View allAll Photos Tagged methodical
My first hummingbird moth! While over at my parent's house last week I saw this little guy feeding on a patch of bee balm. I didn't have a camera with me but fortunately when I returned the next day it was again at the same patch of flowers. Fun to watch, it moved from flower to flower very similar to a bumble bee with the exception that it never landed on the flower but hovered like a hummingbird at each petal as it worked its way methodically around each flower.
So glad I got to see one of these!
A storm clears the Friendship and the nearby Pedrick House. This building is the original building that was built in 1770 on the Marblehead side of Salem harbor. The building had many purposes over the years and it's link to Salem was through one of it's owners. William Story bought the building from Pedrick and intended to run his business from there as he was a ship captain and he sailed as Captain of the 1797 version of the Friendship (The link to Salem). The park service managed to get the building transferred to them and Salem's NHS (National Historic site) and then a labor of love began as it was taken apart very methodically and brought to Salem. It was then piece by piece put back together and it sits much as it had in the 1770s through the early 1900s..
CANOGA PARK- The Los Angeles Fire Department battled a Major Emergency Structure Fire in the west San Fernando Valley on Monday, October 18, 2021.
The fire at 8423 Canoga Avenue in Canoga Park, was first noted at 12:18 PM by an LAFD Paramedic Ambulance crew returning from a nearby emergency. Within moments of their reporting the fire, flames were through the roof of the 125' x 125' one-story industrial building that also housed an adjoining but unrelated business at 8425 Canoga Avenue.
As that first-arriving LAFD Paramedic crew circled the structure to gain situational awareness and guide fellow responders, they encountered the first of three adult male civilians with severe burn injuries outside the burning building. Two proved to be in critical condition and the other in serious condition. All three were taken to area hospitals. Sadly, one of the critically injured men died later while undergoing hospital care.
The rapid spread of intense flames and multiple explosions heard within the building guided first-arriving firefighters to quickly commence defensive operations, applying multiple large diameter hose streams from the exterior, including two from atop extended aerial ladders, to prevent flames from extending beyond the well involved structure.
With the exception of a forty square-foot section of the roof at 8427 Canoga Avenue destroyed by surface fire, the tactics proved successful in holding the blaze to the pair of unrelated businesses under one roof at 8423 and 8425 Canoga Avenue.
It took 150 Los Angeles Firefighter just 75 minutes to extinguish the flames.
Firefighters remained active through the night extinguishing hotspots and minimizing hazards at the structurally compromised building with the help of LAFD's robotic firefighting vehicle and heavy equipment.
At daylight Tuesday, LAFD crews resumed a systematic search within the largely destroyed premises. During their methodical search among tons of burnt debris inside the structure, firefighters discovered the remains of an adult male, bringing the overall patient count to four, with a total of two deceased and two remaining hospitalized.
No other injuries were reported.
Scientific testing of materials inside the building of fire origin yielded positive results for hemp, and it appears that the operation inside involved the extraction from hemp, not dissimilar to that used in the Butane Honey Oil extraction process.
Though the business was a legal enterprise, the operation inside appeared to be illegal, as it did not adhere to established permitting processes and safety requirements.
Pursuant to protocol, the fire's cause remains the focus of a joint active investigation by the Los Angeles Fire Department, Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Interagency Metropolitan Police Apprehension Crime Task Force (L.A. Impact).
A positive identification of the dead men, as well as the cause, time and manner of their death will be determined by the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner.
© Photo by Gavin Kaufman
LAFD Incident 101821-0791
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJB5Rqc1m0Y&feature=related
5th element - Diva
This is the first of 76 pictures I took over a 45 minute span of picture taking today with my 50 1.4 Canon lens
High art was not the goal
Just taking pictures methodically
Good way for me to keep my eclectic photographic nature in tune
God Bless
A tranquil oasis of peace and methodical Confucian design in one of China’s busiest urban landscapes, the 267-hectare Temple of Heaven Park is absolutely unique. It originally served as a vast stage for solemn rites performed by the emperor of the time (known as the Son of Heaven), who prayed here for good harvests and sought divine clearance and atonement. Strictly speaking, it's an altar rather than a temple – so don’t expect burning incense or worshippers.
The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests is the most visually striking structure in the Temple of Heaven complex, this magnificent hall mounted on a three-tiered marble terrace is supported by pillars made of pine wood imported during the Qing dynasty from Oregon, USA.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The Char B1 was a French heavy tank manufactured before World War II. It was conceived as a specialized offensive vehicle, armed with a 75 mm howitzer in the hull. Later a 47 mm gun in a turret was added, to allow it to function also as a Char de Bataille, a ‘battle tank’ fighting enemy armour, equipping the armoured divisions of the Infantry Arm. Starting in the early twenties, its development and production were repeatedly delayed, resulting in a vehicle that was both technologically complex and expensive, and already obsolescent when real mass-production of a derived version, the Char B1 "bis", started in the late thirties.
The outer appearance of the Char B1 reflected the fact that development started in the twenties: like the very first tank, the British Mark I tank of World War I, it still had large tracks going around the entire hull and large armour plates protecting the suspension—and like all tanks of that decade it had no welded or cast hull armour. The similarity resulted partly from the fact that the Char B1 was a specialized offensive weapon, a break-through tank optimized for punching a hole into strong defensive entrenchments, so it was designed with good trench-crossing capabilities and therefore the hull and the tracks had considerable length. The French Army thought that dislodging the enemy from a key front sector would decide a campaign, and it prided itself on being the only army in the world having a sufficient number of adequately protected heavy tanks. The exploitation phase of a battle was seen as secondary and best carried out by controlled and methodical movement to ensure superiority in numbers, so that the heavy tank’s mobility was of secondary concern. Although the Char B1 had a reasonably good speed for the time of its conception, no serious efforts were made to improve it when much faster tanks appeared.
More important than the tank's limitations in tactical mobility, however, were its limitations in strategic mobility. The low practical range implied the need to refuel very often, limiting its operational capabilities. This again implied that the armoured divisions of the Infantry, the Divisions Cuirassées, were not very effective as a mobile reserve and thus lacked strategic flexibility. They were not created to fulfill such a role in the first place, which was reflected in the small size of the artillery and infantry components of the divisions.
Another explanation of the similarity to the British Mark I lies in the Char B1's original specification to create a self-propelled gun able to destroy enemy infantry and artillery. The main weapon of the tank was its 75 mm howitzer, and the entire design of the vehicle was directed to making this gun as effective as possible. When in the early 1930s it became obvious that the Char B1 also had to defeat counterattacking enemy armour, it was too late for a complete redesign. The solution was to add the standard cast APX-1 turret which also equipped the Char D2 and the Somua S35. Like most French tanks of the period the Char B thus had a small one-man turret. The commander not only had to command the tank, but also to aim and load the anti-tank gun, and if he was a unit leader, he had to command his other tanks as well. This was in contrast with the contemporary German, British and to a lesser extent Soviet policy to use two or three-man turret crews, in which these duties were divided amongst several men, or to use dedicated command vehicles.
Among the most powerfully armed and armoured tanks of its day, the Char B1 was very effective in direct confrontations with early German armour during the Battle of France. The 60 mm (2.36 in) frontal armor was sloped, giving it an effective strength of near 80 mm (3.15 in), and it proved to be almost invulnerable to the 1940 Panzer II and III as well as the early Panzer IV with its short 75mm close-support gun. There were no real weak spots, and this invulnerability helped the B1 to close on targets, then destroy them with the turret 47 mm (1.85 in) or the brute force of the howitzer HE shells. However, its slow speed and high fuel consumption made it ill-adapted to the war of movement then being fought.
In the meantime, plans had taken shape to improve the Char B1, and this led to two developments that eventually entered the hardware stage: A further up-armoured version, the Char B1 "ter", was designed with sloped and welded 70 mm armour, weighing 36.6 tonnes and powered by a 350 hp (260 kW) engine. It was meant to replace the B1 bis to accelerate mass production, a change first intended for the summer of 1940 but later postponed to March 1941 and finally abandoned.
In the course of the redesign, space was provided for a fifth crew member, a "mechanic". Cost was reduced by omitting the complex Neader transmission for aiming the howitzer and giving the hull gun a traverse of five degrees to each side instead. The first prototype was shown in 1937, but only three prototypes could be partly finished before the defeat of France. Serial production was rejected due to the need to build totally new production lines for the much-modified Char B1 ter, so that this development was a dead end, even more so because it did not really cure the vehicle’s weakness of the overburdened commander and the split armament.
