View allAll Photos Tagged fittest
This is an image I would have been very happy not to have taken .
I met up with two of my oldest friends in Otley last month . We walked up the Chevin to visit the bench that has been placed to commemorate our good friend Beate who died suddenly in October 2019. Her children Lenya and Nikki placed the bench and planted some trees on the hillside above Otley in her memory . It's a perfect spot it is just above where she used to live and she would regularly go for runs along the Chevin. Her death was completely out of the blue it was particularly awful given that of all my old friends she was the youngest and easily the fittest . She worked as a teacher for deaf children and was an accomplished musician playing in a number of ensembles . The bench has a brief inscription. “ Determine to live life with flair and laughter “ Beate certainly did live up to this motto
THANKS FOR YOUR VISIT TO MY STREAM. I WOULD BE VERY GRATEFUL IF YOU COULD NOT FAVE A PHOTO WITHOUT ALSO LEAVING A COMMENT .
Survival of the fittest.
Peregrine dad brought breakfast to one of his chicks, they did the transfer in the air. As soon as it happened, two more chicks showed up trying to steal it from the one that got it first. (Hard to see but there's a small bird in the middle of them.) In the end, the biggest of them, a female ended up with the prey.
Eminem - Survival (Explicit) A must . . .Tuuunes for the pic ^^
This is survival of the fittest
This is do or die
This is the winner takes it all
So take it all
Wasn't ready to be no millionaire, I was ill-prepared
I was prepared to be ill though, the skill was there
From the beginning, it wasn't 'bout the ends
It was 'bout busting raps and standing for something, f*ck an acronym
Cut the f*cking act like you're happy, I'm f*cking back again
With another anthem, why stop when it doesn't have to end?
It ain't over 'til I say it's over – enough when I say enough
Throw me to the wolves and close the gate up
I'm afraid of what'll happen to them wolves
When the thought of being thrown into an alligator pit, I salivate at it
Weight is up, hands up like it's 12 noon, nah, homie
Hold them b*tches straighter up, wave 'em 'til you dislocate a rotator cuff
Came up rough, came to ruffle feathers, nah, egos
I ain't deflate enough, last chance to make this whole stadium erupt
This is survival of the fittest
This is do or die
This is the winner takes it all
So take it all . . .
Pic taken at [SLMC] [Task Force: Ghosts] Enemy Spawn SL
Survival of the fittest, baby
Yeah, you thought that life was so damn easy
You try to run before you crawl
Yeah, you're innocent 'til they prove you guilty
Got yourself some bad information
A victim of ill communication
You can run, but you just can't hide
Baby you gotta let it ride
Guilty,
Steal your
Steal your heart
You burn brightly in the darkness, alone
You burn brightly in the dark
Got yourself some bad information
A victim of ill communication
You can run but you just can't hide
Baby you gotta let it ride
Guilty,
Steal your
Steal your heart
You burn brightly in the darkness, alone
You burn brightly in the dark
Run on our own
Run so far, so our hearts stop breaking
Run on our own
On our own
You burn brightly in the darkness, alone
You burn brightly in the dark
Run on our own
Run so far, so our hearts stop breaking
Run on our own
On our own
I've wanted to get a decent shot of this iconic old barn along busy I80 near Princeton,IL. for a long time. Pulling off the busy interstate to get the right angle seems a unsafe,and possibly,illegal way of doing it.So this heavily processed shot will have to do until I figure out how.There are a lot of much better shots of this beauty on various sites,and some even include the great old windmill until it blew down 10 or more years ago. Its continued survival shows the great workmanship in its construction.While a great location for a great view,the amount of wind and weather it has received in its long life would have brought down many a lesser barn by now....
A link to a picture of this beauty in the winter with an accompanying hog or chicken shed(since gone)....
Thanks Dan!
The phrase, "survival of the fittest", which was coined by Darwin or by the philosopher Herbert Spencer remains kind of controversy,but it sure is widely misunderstood.
Though it conjures up an image of a violent struggle for survival, in reality the word "fittest" seldom means the strongest or the most aggressive. On the contrary, it can mean anything from the best camouflaged, most fecund, cleverest or the most cooperative. Forget Hitler, think Einstein.
