its westernmost range in the Iberian Peninsula, both almost throughout Spain and more spottily in Portugal. From there, the Eurasian eagle-owl ranges widely in the south of France from Toulouse to Monaco and as far north into the central part of the country as in Allier. Farther north, they are found sporadically and discontinuously in Luxembourg, southern and western Belgium and scarcely into the Netherlands. It is infrequently found in southern and central United Kingdom. In Germany, the eagle-owl can be found in large but highly discontinuous areas, mostly in the south and central areas but is almost entirely absent in areas such as Brandenburg. Across from its south German range, this species range is nearly continuous into the Czech Republic, Slovakia, northern and eastern Hungary and very spottily into Poland. In the fairly montane countries of Switzerland and Austria, the eagle-owl can be found fairly broadly. In Italy, the Eurasian eagle-owl is found where the habitat is favorable in much of the northern, western and central portions down to as far south Melito di Porto Salvo. From Italy, this species sweeps quite broadly along the Mediterranean coast in Southeastern Europe from Slovenia mostly continuously to most of Greece and Bulgaria. In eastern Europe, the Eurasian eagle-owl is found essentially throughout from central Romania to Estonia. The species also occupies a majority of Finland and Scandinavia, where most broadly found in Norway, somewhat more spottily in Sweden and in Denmark it is found widely in Jutland (absent from the islands).

The Eurasian eagle-owl's range in Russia is truly massive, with the species apparently nearly unbound by habitat, with their distribution only excluding them from the true Arctic zone, i.e. their range stops around the tree line. If not the most densely populated species, they almost certainly stand as Russia's most widely distributed owl species. From Russia, they are found throughout Central Asia, residing continuously in each nation from Kazakhstan down to Afghanistan. In Asia Minor, they are found broadly in Georgia, Azerbaijan and somewhat so in western and southern Turkey but is quite sporadic in distribution overall in Turkey. A spotty range also exists in the Middle East in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and western Iran, the species being found broadly only in north and western Iran. In South Asia, the Eurasian eagle-owl is found mostly often in northern Pakistan, northern Nepal and Bhutan and more marginally into far northern India. This species resides throughout Mongolia, almost the entirety of China (mainly absent only from southern Yunnan and southern Guangxi). From China and eastern Russia, the Eurasian eagle-owl is found throughout Korea, Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands and rarely into Japan in northern Hokkaido. Besides the Kurils, the farthest eastern part of the range for this species is in Magadan in the Russian Far East.

Behaviour

The Eurasian eagle-owl is largely nocturnal in activity, as are most owl species, with its activity focused in the first few hours after sunset and the last few hours before sunrise. In the northern stretches of its range, partial diurnal behaviour has been recorded, including active hunting in broad daylight during the late afternoon. In such areas, full nightfall is essentially non-existent at the peak of summer, so eagle-owls must presumably hunt and actively brood at the nest during daylight. The Eurasian eagle-owl has a number of vocalizations that are used at different times. It will usually select obvious topographic features such as rocky pinnacles, stark ridges and mountain peaks to use as regular song posts. These are dotted along the outer edges of the eagle-owl's territory and they are visited often but only for a few minutes at a time.

Vocal activity is almost entirely confined to the colder months from late fall through winter, with vocal activity in October through December mainly having territorial purposes and from January to February being primarily oriented towards courtship and mating purposes. Vocalizations in a Spanish study begin no sooner than 29 minutes after sunset and end no later than 55 minutes before sunrise. The territorial song, which can be heard at great distance, is a deep resonant ooh-hu with emphasis on the first syllable for the male, and a more high-pitched and slightly more drawn-out uh-hu for the female. It is not uncommon for a pair to perform an antiphonal duet. The widely used name in Germany as well as some other sections of Europe for this species is uhu due to its song. At 250–350 Hz, the Eurasian eagle-owls territorial song or call is deeper, farther-carrying and is often considering "more impressive" than the territorial songs of the great horned owl or even that of the slightly larger Blakiston's fish owl, although the horned owl’s call averages slightly longer in duration and the Blakiston's call is typically deeper.[7] Other calls include a rather faint, laughter-like OO-OO-oo and a harsh kveck-kveck. Intruding eagle-owls and other potential dangers may be met with a "terrifying", extremely loud hooo. Raucous barks not unlike those of ural owls or long-eared owls have been recorded but are deeper and more powerful than those species’ barks. Annoyance at close quarters is expressed by bill-clicking and cat-like spitting, and a defensive posture involves lowering the head, ruffling the back feathers, fanning the tail and spreading the wings.