The latter issues were addressed with another development, a modernized variant of the existing Char B1 bis with a new weapon layout, the Char B1 “tetre”. Work on this variant started in 1936, as an alternative concept to the one-man turret and as an experimental carrier for a new high velocity semi-automatic 75 mm multi-purpose gun with a long barrel. Such a weapon was direly needed, because the biggest caliber of an anti-tank gun was a mere 47 mm, the SA 35 gun. The only recent alternative was the infantry’s 47 mm APX anti-tank gun from 1937, which could pierce 60 mm (2.4 in) at 550 meters (600 yd) or 80 mm (3.1 in) at 180 meters (200 yd), but it had not been adapted to vehicle use yet and was not regarded to be powerful enough to cope with tanks like the Char B1 itself.
This new 75 mm tank gun was already under development at the Atelier de Construction de Rueil (ARL) for a new medium 20-ton-tank, the Char G1 from Renault, that was to replace the Char B1. The gun, called “ARL 37”, would be mounted in a new three-man turret, and ARL was developing prototypes of both a turret that could be taken by the Char B1’s and S35’s limited turret ring, as well as the gun itself, which was based on the 75 mm high velocity gun with hydro-pneumatic recoil compensation from the vintage heavy FCM 2C tank
The ARL 37 had a mass of 750 kg (1,653.5 lb) and a barrel length of 3,281 mm (129.2 in) with a bore of 43 calibers. Maximum muzzle velocity was 740 m/s (2,400 ft/s). The gun was fitted with an electric firing mechanism and the breech operated semi-automatically. Only one-piece ammunition was used, and both HE and AP rounds could be fired – even though the latter had to developed, too, because no such round was available in 1937/38 yet. However, with early experimental Armour Piercing Capped Ballistic Cap (APCBC) rounds, the ARL 37 was able to penetrate 133 mm (5.2 in) of vertical steel plate at 100 m range, 107 mm (4.2 in) at 1.000 m and still 85 mm (3.3 in) at 2.000 m, making it a powerful anti-tank weapon of its era.
Since the new weapon was expected to fire both HE and AP rounds, the Char B1’s howitzer in the hull was omitted, its opening faired over and instead a movable 7.5 mm Reibel machine gun was added in a ball mount, operated by a radio operator who sat next to the driver. Another 7.5mm machine gun was mounted co-axially to the main gun in the turret, which had a cupola and offered space for the rest of the crew: a dedicated commander as well as a gunner and loader team.
The hexagonal turret was cast and had a welded roof as well as a gun mantlet. With its 70 mm frontal armor as well as the tank’s new hull front section, the conversions added a total of four net tons of weight, so that the Char B1 tetre weighed 36 tons. To prevent its performance from deteriorating further, it received the Char B1 ter’s uprated 350 hp (260 kW) engine. The running gear remained unchanged, even though the fully rotating turret made the complex and expensive Neader transmission superfluous, so that it was replaced by a standard heavy-duty piece.
Although promising, the Char B1 tetre’s development was slow, delayed by the lack of resources and many teething troubles with the new 75 mm cannon and the turret. When the war broke out in September 1939, production was cleared and began slowly, but focus remained on existing vehicles and weapons. By the time there were perhaps 180 operational B1 and B1 bis in all. They were used for the Sarre offensive, a short-lived burst without serious opposition, with a massive force of 41 divisions and 2.400 tanks. The Char B1 served with the armoured divisions of the infantry, the Divisions Cuirassées (DCr). The First and Second DCR had 69 Char B1s each, the Third 68. These were highly specialized offensive units, to break through fortified positions. The mobile phase of a battle was to be carried out by the Divisions Légères Mécaniques (mechanised light divisions) of the cavalry, equipped with the SOMUA S35.
After the German invasion several ad hoc units were formed: the 4e DCr with 52 Char B1s and five autonomous companies (347e, 348e, 349e, 352e and 353e Compagnie Autonome de Chars) with in total 56 tanks: 12 B1s and 44 B1 bis; 28e BCC was reconstituted with 34 tanks. By that time, a very limited number of Char B1 tetre had been produced and delivered to operational units, but their tactical value was low since sufficient 75 mm AP rounds were not available – the tanks had to use primarily the same HE rounds that were fired with the Char B1’s howitzer, and these posed only a limited threat to German tanks, esp. the upgraded Panzer III and IVs. The Char B1 tertre’s potential was never fully exploited, even though most of the tanks were used as command vehicles.
The regular French divisions destroyed quite a few German tanks but lacked enough organic infantry and artillery to function as an effective mobile reserve. After the defeat of France, captured Char B1 of all variants would be used by Germany, with some rebuilt as flamethrowers, Munitionspanzer, or mechanized artillery.
Specifications:
Crew: Five (driver, radio operator/machine gunner, commander, gunner, loader)
Weight: 36 tonnes (40 short tons, 35 long tons)
Length: 6.98 m (22 ft 10½ in) overall with gun forward
6.37 m (20 ft 11 in) hull only
Width: 2.46 m (8 ft 1 in)
Height: 2.84 m (9 ft 3¾ in)
Ground clearance: 40 cm (1 ft 3¾ in)
Climbing: 93 cm (3 ft ½ in)
Trench crossing: 2,4 m (7 ft 10½ in)
Suspension: Bogies with a mixture of vertical coil and leaf springs
Steering: Double differential
Fuel capacity: 400 liters
Armour:
14 to 70 mm (0.55 to 2.75 in)
Performance:
28 km/h (17 mph) on road
21 km/h (13 mph) off-road
Operational range: 200 km (124 mi) on road
Power/weight: 9.7 hp/ton
Engine:
1× Renault inline 6 cylinder 16.5 litre petrol engine with 350 hp (260 kW)
Transmission:
5 forward and 1 rear gear
Armament:
1x 75 ARL 37 high-velocity cannon with 94 rounds
2x 7.5 mm (0.295 in) Reibel machine guns with a total of 5,250 rounds
The kit and its assembly:.
This fictional Char B1 variant was based on the question what the tank could have looked like if there had been a suitable 75 mm gun available that could replace both its howitzer in the hull and the rather light anti-tank gun in the turret? No such weapon existed in France, but I tried to extrapolate the concept based on the standard Char B1 hull.
Two big changes were made: the first concerned the hull howitzer, which was deleted, and its recessed opening faired over with 1 mm styrene sheet and putty. This sound easier as it turned out to be because the suspension for the front right idler wheel had to be retained, and the complex shape of the glacis plate and the opening called for patchwork. A fairing for the co-driver was added as well as a ball mount for the new hull machine gun. New shackles were added to the lower front and, finally, new rows of bolt heads (created with white glue).
The turret was completely replaced with a cast turret from a 1943 T-34/76 (Zvezda kit). While its shape and gun mantlet are quite characteristic, I still used it mostly OOB because its size and shape turned out to be a very good match to contemporary French tank turrets. However, the gun barrel was moved and a fairing for a hydro-pneumatic recoil damper was added, as well as a French commander cupola. And an adapter had to be scratched to attach the new turret to the hull, together with small fairings for the wider turret ring.
Painting and markings:
I wanted a rather unusual paint scheme for this Char B1 derivative, and found inspiration in an operational museum tank that depicts vehicle “311/Rhin”: it carries a three-tone livery in two greens and brown, instead of the more common sand, dark green and earth brown tones or just two-tone schemes.
The colors were adapted to an irregular pattern, and the paints I used were Humbrol 120 (FS 34227, a rather pale interpretation of the tone), 10 (Gloss Dark Brown) and ModelMaster 1764 (FS 34092). As a personal twist, the colors were edged in black, enhancing the contrast.
The markings were puzzled together from various sources in an attempt to create suitable tactical codes of the early 1940 era. The “Ace of Spades” emblem on the turret is, for example, are a marking of the 1st section. The dot in front of the “K” probably indicated a command vehicle, but I am not certain.
Some post-shading was done as well as dry-brushing with light earth brown to emphasize edges and details. Then the model was sealed with matt acrylic varnish and received some dusting with grey-brown artist pigments, simulating dust around the running gear.
Well, not too much was changed, but the new, bigger turret changes the Char B1’s look considerably – it looks somewhat smaller now? Its new silhouette also reminds me of a duck? Weird, but the conversion worked out well – esp. the modified glacis plate without the howitzer’s recessed opening looks very natural.