Cooperation is an incredibly successful survival strategy. Indeed it has been the basis of all dramatic steps in the history of life.
Bee or ant colonies consist of cooperating individuals and great examples of cooperation.
When cooperation breaks down, the results can be disastrous. When elements in our bodies turn rogue, for instance, the result is cancer.
Back in to the time when it was still vogue to wait and struggle en masse.
Now, we still do, but just in the (un)comfort of our homes
Evidently the Osprey and the Gar went for the same fish at the same time. The Gar was the winner.
Taken at Lake Jesup. I couldn't see this until I got home. I had no idea that the Gar was in the photos. I feel kind of bad because I called the Osprey a loser when he came up out of the water with no fish.
I'm thinking this may be a once in a lifetime shot.
HAPPY SLIDERS SUNDAY !!
Some kinds of weeds are audacious.
IMO, that makes them great candidates for "post-processing to the max."
This does NOT mean that I think weeds think or that they are consciously intentional.
It's just that "survival of the fittest" has resulted in weed GENES that
program the seeds to be audacious--i.e.
try to grow almost anywhere, grow quickly, produce flowers quickly,
--and thus produce more life-carrying seeds--as quickly as possible.
It's really the genes that are the living organism here.
They are doing the essential thing, following the prime directive that defines life.
It is famously celebrated in song by the Bee Gees:
"Stayin' Alive."
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNFzfwLM72c
PS: For my previously-posted example, see
www.flickr.com/photos/dan-on-flickr/52982817734/in/datepo...
Location: The shady, streetside wall of a an old but nicely-kept row house.
Riehen BS Switzerland.
In my album: Dan's Weed World
Nadat hij lang genoeg naar de mandarijneend en de kikker had staan kijken besloot de reiger om in te grijpen en zijn honger te stillen. Het recht van de sterkste.
After watching the mandarin duck and the frog long enough, the heron decided to intervene and satisfy its hunger. Survival of the fittest.
Last Sunday 's Survival of the Fittest, Cardiff Bay.
Climb the hay bales, run approximately 6 miles, followed by many obstacles and finally finish with a climb over a high wall.
The elite and club runners had already finished when these entrants began.
The Welsh words on the Millennium Arts Centre are :
CREU GWIR FEL GWYDR O FFWRNAIS AWEN
IN THESE STONES HORIZONS SING
fuayu Armor KIMONO (Rei's)
KURENAI =
maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/utakata/89/112/1971
-------------------------------------
#8[^.^Ayashi^.^] Natsumi-chi hair-Pastel set
:glutz: kemono pupper paws
[The Forge] Plasmoid Katana. ( Neo Japan )
On Black with eminem - Survival
This is survival of the fittest
This is do or die
This is the winner takes it all
So take it all a-all a-all a-all
Pic taken at It all starts with a Smile SL
This tiny plant is making its way in this world from the soil in a small crack in the timber on the wharf. One wonders how large can a tree survive with this as its base
I took a very short walk along the Waterfront Recreational Trail today because the wind was gusty and cold.
I came upon this mini drama, where the swans, ducks and gulls were fighting for scraps of bread that were thrown to them from the observation bridge along the waterfront.
Two Golden Eagles fighting for food in the blue hour
Thank you for your all your comments and likes. It's very much appreciated.
(c) Anita Price Foto
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A shot from the 2nd of this year's 3 Survival of the Fittest Races. I shot all 3 for Men's Health, same as last year, and had a fantastic time. It's a 10K obstacle course through the city centre, and in Nottingham that means lots of mud and water, as they get immersed several times at Holme Pierrepoint - hence the muddy appearance of these folk about 2 miles later.
I try and light as many of the shots as possible, to give them more polish, although it does entail carting quite a lot of gear around the course. I've written a bit about that experience here if you're interested.
It's lit with an SB900 on camera, with a wide angle diffuser on, acting as a master to an SB800 on a nano stand to camera right, triggered via CLS. This is almost the only time I use CLS, as I find I'm close enough to everything for it to work, and it definitely saves time when I've got to get round several locations in a couple of hours. The SB900 is on 1/4 power, and the SB800 nearly 1/2.
Blog: www.photosmudger.com
Blog: www.photosmudger.com
The lone surviver of a brood of three young ospreys to survive to fledge at a nest on Barnegat Bay, NJ.