The Eurasian eagle-owl rarely assumes the so-called "tall-thin position", which is when an owl adopts an upright stance with plumage closely compressed and may stand tightly beside a tree trunk. Among others, the long-eared owl is among the most often reported to sit with this pose. The great horned owl has been more regularly recorded using the tall-thin, if not as consistently as some Strix and Asio owls, and it is commonly thought to aid camouflage if encountering a threatening or novel animal or sound. The Eurasian eagle-owl is a broad-winged species and engages in a strong, direct flight, usually consisting of shallow wing beats and long, surprisingly fast glides. It has, unusually for an owl, also been known to soar on updrafts on rare occasions. The latter method of flight has led them to be mistaken for Buteos, which are smaller and quite differently proportioned. Usually when seen flying during the day, it is due to being disturbed or displaced from its roost by humans or mobbing animals, such as crows. Eurasian eagle-owls are highly sedentary, normally maintaining a single territory throughout their adult lives.

Eurasian eagle-owl are considered a completely non-migratory bird, as are all members of the Bubo genus excluding the snowy owl. Even those near the northern limits of their range, where winters are harsh and likely to bear little in food, the eagle-owl does not leave its native range. In 2020, a study presented evidence of a short distance distribution by adult eagle-owls in the fall subsequent to breeding, with 5 adults found to move over 20 km (12 mi) away from their nests. There are additionally claimed cases from Russia of Eurasian eagle-owls moving south for the winter, as the icebound, infamously harsh climate there may be too severe even for these hardy birds and their prey. Similarly, Eurasian eagle-owls living in the Tibetan highlands and Himalayas may in some anecdotal cases vacate their normal territories when winter hits and move south. In both of those examples, these are old, unverified reports and there is no evidence whatsoever of consistent, annual migration by Eurasian eagle-owls and the birds may eke out a living on their normal territories even in the sparsest times.

Dietary biology

Eurasian eagle-owls are strictly territorial and will defend their territories from interloping eagle-owls year around, but territorial calling appears to peak around October to early January. Territory size is similar or occasionally slightly greater than great horned owl: averaging 15 to 80 km2 (5.8 to 30.9 sq mi). Territories are established by the male eagle-owl, who selected the highest points in the territory from which to sing. The high prominence of singing perches allows their song to be heard at greater distances and lessens the need for potentially dangerous physical confrontations in the areas where territories may meet. Nearly as important in territorial behaviour as vocalization is the white throat patch. When taxidermied specimens with flared white throats were placed around the perimeter of eagle-owl territories, male eagle-owls reacted quite strongly and often attacked the stuffed owl, reacting more mildly to a stuffed eagle-owl with a non-flared white throat. Females were less likely to be aggressive to mounted specimens and did not seem to vary in their response whether exposed to the specimens with or without the puffed up white patch. In January and February, the primary function for vocalization becomes for the purpose of courtship. More often than not, eagle-owls will pair for life but usually engage in courtship rituals annually, most likely to re-affirm pair bonds. When calling for the purposes of courtship, males tend to bow and hoot loudly but do so in a less contorted manner than the male great horned owl. Courtship in the Eurasian eagle-owl may involve bouts of "duetting", with the male sitting upright and the female bowing as she calls. There may be mutual bowing, billing and fondling before the female flies to a perch where coitus occurs, usually taking place several times over the course of a few minutes.