Gerhard Richter German 1932
AB Mediation , 1986
Oil on canvas
In 1961, the year the Berlin Wall went up, Richter left Dresden to settle in Düsseldorf, West Germany. There he met artists Polke and Fischer-Lueg with whom he founded Capitalist Realism. He brought to painting such images of the banality of the contemporary world as were found in numerous iconic sources, such as advertising flyers, magazines and family photographs. Throughout his long and prolific career, Richter has displayed a critical fascination for the ways in which images are constructed, an interest that led him to explore abstraction and figuration in like measure, giving him a unique position in the history of twentieth-century painting. “Since there is no such thing as absolute rightness and truth, we always pursue the artificial, leading, human truth”, he noted in 1962. This painting belongs to the group of “Free Abstracts” that the artist worked on in the mid-1980s. An apparent offshoot of the gestural abstraction Richter had admired during his years of academic training, this magnificent diptych is in fact the result of the artist’s analytical approach. Its violent explosion of colours is attenuated by the mechanical application of paint, while certain methodically brushed-on areas of the surface suggest the effects of a landscape viewed through an out-of-focus camera lens – a sign of the preponderance of photography in Richter’s work.
Purchase, Horsley and Annie Townsend Bequest and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ Volunteer Association Fund, inv. 1987.8
From the Placard: Musée Des Beaux-Arts Montréal
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Richter
www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/Photos/Photos-from-the-Ger...
www.phaselis.org/en/about/about-project
Phaselis Research
Phaselis
When compared with the previous period of research on the history of the city over the past quarter century it has undergone radical changes. While modern scientists follow the path of their predecessors in collecting data through systematic processes and methodically analysing them, they change the route whereby they approach the city as a context- and a process-oriented structure, having economic, social, cultural, political and environmental dimensions which come together at different levels.
This considerably more inclusive definition expands the discipline concerning the city’s historical research, which consists of archaeology, epigraphy, ancient history and the other ancillary sciences and it encourages scientists from the natural and health sciences to participate within these studies. This is because in the course of the exploration of an ancient settlement the study of both the environment and the ecological setting which make human life possible; together with health issues, such as diet and epidemics, form the context within which human beings live, and which are thereby as important as the human actors.
Within the context of the planned Phaselis Research, even certain knowledge such as the settlement’s appearing on the stage of history as a favorite break-point with its three natural harbours, it being famous for its roses, the frequent seismic upheavals at sea and on its shores and its citizens leaving their homes because of a devastating malaria epidemic suggest the necessity of the application of this multi-dimensional research methodology in order to understand more fully the historical adventure of this city.
By presenting this research project, we aim to implement and realize this multi-dimensional research method, which as yet lacks widespread application in the field in our country, however conceptually and practically with a multi-disciplinary research team consisting of both national and international scientists, we intend to register systematically every kind of data/information regarding all contexts of the city employing modern methods and to present the results to the scientific world in the form of regular reports and monographic studies, thus forming a strong tie between past and future research.
Phaselis Territorium
The boundaries of the ancient city of Phaselis’ territorium are today within the administrative borders of the township of Tekirova, in Kemer District, determined from the archaeological, epigraphic and historical-geographical evidence, reaching the Gökdere valley to the north, continue on a line drawn from Üç Adalar to Mount Tahtalı to the south and extend along the Çandır valley to the west.
Phaselis was discovered in 1811-1812 by Captain F. Beaufort during his work of charting the southern coastline of Asia Minor for the British Royal Navy. Beaufort drew Phaselis’ plan and in the course of conducting his cartographic studies, he saw the word Φασηλίτης ethnikon on the inscriptions and consequently identified these ruins with Phaselis. C. R. Cockerell, the English architect, archaeologist and author came to Phaselis by ship and met Beaufort there. Then in 1838 C. Fellows, the English archaeologist visited the city. He found the fragments of the dedicatory inscription over the monumental gate built in honour of the Emperor Hadrianus and mistakenly thought the Imperial Period main street was the stadion due to the seats-steps on either side of the street. In 1842 Lt. T. A. B. Spratt, the English hydrographer and geographer, and the Rev. E. Forbes, the naturalist came to Phaselis via the Olympos and Khimaira routes. Due to the fact that they all came by sea and they only stayed for a short time, their descriptions of the topography inland are without detailed and there are serious errors in orientation.
PhaselisThose researchers who visited Phaselis between the late 19th and the early 20th centuries concentrated primarily upon the discovery of inscriptions. In 1881-1882 while the Austrian archaeologist and the epigraphist O. Benndorf, the founder of the Austrian Archaeological Institute, and his team were conducting research in southwestern Asia Minor, they examined Phaselis. In the winter of 1883 and 1884 F. von Luschan from the Austrian team took the first photographs which provide information concerning the regional features of Phaselis’ shoreline. In the same year the French scientist V. Bérard also visited Phaselis. In 1892 the members of the Austrian research team, O. Benndorf, E. Kalinka and their colleagues continued their architectural, archaeological and epigraphical studies in Phaselis. In 1904 they were followed by D. G. Hogarth, R. Norton and A. W. van Buren from the British research team. In 1908 the Austrian classical philologist E. Kalinka visited the settlement again, collected epigraphic documents and conducted research on the history of city (published in TAM II in 1944). The Italian researchers R. Paribeni and P. Romanelli visited Phaselis in1913 and C. Anti in 1921. Anti returned to Antalya overland and in consequence discovered several epigraphs and the ruins of structures within the territorium of Phaselis.
Further archaeological, epigraphical and historical-geographical studies of Phaselis were conducted by the English researchers F. M. Stark and G. Bean, who came to the region after World War II. In 1968 H. Schläger, the German architect and underwater archaeologist began exploring the topographical and architectural structures of Phaselis’s harbours. After Schläger’s death in 1969, the research was conducted under the leadership of the archaeologist J. Schäfer in 1970. H. Schläger, J. Schäfer and their colleagues obtained important data concerning the architecture and history of Phaselis through the surface exploration of the city and its periphery. Following the excavations conducted along the main axial street of the city, in 1980 under the direction of Kayhan Dörtlük, the then Director of the Antalya Museum and between 1981-1985 under the leadership of the archaeologist Cevdet Bayburtluoğlu; underwater exploration was carried out in the South Harbour under the direction of Metin Pehlivaner, the then Director of the Antalya Museum.
Maybe it doesn’t slip through the air and soar over the trees but the canoe does offer a wonderful way to slip through the water silently and to move among the many animals that inhabit the bayou. I would say that around 95% of my photos are taken from my canoe and are all hand held that there is absolute no way that you can hide a 16 foot canoe from an animal that has two good eyes. It's a matter of using a slow and methodical approach.
In spite of the beautiful sky the wonderful colors that were in the sky about 20 minutes earlier were a wonder to behold, but I am at the mercy of the gate keepers of the park. I have to say that they do let us in early, but on this particular day it was not early enough. In this view Bay Area Park and the major part of Armand Bayou are to the right. Heading toward will take you down the last portions of Armand Bayou and toward Mud Lake and Horsepen Bayou. Hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day and that you’ll have great week. The good news is that we are finally getting some much needed rain here in Texas.
DSC01432uls
Copyright - All Rights Reserved - Black Diamond Images
River Red Gums (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) line the shores of these inland rivers and were important sources of fuel for the paddle steamers that plied these waters in the last century when wool and wheat reigned supreme.
River Red gum was also a durable timber and was used for construction of the large wharf infastucture which was needed to support the paddle steamer business.
Paddle steamers were finally made redundant when the railways arrived along the rivers and that was timely as the River Red Gum resource was being heavily targeted and many parts of the rivers ecosystem have never fully recovered from the plundering of this timber resource during this era. The loss of trees along the river also led to river bank erosion.
Paddle Steamers required river free of snags so they were methodically cleared from the river without any thought as to the impact on marine life in the river. Snags offered a home to many fish and other marine life and once removed marine life was seriously impacted.
U.S. Forces Afghanistan Protective Service Detail Sgt. Jaclyn Guzman from California maintains visual surveillance as shots are fired and explosions erupt from a building in Kabul, Sept. 13. Insurgents attacked the International Security Assistance Force Afghanistan headquarters and the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Tuesday, with small-arms fire from outside the secure zone surrounding these compounds. Afghan and coalition forces trapped the insurgents in the partially-constructed, multi-story building they were using as a firing position, and conducted a methodical, floor-by-floor clearing operation.