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**** This frame was chosen on Sunday 18th June 2021 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #229. This is my 204th photograph to be selected.
I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 39.441+ Million people who have visited, favorited and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****
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Photograph taken at an altitude of Fifty one metres at 15:54pm on an beautiful summer afternoon on Saturday 17th July 2021, off Woolacombe Road and Broad Walk in a garden in Blackheath, South East London.
Here we see an adult female Eastern Grey Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis), munching on some kitchen scraps.
The Grey (or Gray) squirrel, you either love 'em or you hate 'em. Cute and fluffy little funsters or destructive critters who ruin trees, kill bird chicks and trees and damage our homes... oh and it's their fault we lost our native Red squirrels as well!
OK
I get it and I see both sides of the story of course. For my part, I am a nature, wildlife and landscape photographer who prefers the company of animals and natural beauty to fellow humans who are systematically plundering Mother Earth's resources and killing off her beautiful creatures at an alarming rate! I believe there is a natural order of things, creatures kill other creatures to survive, they adapt to situations and when mankind encroaches on their territory to make a fast buck, those animals sometimes adapt to survive and the order changes. That is the balance of nature which is ever changing and affected by us..... the dumbest of the great apes.
Some species are driven out by others, some may be destined to become extinct, the fittest will survive, and sometime a species will need intervention and help from mankind in order to survive... usually as a direct consequence of mankind's own actions in destroying the animal kingdom's natural habitat of course.
I adore these little fellas and at almost sixty years old, I never grew up knowing red squirrels at all. I've seen reds in Scotland and black squirrels in Stanley Park on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada, but in my beloved home country of England I have always known and loved the cute little Greys. They visit my garden and give me hours, days, weeks of happiness and wonderful photographic opportunities, and I see them in Parks and forests all around me, so it's time to offer up an insight into the Grey squirrel, much loved, much hated... a sort of Marmite rodent if you will.
WHAT EXACTLY IS A SQUIRREL?
The word 'Squirrel', was first recorded in 1327 and hails from the Anglo-Norman word 'Esquirel', from old French 'Escurel', which was a reflex for the Latin word 'Sciurus'.The Eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) is also known as the Eastern Grey squirrel or simply grey squirrel depending on the region of the world it is found. It is a tree squirrel, of the squirrel family Sciuridae including over one hundred arboreal species native to all continents of the world other than Antarctica and Oceania. Tree squirrels live mostly in trees, apart from the flying squirrel. The best known genus is Sciurus, containing most of the bushy tailed squirrels which are found in Europe, North America, temperate Asia as well as central and south America.
The scientific classification for the Eastern Grey is:
KINGDOM: ANIMALIA PHYLUM: CHORDATA CLASS: MAMMALIA ORDER: RODENTIA FAMILY: SCIURIDAE GENUS: SCIURUS SUBGENUS: SCIURUS SPECIES: SCIURUS CAROLINENSIS
They were first noted by German naturalist, botanist, entomologist, herpetologist, and malacologist - Johann Friedrich Gmelin in 1788.
A mammal and rodent, predominantly herbivorous they are none the less an omnivore with a life span of between two and ten years. They can grow to 70cm in length and weigh up to 8kg. There are more than two hundred and sixty species of worldwide squirrel, the smallest being the African pygmy squirrel at just 10cm in length, whereas the Indian giant squirrel is three feet long! The oldest fossil of a squirrel, Hesperopetes, dates back to the late Eocene epoch period Chadronian period of 40-35 million years ago. The tree squirrels rotate their ankles by 180 degrees, so that the hind paws pointy backwards gripping tree bark which enables them to descend a tree headfirst.
Originally native to Eastern and Midwestern United States of America, they were first introduced into the United Kingdom in 1876 in Henbury Park, Macclesfield in Cheshire when Victorian banker Thomas V. Brocklehurst released a pair of Greys that he brought back from a business trip to America after their attraction as pets had waned. Victorians had a penchant for collecting exotic animals and birds of the world, but trends came and went and subsequently animals were simply discarded into the wilderness. There are early records of greys released near Denbighshire in north Wales from private collections. Later introduced to several regions in the UK, they quickly settled and spread, colonizing an area of three hundred miles in a quarter of a century between Argyll and Stirlingshire in Scotland.