Nests

The male selects breeding sites and advertises their potential to the female by flying to them and kneading out a small depression (if soil is present) and making staccato notes and clucking noises. Several potential sites may be presented, with the female selecting one. In Baden-Wurttenberg, Germany, the amount of male nest site visits were found to increase in time spent over the pre-laying breeding season from a mean of 29 minutes to 3 hours with frequent incubation like sitting by the male. Like all owls, Eurasian eagle-owls do not build nests or add material but nest on the surface or material already present. Eurasian eagle-owls normally nest on rocks or boulders, most often utilizing cliff ledges and steep slopes, as well as crevices, gullies, holes or caves. Rocky areas that also prove concealing woodlots as well as, for hunting purposes, that border river valleys and grassy scrubland may be especially attractive. If only low rubble is present, they will nest on the ground between rocks. Often, in more densely forested areas, they've been recorded nesting on the ground, often among roots of trees, under large bushes and under fallen tree trunks. Steep slopes with dense vegetation are preferred if nesting on the ground, although some ground nests are surprisingly exposed or in flat spots such as in open spots of the taiga, steppe, ledges of river banks and between wide tree trunks. All Eurasian eagle-owl nests in the largely forested Altai Krai region of Russia were found to be on the ground, usually at the base of pines. This species does not often use other bird’s nests as does the great horned owl, which often prefers nests built by other animals over any other nesting site. The Eurasian eagle-owl has been recorded in singular cases using nests built by common buzzards (Buteo buteo), golden eagle, greater spotted (Clanga clanga) and white-tailed eagles (Haliaeetus albicilla), common ravens (Corvus corax) and black storks (Ciconia nigra). Among the eagle-owls of the fairly heavily wooded wildlands of Belarus, they more commonly utilize nests built by other birds than most eagle-owls, i.e. stork or accipitrid nests, but a majority of nests are still located on the ground. This is contrary to the indication that ground nests are selected only if rocky areas or other bird nests are unavailable, as many will utilize ground nests even where large bird nests seem to be accessible. Tree holes being used for nesting sites are even more rarely recorded than nests constructed by other birds. While it may be assumed that the eagle-owl is too large to utilize tree hollows, when other large species like the great grey owl have never been recorded nesting in one, the even more robust Blakiston's fish owl nests exclusively in cavernous hollows. The Eurasian eagle-owl often uses the same nest site year after year.

Parental behaviour

In Engadin, Switzerland, the male eagle-owl alone hunts until the young are 4 to 5 weeks old and the female spends all her time brooding at the nest. After this point, the female gradually resumes hunting from both herself and the young and thus provides a greater range of food for the young. While it may seem contrary to the species’ highly territorial nature, there is one verified cases of polygamy in Germany, with a male apparently mating with two females, and cooperative brooding in Spain, with a third adult of undetermined sex helping a breeding pair care for the chicks. The response of Eurasian eagle-owls to humans approaching at the nest is quite variable. The species is often rather less aggressive than some other owls, including related species like the spot-bellied eagle-, great horned and snowy owls, many of the northern Strix species, and even some rather smaller owl species, which often fearlessly attack any person found to be nearing their nests. Occasionally, if a person climbs to an active nest, the adult female eagle-owl will do a distraction display, in which they feign an injury. This is an uncommon behavior in most owls and is most often associated with small birds trying to falsely draw the attention of potential predators away from their offspring. More commonly, the adults withdraw to a safe distance, as their nests are usually well-camouflaged. Occasionally if cornered both adults and nestlings will do an elaborate threat display, also rare in owls in general, in which the eagle-owls raise their wings into a semi-circle and puff up their feathers, followed by a snapping of their bills. Apparently, eagle-owls of uncertain and probably exotic origin in Britain are likely to react aggressively to humans approaching the nest. Also, aggressive encounters involving eagle-owls around their nest, despite being historically uncommon, apparently have increased in recent decades in Scandinavia. The discrepancy of aggressiveness at the nest between the Eurasian eagle-owl and its Nearctic counterpart may be correlated to variation in the extent of nest predation that the species endured during the evolutionary process.

Eggs and offspring development

The eggs are normally laid at intervals of three days and are incubated only by the female. Laying generally begins in late winter but may be later in the year in colder habitats. During the incubation period, the female is brought food at the nest by her mate. A single clutch of white eggs is laid; each egg can measure from 56 to 73 mm (2.2 to 2.9 in) long by 44.2 to 53 mm (1.74 to 2.09 in) in width, and will usually weigh about 75 to 80 g (2.6 to 2.8 oz). In Central Europe, eggs average 59.8 mm × 49.5 mm (2.35 in × 1.95 in), and in Siberia, eggs average 59.4 mm × 50.1 mm (2.34 in × 1.97 in). Their eggs are only slightly larger than those of snowy owls and the nominate subspecies of great horned owl, while similar in size to those of spot-bellied eagle-owls and Blakiston's fish owls. The Eurasian eagle-owl’s eggs are noticeably larger than those of Indian eagle-owl and pharaoh eagle-owls. Usually clutch size is one or two, rarely three or four, and exceptionally to six. The average number of eggs laid varies with latitude in Europe. Clutch size ranges from 2.02 to 2.14 in Spain and the massifs of France, and 1.82 to 1.89 in central Europe and the eastern Alps; in Sweden and Finland, the mean clutch size is 1.56 and 1.87, respectively. While variation based on climate is not unusual for different wide-ranging palearctic species, the higher clutch size of western Mediterranean eagle-owls is also probably driven by the presence of lagomorphs in the diet, which provide high nutritional value than most other regular prey. The average clutch size, attributed as 2.7, was the lowest of any European owl per one study. One species was attributed with an even lower clutch size in North America, the great grey owl with a mean of 2.6, but the mean clutch size was much higher for the same species in Europe, at 4.05.