U.S. Forces Afghanistan
Photo by Sgt. Catherine Threat
Date Taken:09.13.2011
Location:KABUL, AF
Related Photos: dvidshub.net/r/kuast5
Migratory big white beautiful bird! They remain at White Rock Lake's Sunset Bay (Dallas, TX) until March or April. One of the largest North American birds, the American White Pelican is majestic in the air. The birds soar with incredible steadiness on broad, white-and-black wings. Their large heads and huge, heavy bills give them a prehistoric look. On the water they dip their pouched bills to scoop up fish, or tip-up like an oversized dabbling duck. Sometimes, groups of pelicans work together to herd fish into the shallows for easy feeding. Look for them on inland lakes in summer and near coastlines in winter.
Size & Shape
A huge waterbird with very broad wings, a long neck, and a massive bill that gives the head a unique, long shape. They have thick bodies, short legs, and short, square tails. During the breeding season, adults grow an unusual projection or horn on the upper mandible near the tip of the bill.
Color Pattern
Adult American White Pelicans are snowy white with black flight feathers visible only when the wings are spread. A small patch of ornamental feathers on the chest can become yellow in spring. The bill and legs are yellow-orange. Immatures are mostly white as well, but the head, neck, and back are variably dusky.
Behavior
American White Pelicans feed from the water’s surface, dipping their beaks into the water to catch fish and other aquatic organisms. They often upend, like a very large dabbling duck, in this process. They do not plunge-dive the way Brown Pelicans do. They are superb soarers (they are among the heaviest flying birds in the world) and often travel long distances in large flocks by soaring. When flapping, their wingbeats are slow and methodical.
Habitat
American White Pelicans typically breed on islands in shallow wetlands in the interior of the continent. They spend winters mainly on coastal waters, bays, and estuaries, or a little distance inland.
Another action shot from 'Kin' by Barely Methodical Troupe which is part of the The Underbelly Circus Hub at this year's Edinburgh Fringe.
As well as awesome circus skills, this show was extremelyfun.
You can book tickets here: www.underbellyedinburgh.co.uk/whats-on/kin
December 6th was the National Day of Remembrance and Action On Violence Against Women. This was the day in 1989 that Marc Lepine walked into the L´École Polytechnique in Montréal and, separating the men from the women, methodically killed 14 women simply because they were women.
Each pair of shoes represent a woman who has been killed. A list of names is displayed to honour the memory of the women, and their families. After this memorial, the shoes are donated to women in need.
Vancouver Art Gallery
Vancouver, British Columbia
I saw this place for the first time in June. I was hugely excited, in the special way reserved for one-time-only events.
Then I found myself back for a second time. The rush of discovery (coupled with the fear of being discovered) was much diminished. Which meant I could explore in a more thoughtful, methodical way.
It was very strange to find practically everything exactly as I'd left it. Stranger still - since my return, I've realized that a lot of people don't "get" ghost towns. I've even had a few people ask me what the hell I'm talking about when I use the g-word.
Ten totally loves that opening. She could talk for weeks about why she loves abandoned places, blithely ignoring the glazed, increasingly panicked look on the face of whoever she's blathering to. Meantime, 48 is secretly pleased to learn there's less competition for these places than she'd thought - and thrilled by the hope that, when she returns in the spring, things will, once again, be just as she left them.
Will the record player still be here, looking out the window at the sad, empty prairie? Will the swallows be back in their nests in every corner of the falling ceiling? Will the two little cake pans still be sitting on what was once the wood stove? Like a newly pregnant human, I'll just have to wait another nine months to find out.
Methodically laid out walkways and buildings. The place had an aura of old times, I suppose.
November 2020, St. Augustine, Florida.
My first hummingbird moth! While over at my parent's house last week I saw this little guy feeding on a patch of bee balm. I didn't have a camera with me but fortunately when I returned the next day it was again at the same patch of flowers. Fun to watch, it moved from flower to flower very similar to a bumble bee with the exception that it never landed on the flower but hovered like a hummingbird at each petal as it worked its way methodically around each flower.
So glad I got to see one of these!
www.phaselis.org/en/about/about-project
Phaselis Research
Phaselis
When compared with the previous period of research on the history of the city over the past quarter century it has undergone radical changes. While modern scientists follow the path of their predecessors in collecting data through systematic processes and methodically analysing them, they change the route whereby they approach the city as a context- and a process-oriented structure, having economic, social, cultural, political and environmental dimensions which come together at different levels.
This considerably more inclusive definition expands the discipline concerning the city’s historical research, which consists of archaeology, epigraphy, ancient history and the other ancillary sciences and it encourages scientists from the natural and health sciences to participate within these studies. This is because in the course of the exploration of an ancient settlement the study of both the environment and the ecological setting which make human life possible; together with health issues, such as diet and epidemics, form the context within which human beings live, and which are thereby as important as the human actors.
Within the context of the planned Phaselis Research, even certain knowledge such as the settlement’s appearing on the stage of history as a favorite break-point with its three natural harbours, it being famous for its roses, the frequent seismic upheavals at sea and on its shores and its citizens leaving their homes because of a devastating malaria epidemic suggest the necessity of the application of this multi-dimensional research methodology in order to understand more fully the historical adventure of this city.
By presenting this research project, we aim to implement and realize this multi-dimensional research method, which as yet lacks widespread application in the field in our country, however conceptually and practically with a multi-disciplinary research team consisting of both national and international scientists, we intend to register systematically every kind of data/information regarding all contexts of the city employing modern methods and to present the results to the scientific world in the form of regular reports and monographic studies, thus forming a strong tie between past and future research.
Phaselis Territorium
The boundaries of the ancient city of Phaselis’ territorium are today within the administrative borders of the township of Tekirova, in Kemer District, determined from the archaeological, epigraphic and historical-geographical evidence, reaching the Gökdere valley to the north, continue on a line drawn from Üç Adalar to Mount Tahtalı to the south and extend along the Çandır valley to the west.
Phaselis was discovered in 1811-1812 by Captain F. Beaufort during his work of charting the southern coastline of Asia Minor for the British Royal Navy. Beaufort drew Phaselis’ plan and in the course of conducting his cartographic studies, he saw the word Φασηλίτης ethnikon on the inscriptions and consequently identified these ruins with Phaselis. C. R. Cockerell, the English architect, archaeologist and author came to Phaselis by ship and met Beaufort there. Then in 1838 C. Fellows, the English archaeologist visited the city. He found the fragments of the dedicatory inscription over the monumental gate built in honour of the Emperor Hadrianus and mistakenly thought the Imperial Period main street was the stadion due to the seats-steps on either side of the street. In 1842 Lt. T. A. B. Spratt, the English hydrographer and geographer, and the Rev. E. Forbes, the naturalist came to Phaselis via the Olympos and Khimaira routes. Due to the fact that they all came by sea and they only stayed for a short time, their descriptions of the topography inland are without detailed and there are serious errors in orientation.
PhaselisThose researchers who visited Phaselis between the late 19th and the early 20th centuries concentrated primarily upon the discovery of inscriptions. In 1881-1882 while the Austrian archaeologist and the epigraphist O. Benndorf, the founder of the Austrian Archaeological Institute, and his team were conducting research in southwestern Asia Minor, they examined Phaselis. In the winter of 1883 and 1884 F. von Luschan from the Austrian team took the first photographs which provide information concerning the regional features of Phaselis’ shoreline. In the same year the French scientist V. Bérard also visited Phaselis. In 1892 the members of the Austrian research team, O. Benndorf, E. Kalinka and their colleagues continued their architectural, archaeological and epigraphical studies in Phaselis. In 1904 they were followed by D. G. Hogarth, R. Norton and A. W. van Buren from the British research team. In 1908 the Austrian classical philologist E. Kalinka visited the settlement again, collected epigraphic documents and conducted research on the history of city (published in TAM II in 1944). The Italian researchers R. Paribeni and P. Romanelli visited Phaselis in1913 and C. Anti in 1921. Anti returned to Antalya overland and in consequence discovered several epigraphs and the ruins of structures within the territorium of Phaselis.
Further archaeological, epigraphical and historical-geographical studies of Phaselis were conducted by the English researchers F. M. Stark and G. Bean, who came to the region after World War II. In 1968 H. Schläger, the German architect and underwater archaeologist began exploring the topographical and architectural structures of Phaselis’s harbours. After Schläger’s death in 1969, the research was conducted under the leadership of the archaeologist J. Schäfer in 1970. H. Schläger, J. Schäfer and their colleagues obtained important data concerning the architecture and history of Phaselis through the surface exploration of the city and its periphery. Following the excavations conducted along the main axial street of the city, in 1980 under the direction of Kayhan Dörtlük, the then Director of the Antalya Museum and between 1981-1985 under the leadership of the archaeologist Cevdet Bayburtluoğlu; underwater exploration was carried out in the South Harbour under the direction of Metin Pehlivaner, the then Director of the Antalya Museum.