Introductions of the Greys between 1902 and 1929 (the year of the last recorded introduction), included: Regent’s Park in London, Berkshire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Oxfordshire, Devon, Warwickshire, Nottinghamshire, Suffolk and Hampshire. Grey Squirrels spread into Gloucestershire and eastern Wiltshire with animals coming directly from the United States or from Woburn. One hundred greys were released in Richmond Park in Surrey in 1902, Ninety one into Regent’s Park between 1905 and 1907 and a further ten New Jersey imported greys were introduced into Woburn Park in Bedfordshire.
Predators include hawks, weasels, raccoons, bobcats, foxes, domestic and feral cats, snakes, owls, and dogs, African harrier-hawks in Africa and... oh yes, Mankind pretty much everywhere who despise, mistreat, cull or eat it .
FACTS, MYTHS AND THAT POXY PARAPOX!
The massive decline in native red squirrels blamed upon the spread of the invasive greys has always been perhaps a little harsh as reds were already in a steep decline due to loss of habitat and disease and thus the greys simply took over the areas where the reds were dwindling. It's also a fact that reds were also seen as a plague, branded as pests who killed birds and damaged trees and the culling of reds almost brought them to the brink of extinction. Licenses to kill reds could still be obtained up until the seventies!
Reds suffered at the hands of mankind thanks to a combination of agricultural deforestation also linked with war and fuel needs which caused extinction in Southern Scotland and Ireland by the early eighteenth century, way before greys had been introduced. Harsh winters killed off the less hardy red population in the early nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Greys are more adept at finding food and adapting to locations and environments, but also carry the squirrel poxvirus (SQPV) which although not particularly harmful to them, is a serious infection for the reds.
Parapox in red squirrels causes swollen lesions around the mouth, eyes, ears and nose also the front paws and sometimes genitals and skin ulcers and kills a red within fifteen days. There is no definitive correlation between the spread of the virus and the spread of the Greys, it actually arrived in several areas before the greys began to colonize there. An epidemic virus was observed in Red squirrels from at least 1900 with isolation attempts failing, and the first case of Parapox in the UK was in 1980 in the county of Norfolk. Greys cannot transmit the virus to reds via saliva or faeces, but reds can between each other from bodily secretions and at animal feeders in gardens. The transmission from greys to reds is though to come from parasites. Eight to ten per cent of reds survive the virus, and there is some evidence that reds are slowly building an evolved resistance.
Greys are seen as pests to forest land, stripping bark from trees during May and June, and are also capable of destroying household bins, water pipes, causing roof damage not to mention taking eggs and killing young chicks of ground nesting and songbird populations. They also take from bird feeders and there is a whole industry for creating squirrel proof feeders these days.
THE CULLING OF GREY SQUIRRELS
Grey squirrels have limited legal protection and can be legally controlled all year round by a variety of methods including shooting and trapping. Methods of trapping and killing include Drey poking and shooting, Tunnel trapping using spring traps set in accordance with BASC’s trapping pest mammals code of practice. They can also be shot using a shotgun or powerful air rifle or up until September 30th 2014 poisoned by Warfarin (Now outlawed).
Whilst professional trapping and extermination is hopefully done as humanely as possible, there have been cases, many of them where cost savings have been gained by battering the squirrels to death! Grey squirrels are trapped in ghastly metal contraptions for hours and hours, wearing themselves out frantically trying to escape by gnawing at the metals bars. They bite the floor and scratch at them with their claws and do not get a moments peace or rest through absolute fear. Once the traps are retrieved, each squirrel, terrified will be thrown into a sack and smacked on the head countless times with a blunt instrument. When a mother is slaughtered, her babies who are totally dependent on her, will die a slow death of thirst and starvation.
There is an argument for the control of Greys on many grounds but also a counter argument that Culling does not work, and has not on countless times where, once a population of greys have been culled, the nearest group will move back in and claim the land. The university of Bristol concluded that there was little evidence that culling greys to save red squirrels was effective, and that perhaps finding a way of boosting red squirrel immunity to the poxvirus or planting areas of yew trees where reds are known to thrive and spending money on research into positive moves might be a better option.