In Spain, incubation is from mid-January to mid-March, hatching and early nestling period is from late March to early April, fledging and postfledging dependence can range from mid-April to August, and territorial/courtship is anytime hereafter; i.e. the period between the beginning of juvenile dispersal to egg laying; from September to early January. The same general date parameters were followed in southern France. In the Italian Alps, the mean egg-laying date was similarly February 27, but the young were more likely to be dependent later, as all fledglings were still being cared for by the end of August, and some even lingered under parental care until October. In northern climes, the breeding season shifts somewhat later by as much as a month so that egg laying may be as late as late March or early April. Nonetheless, the Eurasian eagle-owl is one of the earliest nesting bird species in Europe or northern, temperate Asia.

The first egg hatches after 31 to 36 days of incubation. The eggs hatch successively; although the average interval between egg-laying is 3 days, the young tend to hatch no more than a day or two apart. Like all owls that nest in the open, the downy young are often a mottled grey with some white and buff, which provides camouflage. They open their eyes at 4 days of age. The chicks grow rapidly, being able to consume small prey whole after roughly 3 weeks. In Andalusia, the most noticeable development of the young before they leave the nest was the increase of body size, which was the highest growth rate of any studied owl and faster than either snowy or great horned owls. Body mass increased fourteen times over from 5 days old to 60 days old in this study. The male continues to bring prey, leaving it on or around the nest, and the female feeds the nestlings, tearing up the food into suitably sized pieces. The female resumes hunting after about 3 weeks, which increases the food supply to the chicks. Many nesting attempts produce two fledglings, indicating that siblicide is not as common as in other birds of prey, especially a few species of eagles. In Spain, males are thought to be the first egg laid to reduce the likelihood of sibling aggression due to the size difference, thus the younger female hatchling is less likely to be killed since it is similar in size to its older sibling.

Apparently, the point at which the chicks venture out of the nest is driven by the location of the nest. In elevated nest sites, chicks usually wander out of the nest at 5 to as late as 7 weeks of age, but have been recorded leaving the nest if the nest is on the ground as early as 22 to 25 days old. The chicks can walk well at 5 weeks of age and by 7 weeks are taking short flights. Hunting and flying skills are not tested prior to the young eagle-owls leaving the nest. Young Eurasian eagle-owls leave the nest by 5–6 weeks of age and typically can be flying weakly (a few metres) by about 7–8 weeks of age. Normally, they are cared for at least another month. By the end of the month, the young eagle-owls are quite assured fliers. A few cases have been confirmed of adult eagle-owls in Spain feeding and caring for postfledgling juvenile eagle-owls that were not their own.

Like many large owls, Eurasian eagle-owls leave the nest while still in a functionally flightless state and with large amounts of second down still present, but will fly shortly thereafter.