Gandhara is the name given to an ancient region or province invaded in 326 B.C. by Alexander the Great, who took Charsadda (ancient Puskalavati) near present-day Peshawar (ancient Purusapura) and then marched eastward across the Indus into the Punjab as far as the Beas river (ancient Vipasa). Gandhara constituted the undulating plains, irrigated by the Kabul River from the Khyber Pass area, the contemporary boundary between Pakistan and Afganistan, down to the Indus River and southward towards the Murree hills and Taxila (ancient Taksasila), near Pakistan"s present capital, Islamabad. Its art, however, during the first centuries of the Christian era, had adopted a substantially larger area, together with the upper stretches of the Kabul River, the valley of Kabul itself, and ancient Kapisa, as well as Swat and Buner towards the north.
A great deal of Gandhara sculptures has survived dating from the first to probably as late as the sixth or even the seventh century but in a remarkably homogeneous style. Most of the arts were almost always in a blue-gray mica schist, though sometimes in a green phyllite or in stucco, or very rarely in terracotta. Because of the appeal of its Western classical aesthetic for the British rulers of India, schooled to admire all things Greek and Roman, a great deal found its way into private hands or the shelter of museums.
Gandhara sculpture primarily comprised Buddhist monastic establishments. These monasteries provided a never-ending gallery for sculptured reliefs of the Buddha and Bodhisattvas. The Gandhara stupas were comparatively magnified and more intricate, but the most remarkable feature, which distinguished the Gandhara stupas from the pervious styles were hugely tiered umbrellas at its peak, almost soaring over the total structure. The abundance of Gandharan sculpture was an art, which originated with foreign artisans.
In the excavation among the varied miscellany of small bronze figures, though not often like Alexandrian imports, four or five Buddhist bronzes are very late in date. These further illustrate the aura of the Gandhara art. Relics of mural paintings though have been discovered, yet the only substantial body of painting, in Bamiyan, is moderately late, and much of it belongs to an Iranian or central Asian rather than an Indian context. Non-narrative themes and architectural ornament were omnipresent at that time. Mythical figures and animals such as atlantes, tritons, dragons, and sea serpents derive from the same source, although there is the occasional high-backed, stylized creature associated with the Central Asian animal style. Moldings and cornices are decorated mostly with acanthus, laurel, and vine, though sometimes with motifs of Indian, and occasionally ultimately western Asian, origin: stepped merlons, lion heads, vedikas, and lotus petals. It is worth noting that architectural elements such as pillars, gable ends, and domes as represented in the reliefs tend to follow the Indian forms
.
Gandhara became roughly a Holy Land of Buddhism and excluding a handful of Hindu images, sculpture took the form either of Buddhist sect objects, Buddha and Bodhisattvas, or of architectural embellishment for Buddhist monasteries. The more metaphorical kinds are demonstrated by small votive stupas, and bases teeming with stucco images and figurines that have lasted at Jaulian and Mora Moradu, outpost monasteries in the hills around Taxila. Hadda, near the present town of Jalalabad, has created some groups in stucco of an almost rococo while more latest works of art in baked clay, with strong Hellenistic influence, have been revealed there, in what sums up as tiny chapels. It is not known exactly why stucco, an imported Alexandrian modus operandi, was used. It is true that grey schist is not found near Taxila, however other stones are available, and in opposition to the ease of operating with stucco, predominantly the artistic effects which can be achieved, must be set with its impermanence- fresh deposits frequently had to be applied. Excluding possibly at Taxila, its use emerges to have been a late expansion.
Architectural fundamentals of the Gandhara art, like pillars, gable ends and domes as showcased in the reliefs, were inclined to follow Indian outlines, but the pilaster with capital of Corinthian type, abounds and in one-palace scene Persepolitan columns go along with Roman coffered ceilings. The so-called Shrine of the Double-Headed Eagle at Sirkap, in actuality a stupa pedestal, well demonstrates this enlightening eclecticism- the double-headed bird on top of the chaitya arch is an insignia of Scythian origin, which appears as a Byzantine motif and materialises much later in South India as the ga1J.qa-bheru1J.qa in addition to atop European armorial bearings.
In Gandhara art the descriptive friezes were all but invariably Buddhist, and hence Indian in substance- one depicted a horse on wheels nearing a doorway, which might have represented the Trojan horse affair, but this is under scan. The Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, familiar from the previous Greek-based coinage of the region, appeared once or twice as standing figurines, presumably because as a pair, they tallied an Indian mithuna couple. There were also female statuettes, corresponding to city goddesses. Though figures from Butkara, near Saidan Sharif in Swat, were noticeably more Indian in physical type, and Indian motifs were in abundance there. Sculpture was, in the main, Hellenistic or Roman, and the art of Gandhara was indeed "the easternmost appearance of the art of the Roman Empire, especially in its late and provincial manifestations". Furthermore, naturalistic portrait heads, one of the high-points of Roman sculpture, were all but missing in Gandhara, in spite of the episodic separated head, probably that of a donor, with a discernible feeling of uniqueness. Some constitutions and poses matched those from western Asia and the Roman world; like the manner in which a figure in a recurrently instanced scene from the Dipankara jataka had prostrated himself before the future Buddha, is reverberated in the pose of the defeated before the defeater on a Trojanic frieze on the Arch of Constantine and in later illustrations of the admiration of the divinised emperor. One singular recurrently occurring muscular male figure, hand on sword, witnessed in three-quarters view from the backside, has been adopted from western classical sculpture. On occasions standing figures, even the Buddha, deceived the elusive stylistic actions of the Roman sculptor, seeking to express majestas. The drapery was fundamentally Western- the folds and volume of dangling garments were carved with realness and gusto- but it was mainly the persistent endeavours at illusionism, though frequently obscured by unrefined carving, which earmarked the Gandhara sculpture as based on a western classical visual impact.
The distinguishing Gandhara sculpture, of which hundreds if not thousands of instances have outlived, is the standing or seated Buddha. This flawlessly reproduces the necessary nature of Gandhara art, in which a religious and an artistic constituent, drawn from widely varied cultures have been bonded. The iconography is purely Indian. The seated Buddha is mostly cross-legged in the established Indian manner. However, forthcoming generations, habituated to think of the Buddha as a monk, and unable to picture him ever possessing long hair or donning a turban, came to deduce the chigon as a "cranial protuberance", singular to Buddha. But Buddha is never depicted with a shaved head, as are the Sangha, the monks; his short hair is clothed either in waves or in taut curls over his whole head. The extended ears are merely due to the downward thrust of the heavy ear-rings worn by a prince or magnate; the distortion of the ear-lobes is especially visible in Buddha, who, in Gandhara, never wore ear-rings or ornaments of any kind. As Foucher puts it, the Gandhara Buddha is at a time a monk without shaving and a prince stripped off jewellery.
The western classical factor rests in the style, in the handling of the robe, and in the physiognomy of Buddha. The cloak, which covers all but the appendages (though the right shoulder is often bared), is dealt like in Greek and Roman sculptures; the heavy folds are given a plastic flair of their own, and only in poorer or later works do they deteriorate into indented lines, fairly a return to standard Indian practice. The "western" treatment has caused Buddha"s garment to be misidentified for a toga; but a toga is semicircular, while, Buddha wore a basic, rectangular piece of cloth, i.e., the samghiifi, a monk"s upper garment. The head gradually swerves towards a hieratic stylisation, but at its best, it is naturalistic and almost positively based on the Greek Apollo, undoubtedly in Hellenistic or Roman copies.
Gandhara art also had developed at least two species of image, i.e. not part of the frieze, in which Buddha is the fundamental figure of an event in his life, distinguished by accompanying figures and a detailed mise-en-scene. Perhaps the most remarkable amongst these is the Visit to the Indrasala Cave, of which the supreme example is dated in the year 89, almost unquestionably of the Kanishka period. Indra and his harpist are depicted on their visit in it. The small statuettes of the visitors emerge below, an elephant describing Indra. The more general among these detailed images, of which approximately 30 instances are known, is presumably related with the Great Miracle of Sravasti. In one such example, one of the adjoining Bodhisattvas is distinguished as Avalokiteshwara by the tiny seated Buddha in his headgear. Other features of these images include the unreal species of tree above Buddha, the spiky lotus upon which he sits, and the effortlessly identifiable figurines of Indra and Brahma on both sides.