In Ireland, the re-introduction of the Pine marten, a species made extinct originally by the very same land owners who also wish to do the same to the grey squirrel, has seen the rapid demise of the grey and the re-introduction of the native reds. Red squirrels are smaller and more nimble than their grey counterparts, and as such can get to the very ends of tree branches where neither the pine martins, nor more importantly the heavier greys can, thus surviving and thriving. As a result in Ireland, the grey squirrel population has crashed in approximately 9,000 km2 of its former range and the reds has become common once more after a thirty year absence... oh and Pine Martens are protected again!
In Scotland, Pine Martens exist in areas where Red squirrels thrive, and greys do not. So perhaps there is a lesson here, as in England where there are no pine martens, the greys are prolific breeders. So there is an argument against the barbarity of shooting and poisoning greys, and if, as so many believe, the greys MUST be controlled, how about a more humane and natural method that nature intended.. with re-introduction of predators. Just a thought!
So a few facts and figures on the greys and to wrap up, from a purely personal perspective I love these little guys, as I do almost every creature in nature other than those eight legged beasties that shall not be named and for which I have a deep and powerful phobia that borders on paranoia!
I could no more harm an animal deliberately than eat a McDonald's McRib (Once saw how they are made and let me just say... eeeuuuuuwwwww!!).
They are small, cute, cuddly, furry, they photograph beautifully, have great personality and make me smile. They trust me enough to take food from my hand in parks, and I can't bare the though of ugly, hairy land owners sticking a shotgun in their face and blowing them away! I appreciate they can be a pest, a problem, a menace, that their PR managers might have a bit of a problem winning you over when they flay small chicks alive on your lawn or decimate the songbird population by stealing their eggs.... and perhaps there is a need to keep the population under control and try and re-establish the red population.....
Yep I get that....
I just hope we can solve the problem more humanely to create a peaceful coexistence of the reds and greys in different areas. A man can dream can't he.
Paul Williams June 18th 2021
©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams).
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Nikon D850 Focal length: 600mm Shutter speed: 1/400s Aperture: f/8.0 iso400 Hand held with Tamron VC Vibration control set to ON (Position 1) 14 Bit uncompressed RAW NEF file size L (8256 x 5504 pixels) FX (36 x 24) Focus mode: AF-C AF-Area mode: 3D-tracking AF-C Priority Selection: Release. Nikon Back button focusing enabled 3D Tracking watch area: Normal 55 Tracking points Exposure mode: Manual exposure mode Metering mode: Matrix metering White balance on: Auto1 (4860k) Colour space: RGB Picture control: Neutral (Sharpening +2)
Tamron SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD G2. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee SW150 95mm screw in adapter ring. Lee SW150 circular polariser glass filter.Lee SW150 Filters field pouch. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960.Two Nikon EN-EL15a batteries (Priority to battery in Battery grip). Black Rapid Curve Breathe strap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag.
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LATITUDE: N 51d 27m 58.33s
LONGITUDE: E 0d 1m 53.65s
ALTITUDE: 51.00m
RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF FILE: 90.4MB
PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 37.50MB
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PROCESSING POWER:
Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.018 (18/02/20) LF 1.00
HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit Version 1.4.1 (18/02/2020). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit Version 1.6.2 (18/02/2020). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 2.4.5 (18/02/2020). Nikon Transfer 2 Version 2.13.5. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.
In My Garden.
I took a shot of this little bird as it kept coming back to this perch one evening, and it just kept looking around frantically. Each time it had a mouthful of food for presumably its young. I kept watching and wondering why it just sat their fluttering and waiting ....... the following day just below where the little bird was sitting, i was weeding out the stream, to find a small dead Dunnock ....... i put two and two together and tried not to get upset, as i know its survival of the fittest ................ but i cant help be sad about it!
Some species like ferns have existed on Earth for hundreds of millions of years.
They are not sophisticated. They are not socialized. They are not invasive. They did not invent internet and all the technologies or created any civilizations. Yet they survive.
Will the so called most intelligent homo sapiens survive or they will go extinct just like the gigantic and powerful dinosaurs? I do think the latter will happen. Because this species has so much self-destructive power!
This is the ferns seen in Van Dusen Garden yesterday.
Have a great Sunday!!