A study from southern France found the mean number of fledglings per nest was 1.67. In central Europe, the mean number of fledglings per nest was between 1.8 and 1.9. The mean fledgling rate in the Italian Alps was 1.89, thus being similar. In the Italian Alps, heavier rainfall during breeding decreased fledgling success because it inhibited the ability of the parents to hunt and potentially exposed nestlings to hypothermia. In the reintroduced population of eagle-owls in Eifel, Germany, occupied territories produced an average of 1.17 fledglings, but not all occupying pairs attempted to breed, with about 23% of those attempting to breed being unsuccessful. In slightly earlier studies, possibly due to higher persecution rates, the mean number of young leaving the nest was often lower, such as 1.77 in Bavaria, Germany, 1.1 in lower Austria, and 0.6 in southern Sweden. An experimental supplemental feeding program to young eagle-owls on two small Norwegian islands were found to increase mean numbers of fledglings from a mean of about 1.2 to 1.7 despite evidence that increased human activity near the nest decreased owlet survivability. While sibling owls are close in the stage between leaving the nest and fully fledged, about 20 days after leaving the nest, the family unit seems to dissolve and the young disperse quickly and directly. All told, the dependence of young eagle-owls on their parents lasts for 20 to 24 weeks. Independence in central Europe is from September to November. The young leave their parents' care normally on their own, but are also sometimes chased away by their parents. The young Eurasian eagle-owls reach sexual maturity by the following year, but do not normally breed until they can establish a territory at around 2–3 years old. Until they are able to establish their own territories, young eagle-owls spend their lives as nomadic "floaters", and while they also call, select inconspicuous perch sites unlike breeding birds. Male floaters are especially wary about intrusion into an established territory to avoid potential conspecific aggression.

Status

he Eurasian eagle-owl has a very wide range across much of Europe and Asia, estimated to be about 32,000,000 km2 (12,000,000 sq mi). In Europe, the population is estimated at 19,000 to 38,000 breeding pairs, and in the whole world around 250,000 to 2,500,000 individual birds. The population trend is thought to be decreasing because of human activities, but with such a large range and large total population, the International Union for Conservation of Nature has rated the bird as being of least concern. Although roughly equal in adaptability and wideness of distribution, the great horned owl, with a total estimated population up to 5.3 million individuals, apparently has a total population that is roughly twice that of the Eurasian eagle-owl. Numerous factors, including a shorter history of systematic persecution, lesser sensitivity to human disturbance while nesting, somewhat greater ability to adapt to marginal habitats and widespread urbanization, and slightly smaller territories may play into the horned owls greater numbers in modern times. Eurasian eagle-owls are listed in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meaning international trade (including in parts and derivatives) is regulated.

Longevity

The Eurasian eagle-owl surely is one of the longest-living owls on average. The eagle-owl can live for up to 20 years in the wild. At one time, the oldest ringed eagle-owl was considered a 19-year-old specimen. Some studies posited that in protected areas, lifespans ranging up to 15–20 years may not be uncommon. A record-breaking specimen banded in the wild was subsequently found to survive to be 27 years and 9 months old. Like many other bird species in captivity, they can live much longer without having to endure difficult natural conditions, and have possibly survived up to 68 years in zoo collections. Healthy adults normally have no natural predators, thus are considered apex predators. The leading causes of death for this species are man-made; electrocution, traffic accidents, and shooting frequently claim the lives of eagle-owls.

Anthropogenic mortality

Electrocution was the greatest cause of mortality in 68% of 25 published studies, and accounted, on average, for 38.2% of the reported eagle-owl deaths. This was particularly true in the Italian Alps, where the number of dangerous, uninsulated pylons near nests was extremely high, but is highly problematic almost throughout the species’ European distribution. In one telemetry study, 55% of 27 dispersing young were electrocuted within 1 year of their release from captivity, while electrocution rates of wild-born young are even higher. Mortality in the Swiss Rhine Valley was variable, in radio-tagged, released individuals, most died as a result of starvation (48%) rather than human-based causes, but 93% of the wild, untagged individuals found dead were due to human activities, 46% due to electrocution, and 43% due to collision with vehicles or trains. Insulation of pylons is thought to result in a stabilisation of the local population due to floaters taking up residence in unoccupied territories that formerly held deceased eagle-owls. Eurasian eagle-owls from Finland were found mainly to die due to electrocution (39%) and collisions with vehicles (22%). Wind turbine collisions can also be a serious cause of mortality locally.

Eagle-owls have been singled out historically as a threat to game species, thus to the economic well-being of landowners, game-keepers, and even governmental agencies, and as such, have been singled out for widespread persecution. Local extinctions of Eurasian eagle-owls have been primarily due to persecution. Examples of this include northern Germany in 1830, the Netherlands sometimes in the late 19th century, Luxembourg in 1903, Belgium in 1943, and central and western Germany in the 1960s. In trying to determine causes of death for 1476 eagle-owls from Spain, most were unknown and undetermined types of trauma. The largest group that could be determined, 411 birds, was due to collisions, more than half of which were from electrocution, while 313 were due to persecution, and merely 85 were directly attributable to natural causes. Clearly, while pylon safety is perhaps the most serious factor to be addressed in Spain, persecution continues to be a massive problem for Spanish eagle-owls. Of seven European nations where modern Eurasian eagle-owl mortality is well-studied, continual persecution is by far the largest problem in Spain, although also continues to be serious (often comprising at least half of studied mortality) in France. From France and Spain, nearly equal numbers of eagle-owls are poisoned (for which raptors might not be the main target), or shot intentionally.