Another important aspect of the Gandhara art was the coins of the Graeco-Bactrians. The coins of the Graeco-Bactrians - on the Greek metrological standard, equals the finest Attic examples and of the Indo-Greek kings, which have until lately served as the only instances of Greek art found in the subcontinent. The legendary silver double decadrachmas of Amyntas, possibly a remembrance issue, are the biggest "Greek" coins ever minted, the largest cast in gold, is the exceptional decadrachma of the same king in the Bibliotheque Nationale, with the Dioscuri on the inverse. Otherwise, there was scanty evidence until recently of Greek or Hellenistic influences in Gandhara. A manifestation of Greek metropolitan planning is furnished by the rectilinear layouts of two cities of the 1st centuries B.C./A.D.--Sirkap at Taxila and Shaikhan Pheri at Charsadda. Remains of the temple at Jandial, also at Taxila and presumably dating back to 1st century B.C., also includes Greek characteristics- remarkably the huge base mouldings and the Ionic capitals of the colossal portico and antechamber columns. In contrast, the columns or pilasters on the immeasurable Gandhara friezes (when they are not in a Indian style), are consistently coronated by Indo-Corinthian capitals, the local version of the Corinthian capital- a certain sign of a comparatively later date.
The notable Begram hoard confirms articulately to the number and multiplicity of origin of the foreign artefacts imported into Gandhara. This further illustrates the foreign influence in the Gandhara art. Parallel hoards have been found in peninsular India, especially in Kolhapur in Maharashtra, but the imported wares are sternly from the Roman world. At Begram the ancient Kapisa, near Kabul, there are bronzes, possibly of Alexandrian manufacture, in close proximity with emblemata (plaster discs, certainly meant as moulds for local silversmiths), bearing reliefs in the purest classical vein, Chinese lacquers and Roman glass. The hoard was possibly sealed in mid-3rd century, when some of the subjects may have been approximately 200 years old "antiques", frequently themselves replicates of classical Greek objects. The plentiful ivories, consisting in the central of chest and throne facings, engraved in a number of varied relief techniques, were credibly developed somewhere between Mathura and coastal Andhra. Some are of unrivalled beauty. Even though a few secluded instances of early Indian ivory carving have outlived, including the legendary mirror handle from Pompeii, the Begram ivories are the only substantial collection known until moderately in present times of what must always have been a widespread craft. Other sites, particularly Taxila, have generated great many instances of such imports, some from India, some, like the appealing tiny bronze figure of Harpocrates, undoubtedly from Alexandria. Further cultural influences are authenticated by the Scytho Sarmatian jewellery, with its characteristic high-backed carnivores, and by a statue of St. Peter. But all this should not cloud the all-important truth that the immediately identifiable Gandhara style was the prevailing form of artistic manifestation throughout the expanse for several centuries, and the magnitude of its influence on the art of central Asia and China and as far as Japan, allows no doubt about its integrity and vitality.
In the Gandhara art early Buddhist iconography drew heavily on traditional sources, incorporating Hindu gods and goddesses into a Buddhist pantheon and adapting old folk tales to Buddhist religious purposes. Kubera and Harm are probably the best-known examples of this process.
Five dated idols from Gandhara art though exist, however the hitch remains that the era is never distinguished. The dates are in figures under 100 or else in 300s. Moreover one of the higher numbers are debatable, besides, the image upon which it is engraved is not in the conventional Andhra style. The two low-number-dated idols are the most sophisticated and the least injured. Their pattern is classical Gandhara. The most undemanding rendition of their dates relates them to Kanishka and 78 A.D. is assumed as the commencement of his era. They both fall in the second half of the 2nd century A.D. and equally later, if a later date is necessitated for the beginning of Kanishka`s time. This calculation nearly parallels numismatics and archaeological evidences. The application of other eras, like the Vikrama (base date- 58 B.C.) and the Saka (base date- 78 A.D.), would place them much later. The badly battered figurines portray standing Buddhas, without a head of its own, but both on original figured plinths. They come to view as depicting the classical Gandhara style; decision regarding where to place these two dated Buddhas, both standing, must remain knotty till more evidence comes out as to how late the classical Gandhara panache had continued.
Methodical study of the Gandhara art, and specifically about its origins and expansion, is befuddled with numerous problems, not at least of which is the inordinately complex history and culture of the province. It is one of the great ethnical crossroads of the world simultaneously being in the path of all the intrusions of India for over three millennia. Bussagli has rightly remarked, `More than any other Indian region, Gandhara was a participant in the political and cultural events that concerned the rest of the Asian continent`.
However, Systematic study of the art of Gandhara, and particularly of its origins and development, is bedeviled by many problems, not the least of which is the extraordinarily complex history and culture of the region.
In spite of the labours of many scholars over the past hundred and fifty years, the answers to some of the most important questions, such as the number of centuries spanned by the art of Gandhara, still await, fresh archaeological, inscriptional, or numismatic evidence.
Gandhara is the name given to an ancient region or province invaded in 326 B.C. by Alexander the Great, who took Charsadda (ancient Puskalavati) near present-day Peshawar (ancient Purusapura) and then marched eastward across the Indus into the Punjab as far as the Beas river (ancient Vipasa). Gandhara constituted the undulating plains, irrigated by the Kabul River from the Khyber Pass area, the contemporary boundary between Pakistan and Afganistan, down to the Indus River and southward towards the Murree hills and Taxila (ancient Taksasila), near Pakistan"s present capital, Islamabad. Its art, however, during the first centuries of the Christian era, had adopted a substantially larger area, together with the upper stretches of the Kabul River, the valley of Kabul itself, and ancient Kapisa, as well as Swat and Buner towards the north.
A great deal of Gandhara sculptures has survived dating from the first to probably as late as the sixth or even the seventh century but in a remarkably homogeneous style. Most of the arts were almost always in a blue-gray mica schist, though sometimes in a green phyllite or in stucco, or very rarely in terracotta. Because of the appeal of its Western classical aesthetic for the British rulers of India, schooled to admire all things Greek and Roman, a great deal found its way into private hands or the shelter of museums.
Gandhara sculpture primarily comprised Buddhist monastic establishments. These monasteries provided a never-ending gallery for sculptured reliefs of the Buddha and Bodhisattvas. The Gandhara stupas were comparatively magnified and more intricate, but the most remarkable feature, which distinguished the Gandhara stupas from the pervious styles were hugely tiered umbrellas at its peak, almost soaring over the total structure. The abundance of Gandharan sculpture was an art, which originated with foreign artisans.
In the excavation among the varied miscellany of small bronze figures, though not often like Alexandrian imports, four or five Buddhist bronzes are very late in date. These further illustrate the aura of the Gandhara art. Relics of mural paintings though have been discovered, yet the only substantial body of painting, in Bamiyan, is moderately late, and much of it belongs to an Iranian or central Asian rather than an Indian context. Non-narrative themes and architectural ornament were omnipresent at that time. Mythical figures and animals such as atlantes, tritons, dragons, and sea serpents derive from the same source, although there is the occasional high-backed, stylized creature associated with the Central Asian animal style. Moldings and cornices are decorated mostly with acanthus, laurel, and vine, though sometimes with motifs of Indian, and occasionally ultimately western Asian, origin: stepped merlons, lion heads, vedikas, and lotus petals. It is worth noting that architectural elements such as pillars, gable ends, and domes as represented in the reliefs tend to follow the Indian forms
.
Gandhara became roughly a Holy Land of Buddhism and excluding a handful of Hindu images, sculpture took the form either of Buddhist sect objects, Buddha and Bodhisattvas, or of architectural embellishment for Buddhist monasteries. The more metaphorical kinds are demonstrated by small votive stupas, and bases teeming with stucco images and figurines that have lasted at Jaulian and Mora Moradu, outpost monasteries in the hills around Taxila. Hadda, near the present town of Jalalabad, has created some groups in stucco of an almost rococo while more latest works of art in baked clay, with strong Hellenistic influence, have been revealed there, in what sums up as tiny chapels. It is not known exactly why stucco, an imported Alexandrian modus operandi, was used. It is true that grey schist is not found near Taxila, however other stones are available, and in opposition to the ease of operating with stucco, predominantly the artistic effects which can be achieved, must be set with its impermanence- fresh deposits frequently had to be applied. Excluding possibly at Taxila, its use emerges to have been a late expansion.
