Great Swamp NWR
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"Helicopter view" on the 1782 statue of Peter the Great, aka the Bronze Horseman. The pedestal is named the Thunder Stone and is claimed to be the largest stone ever be moved by humans.
From Wikipedia: Bronze Horseman
From the album Russia Summer 2016
A male Great Eggfly or Blue Moon butterfly. When the wings are closed, the males show a jet black with intricate white markings arranged in a pattern parallel to the edges, while in the female, the markings are the same as in the male, except that the base color is tan brown in place of black.
www.butterflyidentification.com/blue-moon-hypolimnas-boli...
Great Egrets (Ardea alba) are tall, long-legged wading birds with long, S-curved necks and long, dagger-like bills. In flight, the long neck is tucked in and the legs extend far beyond the tip of the short tail.
(Ardea herodias) I do love my 800mm f11 lens! It is allowing me to capture shots I could only dream of before. Paired with my R6 or my R5 It's lightness makes it great for BiF for me - the animal eye focus on the new cameras works fantastically well. I found my 300mm f2.8 prime a fantastic lens but paired with a 1DX2 I couldn't hold it long enough and steady enough to focus properly.
In my experience, some Great Grays are very skittish, and some, like this one, not so much.
This one let us pull up beside it and take several shots from the car. A great way to start the season.
Thorhild County, Alberta.
Viewed by naturalists and other scientists as one of the best outdoor laboratories in the world, this vast swamp, a national wildlife refuge, is nearly 113,00 acres (45729 hectares) in size.
Our first American president, George Washington, was an early surveyor of this landform.
Thank you all for your visits, favs and comments. I greatly appreciate it and enjoy reading every one!
The Great-horned Owl is a powerful raptor.
It is smart, fierce and bad*ss all at once.
Author Arthur Cleveland Bent (1866-1954) wrote in 'The Life Histories of North American Birds of Prey' :
'Almost any living creature that walks, crawls, flies or swims, except the large mammals, is the Great-horned Owl's legitimate prey.'
Cornell Lab of Ornithology:
'Great-horned Owls are fierce predator that can take large prey, including raptors such as ospreys, falcons and other owls'. They are known to kill foxes.
(Taken on: Late Feb. Grey Nuns White Spruce forest, St. Albert, Alberta, Canada)
Thank you all very much for the visits and comments.
Wikipedia: The great hornbill (Buceros bicornis), also known as the concave-casqued hornbill, great Indian hornbill or great pied hornbill, is one of the larger members of the hornbill family. It occurs in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. It is predominantly frugivorous, but also preys on small mammals, reptiles and birds. It has been listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 2018. It is known to have lived for nearly 50 years in captivity. Due to its large size and colour, it is important in many tribal cultures and rituals. The Government of Kerala declared it as the official Kerala state bird.
The great hornbill is a large bird, 95–130 cm (37–51 in) long, with a 152 cm (60 in) wingspan and a weight of 2 to 4 kg (4.4 to 8.8 lb). The average weight of 7 males is 3 kg (6.6 lb) whereas that of 3 females is 2.59 kg (5.7 lb). It is the heaviest, but not the longest, Asian hornbill. Females are smaller than males and have bluish-white instead of red eyes, although the orbital skin is pinkish. Like other hornbills, they have prominent "eyelashes"
The great hornbill is native to the forests of India, Bhutan, Nepal, mainland Southeast Asia and Sumatra.
Conservation status: Vulnerable
Wikipedia: The great blue heron (Ardea herodias) is a large wading bird in the heron family Ardeidae, common near the shores of open water and in wetlands over most of North America and Central America, as well as far northwestern South America, the Caribbean and the Galápagos Islands. It is a rare vagrant to coastal Spain, the Azores, and areas of far southern Europe. An all-white population found in south Florida and the Florida Keys is known as the great white heron. Debate exists about whether this represents a white color morph of the great blue heron, a subspecies of it, or an entirely separate species.
Conservation status: Least Concern
Wikipedia: The great horned owl (Bubo virginianus), also known as the tiger owl (originally derived from early naturalists' description as the "winged tiger" or "tiger of the air"), or the hoot owl, is a large owl native to the Americas. It is an extremely adaptable bird with a vast range and is the most widely distributed true owl in the Americas.
Conservation status: Least Concern
Great Coxwell barn is about 5 miles from Farringdon in Oxfordshire It is a 13th century Monastic barn.