Conservation and reintroductions

While the eagle-owl remains reasonably numerous in some parts of its habitat where nature is still relatively little disturbed by human activity, such as the sparsely populated regions of Russia and Scandinavia, concern has been expressed about the future of the Eurasian eagle-owl in Western and Central Europe. There, very few areas are not heavily modified by human civilisation, thus exposing the birds to the risk of collisions with deadly man-made objects (e.g. pylons) and a depletion of native prey numbers due to ongoing habitat degradation and urbanisation.

In Spain, long-term governmental protection of the Eurasian eagle-owl seems to have no positive effect on reducing the persecution of eagle-owls. Therefore, Spanish conservationists have recommended to boost education and stewardship programs to protect eagle-owls from direct killing by local residents. Unanimously, biologists studying eagle-owl mortality and conservation factors have recommended to proceed with the proper insulation of electric wires and pylons in areas where the species is present. As this measure is labour-intensive and therefore rather expensive, few efforts have actually been made to insulate pylons in areas with few fiscal resources devoted to conservation such as rural Spain. In Sweden, a mitigation project was launched to insulate transformers that are frequently damaged by eagle-owl electrocution.

Large reintroduction programs were instituted in Germany after the eagle-owl was deemed extinct in the country as a breeding species by the 1960s, as a result of a long period of heavy persecution. The largest reintroduction there occurred from the 1970s to the 1990s in the Eifel region, near the border with Belgium and Luxembourg. The success of this measure, consisting in more than a thousand eagle-owls being reintroduced at an average cost of US$1,500 per bird, is a subject of controversy. Those eagle-owls reintroduced in the Eifel region appear to be able to breed successfully, and enjoy nesting success comparable with wild eagle-owls from elsewhere in Europe. Mortality levels in the Eifel region, though, appear to remain quite high due to anthropogenic factors. Also, concerns exist about a lack of genetic diversity of the species in this part of Germany. Apparently, the German reintroductions have allowed eagle-owls to repopulate neighbouring parts of Europe, as the breeding populations now occurring in the Low Countries (the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg) are believed to be the result of influx from regions further to the east. Smaller reintroductions have been done elsewhere, and the current breeding population in Sweden is believed to be primarily the result of a series of reintroductions. Conversely to numerous threats and declines incurred by Eurasian eagle-owls, areas where human-dependent, non-native prey species such as brown rats (Rattus norvegicus) and rock pigeons (Columba livia) have flourished, have given the eagle-owls a primary food source and allowed them occupy regions where they were once marginalized or absent.

Occurrence in Great Britain

The Eurasian eagle-owl at one time occurred naturally in Great Britain. Some, including the RSPB, have claimed that it had disappeared about 10,000–9,000 years ago, after the last ice age, but fossil remains found in Meare Lake Village indicate the eagle-owl occurring as recently as roughly 2,000 years ago in the fossil record. The lack of presence of the Eurasian eagle-owl in British folklore or writings in recent millennium may indicate the lack of occurrence by this species there. The flooding of the land bridge between Britain and continental Europe may have been responsible for their extirpation as they only disperse over limited distances, although early human persecution presumably played a role as well. Some reportages of eagle-owls in Britain have been revealed to actually be great horned owls or Indian eagle-owls, the latter a particularly popular owl in falconry circuits.[110] Some breeding pairs do still occur in Britain, though the exact number of pairs and individuals is not definitely known. The World Owl Trust stated that they believe some eagle-owls occurring in North England and Scotland are naturally occurring, making the flight of roughly 350 to 400 km (220 to 250 mi) from the west coast of Norway to Shetland and the east coast of Scotland, as well as possibly from the coasts of the Netherlands and Belgium to the south. Although not migratory, eagle-owls can disperse some notable distances in young birds seeking a territory.