Architectural fundamentals of the Gandhara art, like pillars, gable ends and domes as showcased in the reliefs, were inclined to follow Indian outlines, but the pilaster with capital of Corinthian type, abounds and in one-palace scene Persepolitan columns go along with Roman coffered ceilings. The so-called Shrine of the Double-Headed Eagle at Sirkap, in actuality a stupa pedestal, well demonstrates this enlightening eclecticism- the double-headed bird on top of the chaitya arch is an insignia of Scythian origin, which appears as a Byzantine motif and materialises much later in South India as the ga1J.qa-bheru1J.qa in addition to atop European armorial bearings.
In Gandhara art the descriptive friezes were all but invariably Buddhist, and hence Indian in substance- one depicted a horse on wheels nearing a doorway, which might have represented the Trojan horse affair, but this is under scan. The Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, familiar from the previous Greek-based coinage of the region, appeared once or twice as standing figurines, presumably because as a pair, they tallied an Indian mithuna couple. There were also female statuettes, corresponding to city goddesses. Though figures from Butkara, near Saidan Sharif in Swat, were noticeably more Indian in physical type, and Indian motifs were in abundance there. Sculpture was, in the main, Hellenistic or Roman, and the art of Gandhara was indeed "the easternmost appearance of the art of the Roman Empire, especially in its late and provincial manifestations". Furthermore, naturalistic portrait heads, one of the high-points of Roman sculpture, were all but missing in Gandhara, in spite of the episodic separated head, probably that of a donor, with a discernible feeling of uniqueness. Some constitutions and poses matched those from western Asia and the Roman world; like the manner in which a figure in a recurrently instanced scene from the Dipankara jataka had prostrated himself before the future Buddha, is reverberated in the pose of the defeated before the defeater on a Trojanic frieze on the Arch of Constantine and in later illustrations of the admiration of the divinised emperor. One singular recurrently occurring muscular male figure, hand on sword, witnessed in three-quarters view from the backside, has been adopted from western classical sculpture. On occasions standing figures, even the Buddha, deceived the elusive stylistic actions of the Roman sculptor, seeking to express majestas. The drapery was fundamentally Western- the folds and volume of dangling garments were carved with realness and gusto- but it was mainly the persistent endeavours at illusionism, though frequently obscured by unrefined carving, which earmarked the Gandhara sculpture as based on a western classical visual impact.
The distinguishing Gandhara sculpture, of which hundreds if not thousands of instances have outlived, is the standing or seated Buddha. This flawlessly reproduces the necessary nature of Gandhara art, in which a religious and an artistic constituent, drawn from widely varied cultures have been bonded. The iconography is purely Indian. The seated Buddha is mostly cross-legged in the established Indian manner. However, forthcoming generations, habituated to think of the Buddha as a monk, and unable to picture him ever possessing long hair or donning a turban, came to deduce the chigon as a "cranial protuberance", singular to Buddha. But Buddha is never depicted with a shaved head, as are the Sangha, the monks; his short hair is clothed either in waves or in taut curls over his whole head. The extended ears are merely due to the downward thrust of the heavy ear-rings worn by a prince or magnate; the distortion of the ear-lobes is especially visible in Buddha, who, in Gandhara, never wore ear-rings or ornaments of any kind. As Foucher puts it, the Gandhara Buddha is at a time a monk without shaving and a prince stripped off jewellery.
The western classical factor rests in the style, in the handling of the robe, and in the physiognomy of Buddha. The cloak, which covers all but the appendages (though the right shoulder is often bared), is dealt like in Greek and Roman sculptures; the heavy folds are given a plastic flair of their own, and only in poorer or later works do they deteriorate into indented lines, fairly a return to standard Indian practice. The "western" treatment has caused Buddha"s garment to be misidentified for a toga; but a toga is semicircular, while, Buddha wore a basic, rectangular piece of cloth, i.e., the samghiifi, a monk"s upper garment. The head gradually swerves towards a hieratic stylisation, but at its best, it is naturalistic and almost positively based on the Greek Apollo, undoubtedly in Hellenistic or Roman copies.
Gandhara art also had developed at least two species of image, i.e. not part of the frieze, in which Buddha is the fundamental figure of an event in his life, distinguished by accompanying figures and a detailed mise-en-scene. Perhaps the most remarkable amongst these is the Visit to the Indrasala Cave, of which the supreme example is dated in the year 89, almost unquestionably of the Kanishka period. Indra and his harpist are depicted on their visit in it. The small statuettes of the visitors emerge below, an elephant describing Indra. The more general among these detailed images, of which approximately 30 instances are known, is presumably related with the Great Miracle of Sravasti. In one such example, one of the adjoining Bodhisattvas is distinguished as Avalokiteshwara by the tiny seated Buddha in his headgear. Other features of these images include the unreal species of tree above Buddha, the spiky lotus upon which he sits, and the effortlessly identifiable figurines of Indra and Brahma on both sides.
Another important aspect of the Gandhara art was the coins of the Graeco-Bactrians. The coins of the Graeco-Bactrians - on the Greek metrological standard, equals the finest Attic examples and of the Indo-Greek kings, which have until lately served as the only instances of Greek art found in the subcontinent. The legendary silver double decadrachmas of Amyntas, possibly a remembrance issue, are the biggest "Greek" coins ever minted, the largest cast in gold, is the exceptional decadrachma of the same king in the Bibliotheque Nationale, with the Dioscuri on the inverse. Otherwise, there was scanty evidence until recently of Greek or Hellenistic influences in Gandhara. A manifestation of Greek metropolitan planning is furnished by the rectilinear layouts of two cities of the 1st centuries B.C./A.D.--Sirkap at Taxila and Shaikhan Pheri at Charsadda. Remains of the temple at Jandial, also at Taxila and presumably dating back to 1st century B.C., also includes Greek characteristics- remarkably the huge base mouldings and the Ionic capitals of the colossal portico and antechamber columns. In contrast, the columns or pilasters on the immeasurable Gandhara friezes (when they are not in a Indian style), are consistently coronated by Indo-Corinthian capitals, the local version of the Corinthian capital- a certain sign of a comparatively later date.
The notable Begram hoard confirms articulately to the number and multiplicity of origin of the foreign artefacts imported into Gandhara. This further illustrates the foreign influence in the Gandhara art. Parallel hoards have been found in peninsular India, especially in Kolhapur in Maharashtra, but the imported wares are sternly from the Roman world. At Begram the ancient Kapisa, near Kabul, there are bronzes, possibly of Alexandrian manufacture, in close proximity with emblemata (plaster discs, certainly meant as moulds for local silversmiths), bearing reliefs in the purest classical vein, Chinese lacquers and Roman glass. The hoard was possibly sealed in mid-3rd century, when some of the subjects may have been approximately 200 years old "antiques", frequently themselves replicates of classical Greek objects. The plentiful ivories, consisting in the central of chest and throne facings, engraved in a number of varied relief techniques, were credibly developed somewhere between Mathura and coastal Andhra. Some are of unrivalled beauty. Even though a few secluded instances of early Indian ivory carving have outlived, including the legendary mirror handle from Pompeii, the Begram ivories are the only substantial collection known until moderately in present times of what must always have been a widespread craft. Other sites, particularly Taxila, have generated great many instances of such imports, some from India, some, like the appealing tiny bronze figure of Harpocrates, undoubtedly from Alexandria. Further cultural influences are authenticated by the Scytho Sarmatian jewellery, with its characteristic high-backed carnivores, and by a statue of St. Peter. But all this should not cloud the all-important truth that the immediately identifiable Gandhara style was the prevailing form of artistic manifestation throughout the expanse for several centuries, and the magnitude of its influence on the art of central Asia and China and as far as Japan, allows no doubt about its integrity and vitality.
In the Gandhara art early Buddhist iconography drew heavily on traditional sources, incorporating Hindu gods and goddesses into a Buddhist pantheon and adapting old folk tales to Buddhist religious purposes. Kubera and Harm are probably the best-known examples of this process.