Prior studies of eagle-owl distribution have indicated a strong reluctance to cross large bodies of water in the species. Many authorities state that the Eurasian eagle-owls occurring in Britain are individuals that have escaped from captivity. While, until the 19th century, wealthy collectors may have released unwanted eagle-owls, despite press to the contrary, no evidence of any organization or individual intentionally releasing eagle-owls recently with the intent to establish a breeding population has been found. Many feel that the eagle-owl would be classified as an "alien" species. Due to its predatory abilities, many, especially those in the press, have expressed alarm of their effect on "native" species. From 1994 to 2007, 73 escaped eagle-owls were not registered as returned, while 50 escapees were recaptured. Several recorded breeding attempts have been studied, and most were unsuccessful, due in large part to incidental disturbance by humans and some due to direct persecution, with eggs having been smashed.

Effect on conservation-dependent species

As highly opportunistic predators, Eurasian eagle-owls hunt almost any appropriately sized prey they encounter. Most often, they take whatever prey is locally common and can take a large number of species considered harmful to human financial interests, such as rats, mice, and pigeons. Eurasian eagle-owls do take rare or endangered species, as well. Among the species considered at least vulnerable (up to critically endangered as in the mink and eel, both heavily overexploited by humans) to extinction known to be hunted by Eurasian eagle-owls are Russian desman (Desmana moschata) Pyrenean desman (Galemys pyrenaicus), barbastelle (Barbastella barbastellus), European ground squirrel (Spermophilus citellus), southwestern water vole (Arvicola sapidus), European mink (Mustela lutreola), marbled polecat (Vormela peregusna), lesser white-fronted goose (Anser erythrops), Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus), greater spotted eagle (Clanga clanga), eastern imperial eagle (Aquila heliaca), saker falcon (Falco cherrug), houbara bustard (Chlamydotis undulata), great bustard (Otis tarda), spur-thighed tortoise (Testudo graeca), Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), European eel (Anguilla anguilla) and lumpfish (Cyclopterus lumpus).

February 23, 054/365 (785/1096)- This is why you should never cut into a live cord!

Taken for the TOTW- energy!

I rarely ever do much in postprocessing except tweak the contrast, and myabe add a border or something in Picnik. I messed around a bunch on this one obviously. The glowing wires are actually the lens flare filter in PS, and the zoom blur was in Picnik.

Burgos, Spain.

Porftfolio of Fotolia: es.fotolia.com/p/205693598

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All Rights Reserved

West Virginia State Penitentiary

Moundsville, WV

November 3rd, 2014

The Former West Virginia State Penitentiary, a National Historic Places Registered facility, operated by the Moundsville Economic Development Council in Moundsville, West Virginia.

The history of this historic penitentiary:

"The prison at Joliet provided the prototype for the West Virginia Penitentiary. It was an imposing stone structure fashioned in the castellated Gothic architectural style (adorned with turrets and battlements, like a castle). Only the dimensions of West Virginia's facility would differ; it would be approximately one-half the size of Joliet.

No architectural drawings of the West Virginia Penitentiary have been discovered, so an understanding of the plan developed by the Board of Directors must be obtained through their 1867 report, which details the procurement of a title for ten acres of land and a proposal to enclose about seven acres. On the north side would be a street 60 feet in width, and on the west 140 feet for street and yard to the front buildings.

The prison yard would be a parallelogram 682 1/2 feet in length, by 352 1/2 feet in width, enclosed by a stone wall 5 feet in thickness at the bottom, 2 1/2 feet at the top, with foundation 5 feet below the surface, and wall 25 inches thick. At each of the corners of this wall would be large turrets, for the use of the guards, with inside staircases. Guardrooms would be above on a level with the top of the main. The superintendent's house and cell buildings would be so placed that the rear wall of each would form part of the west wall. "

SOURCE:http://www.wvpentours.com/history.htm

The creepy looking electrocution chair works really well here... :D

Bane got close, and swung his fist at me. I held it at bay, but not for very long, as his immense strength was too much for me to handle. So he released his fist from my grasp, and punched my chest, hard enough to crack my suit, and hit me against the wall.

Batman: Ach!

Superman flew towards Bane, his eyes glowing red... He fired a beam from his eyes at Bane, but he blocked it, by quickly grabbing a broken piece of machinery, which he threw at Clark.

Superman, holding the thrown machine: You thought that'd hurt me?

He threw it back at Bane, knocking him back, slightly.

Superman: Try harder next time..!

I got up, and felt my lip, and noticed the blood dripping from my mouth... I put my hand back down, and pulled a batarang from my belt, throwing it at Bane's back, making him bleed from the cut.

Bane: Hm?

He turned around to face me...

Bane: Merely a scratch.

He grabbed my head, and punched me in the face, hard enough to splay me across the floor. I tried to get up, but my arms felt weak...

Batman: Ugh...

I looked up, and saw Superman fighting Bane across the room. Superman froze Bane's foot to the ground with his ice breath, but Bane quickly broke free, kicking towards Superman, who dodged the hit. Bane then threw his fist at Superman, which he also dodged.

Bane: You are quite the opponent, Kryptonian. But soon you'll be a stain on the pavement..!

Bane put both his fists in the air, before slamming them towards Clark..! He couldn't avoid it, it hit him onto the ground.

Superman: Ugh... There's not enough sunlight in here, I'm surprised I lasted that long.

Bane: Well well well... Look what we've got here. A defeated alien, and a broken bat. Not long from now, you'll be 6 feet under.

Superman: Agh, okay... I can get up.

Superman got up, and flew at Bane, but Bane caught him by the neck. Superman, as a last effort, punched Bane in the mask as hard as he could.

Superman: Raah!!!

It cracked Bane's tubing on the mask! He grabbed his face, blocking off the green smoke coming out of it...

Bane: No... No no no! Aghh!!!

He threw his fists faster than ever at Superman, but he dodged every one. One of Bane's fists got stuck in a machine, electrocuting him.

Bane: Aghh!

The room started blinking red, as an alarm started playing, as machinery was destroyed. This helped wake me, and it got me to get up...

Batman: Ugh... B-Bane... You're going down.

I ran at him, and punched him in the side, knocking him out of the machine. I grabbed a batarang, and stabbed some more of the piping on his suit.

Bane: No! No!!!

Superman flew at his back, knocking him over. He froze Bane to the ground.

Superman: Well, that's another successful defeat. Great work, Bruce!

Batman: Don't mention it.

~Madam Web

These weapons are made by the highest selling luxury weapons dealers in the country, Odin-Bolt. They are made of metal that resembles gold but have the strength of steel. Adorned by rubies on top of state of the art combat technology. These weapons fetch a hefty price. Both weapons are capable of electrocuting anything that comes in contact with the highly conducting blades.

"Suppression and extermination in one single form."

---

The Ascension rifle is the newest weapon to enter our arsenal. Once used in ancient times, this rifle was long forgotten and was thought to be destroyed - the old ways gone with it. Now this rifle has returned, and it has returned with a purpose.

The Ascension rifle existed only for two purposes: suppression and extermination. Capable of firing up to 36 beams of highly concentrated energy, the Ascension rifle is a weapon to fear.

Reloading is done by replacing the energy disc on the top of the weapon. The weapon then feeds off the closest energy source, regardless of energy type. In fact, the energy type influences the projectiles it fires. A list of energy types is provided here:

- Thermal energy allows the weapon to fire extremely hot beams of matter, capable of melting targets if the wound is not enough to kill.

- Electricity makes the Ascension rifle fire electric beams, with seven times the voltage required to electrocute a human being.

- Radiant energy allows the Ascension rifle to fire beams that scramble electronic systems and blind targets; the beams are bright enough to cause such a blinding effect and can only be seen by the enemy somehow.

- Sound energy causes the weapon to emit extremely high sound frequencies, capable of shattering the internals of any organism. Vibrations may cause the organism's anatomical structure to break apart or collapse.

The energy type also changes the light color. Thermal is orange, electricity is blue, radiant is purple, and sound is red.

The rifle is fully automatic, and deals massive damage to light and heavy armored targets alike, treating both like sheets of paper. An ammunition counter represented by six lights is also present and goes down for every 6 shots fired. An integrated optical sight capable of marking targets within the frame of the optic lens is also included.

Accurate from up to 500 meters, the Ascension was often used to pin down targets. Its rate of fire was perfectly balanced to maintain both suppression and low amounts of recoil when firing for a set duration. In addition, the rifle met a variety of roles, such as a marksman rifle and even a sniper rifle.

The return of such a deadly weapon means good news for the human forces. Such firepower is always in demand in a time of war, especially with extraterrestrial threats that have threatened our world for ages lingering around still.