Five dated idols from Gandhara art though exist, however the hitch remains that the era is never distinguished. The dates are in figures under 100 or else in 300s. Moreover one of the higher numbers are debatable, besides, the image upon which it is engraved is not in the conventional Andhra style. The two low-number-dated idols are the most sophisticated and the least injured. Their pattern is classical Gandhara. The most undemanding rendition of their dates relates them to Kanishka and 78 A.D. is assumed as the commencement of his era. They both fall in the second half of the 2nd century A.D. and equally later, if a later date is necessitated for the beginning of Kanishka`s time. This calculation nearly parallels numismatics and archaeological evidences. The application of other eras, like the Vikrama (base date- 58 B.C.) and the Saka (base date- 78 A.D.), would place them much later. The badly battered figurines portray standing Buddhas, without a head of its own, but both on original figured plinths. They come to view as depicting the classical Gandhara style; decision regarding where to place these two dated Buddhas, both standing, must remain knotty till more evidence comes out as to how late the classical Gandhara panache had continued.
Methodical study of the Gandhara art, and specifically about its origins and expansion, is befuddled with numerous problems, not at least of which is the inordinately complex history and culture of the province. It is one of the great ethnical crossroads of the world simultaneously being in the path of all the intrusions of India for over three millennia. Bussagli has rightly remarked, `More than any other Indian region, Gandhara was a participant in the political and cultural events that concerned the rest of the Asian continent`.
However, Systematic study of the art of Gandhara, and particularly of its origins and development, is bedeviled by many problems, not the least of which is the extraordinarily complex history and culture of the region.
In spite of the labours of many scholars over the past hundred and fifty years, the answers to some of the most important questions, such as the number of centuries spanned by the art of Gandhara, still await, fresh archaeological, inscriptional, or numismatic evidence.
This bee was so unimpressed with yours truly that she simply did not even notice me taking shots of her. I'd make a horrible paparazzo. Anyhow, she just worked and worked and worked in this flower as I shot it and did little else.
She was methodical and patient, carefully exploring every nook and cranny of the flower. I always find it amazing that such care and thought can be carried out by such a small creature.
A storm clears the Friendship and the nearby Pedrick House. This building is the original building that was built in 1770 on the Marblehead side of Salem harbor. The building had many purposes over the years and it's link to Salem was through one of it's owners. William Story bought the building from Pedrick and intended to run his business from there as he was a ship captain and he sailed as Captain of the 1797 version of the Friendship (The link to Salem). The park service managed to get the building transferred to them and Salem's NHS (National Historic site) and then a labor of love began as it was taken apart very methodically and brought to Salem. It was then piece by piece put back together and it sits much as it had in the 1770s through the early 1900s..
"Glorious St. Joseph, model of all who are devoted to labour, obtain for me the grace to work in the spirit of penance in expiation of my many sins; to work conscientiously by placing love of duty above my inclinations; to gratefully and joyously deem it an honor to employ and to develop by labor the gifts I have received from God, to work methodically, peacefully, and in moderation and patience, without ever shrinking from it through weariness or difficulty to work; above all, with purity of intention and unselfishness, having unceasingly before my eyes death and the account I have to render of time lost, talents unused, good not done, and vain complacency in success, so baneful to the work of God. All for Jesus, all for Mary, all to imitate thee, O patriarch St. Joseph! This shall be my motto for life and eternity.
– Pope St Pius X.
1 May is the feast of St Joseph the Worker, and this stained glass of the saint is from the Dominican House of Studies in Washington D.C.
Downs Steam in Toowoomba is slowly and methodically restoring ex. Queensland Railways C16 class locomotive no. 106 to operating condition. In my view, this group is developing a reputation for some excellent work and I look forward to seeing this old campaigner back of the rails. It stood in the erstwhile Redbank Locomotive Museum for many years and when it was closed, most of the locos went to the new old Workshops Rail Museum in Ipswich where many remain stored and not able to be seen because of the issue of asbestos contamination.
Asbestos was used to lag the boilers of steam locomotives, in other words it was applied in a layer between the boiler barrel and outer cladding of the boiler to improve thermal insulation and efficiency and prevent damage to the often nicely painted cladding also from excessive heat. In addition, a locomotive without lagging would have been excessively hot to work on should a employee have to venture out along the boiler, a situation not unknown for various purposes.
Goodness knows how many men were exposed to deadly asbestos over the years, building, maintaining and scrapping steam locomotives.
Lagging was also done with air (nothing), wood and fibre glass.
106 has a 4-8-0 wheel arrangement and is a tender engine. As such, you can see it’s four driving axels and wheels in this view of the loco in the workshop. It has returned home as 106 was built in Toowoomba.
The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death are a series of nineteen (twenty were originally constructed) intricately designed dollhouse-style dioramas created by Frances Glessner Lee (1878–1962), a pioneer in forensic science. Glessner Lee used her inheritance to establish a department of legal medicine at Harvard Medical School in 1936, and donated the first of the Nutshell Studies in 1946 for use in lectures on the subject of crime scene investigation. In 1966, the department was dissolved, and the dioramas went to the Maryland Medical Examiner’s Office in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. where they are on permanent loan and still used for forensic seminars.
The dioramas are detailed representations of death scenes that are composites of actual cases, created by Glessner Lee on a 1 inch to 1 foot (1:12) scale. She attended autopsies to ensure accuracy, and her attention to detail extended to having a wall calendar include the pages after the month of the incident, constructing openable windows, and wearing out-of-date clothing to obtain realistically worn fabric. The dioramas show tawdry and, in many cases, disheveled living spaces very different from Glessner Lee's own background. The dead include prostitutes and victims of domestic violence.
Glessner Lee called them the Nutshell Studies because the purpose of a forensic investigation is said to be to "convict the guilty, clear the innocent, and find the truth in a nutshell." Students were instructed to study the scenes methodically—Glessner Lee suggested moving the eyes in a clockwise spiral—and draw conclusions from the visual evidence. At conferences hosted by Glessner Lee, prominent crime-scene investigators were given 90 minutes to study each diorama.
The side-splitting way of putting it, I am a cross between Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt (No, that doesn’t make me look like a bruised armpit). Perhaps those two hunks are the spitting images of me instead of the other way round. Of course I am joking! LOL!
Ojie did it! Right! That cute architect tagged me. It is less than cool to be tagged actually. But, in a true spirit of camaraderie in flickr, it makes me feel guilty when I am tagged and yet I don’t respond to it. To start my day today, Tuesday, May 5, 2009, I’d like to respond to this and hopefully you viewers will know me better. Knowing me is just like skinning an onion; you have to go one layer after another. I am now offering some layers of me, big time.
Here goes….
1.
There are a few names I go by, like, GAB (seriously it does, especially among my newly-met friends in the past 10 years), TM (this is very special, meant only for old friends from high school), Zack and Jay. Jay sounds imposing and unassailable while Zack sounds a bit playful that I’m prone to introduce myself with when meeting beautiful ladies.
2.
I’m married to a wonderful woman that we first met when we were still babies, methodically turned aficionado to one another at a very tender age until heaven called upon us to unite in early 90s. We are blessed with 3 beautiful and smart kids, namely, Fara Liyana (Fara), Farhan Azrayl (Sam) and Farez Edrin (Edrin) that now age 17, 15 and 12 respectively.
(Note: I have a story to share. If you care to read, go here)
3.
I am an American-trained, qualified professionally as an Engineer but later in my working life, my love in entrepreneurship supersedes other things that once I burnt my bridges, I never looked back since – and things couldn’t get any better with those bittersweet experiences of roller-coaster ride in my stride.
4.
They say smart people naturally have wide forehead as wide as a football field, but my smart is only confined to "In the Kingdom of the Blind, the one-eyed man is king". My forehead was already that wide when I was a kid while other kids had their hairlines like millimeters away from eyebrows. When the hairline recedes, it becomes even wider – but the good thing is, it’s not just that I don’t care, I even love it.
5.
I love my tummy too but they pushed me to hate it. I think I am one of the millions of men around the world who have this problem (but personally it’s not a big deal to me). I always give excuse to myself saying, a sign of prosperity. LOL! (For heaven's sake, mine is not that bad, OK!)
6.
I think my most treasured possessions are cool-under-pressure and my PR skills. I am capable of making a brute to go out of character by showing my intrepid and fearless face (God knows what’s brewing inside me though), and I have ways to talk people out in the most daunting moments.
7.
The idea of scary thing to me is only when a beautiful and sexy lady stood up on me saying she loves me. That’s still not too scary, but when I circumstantially would be head over heel with her; that’d bring a chill down my spine. Or maybe me I am confused with excitement here? Someone… care to explain this to me? LOL!
8.
Err…. What else I want to write here? I am stuck!.... Yeah… Let me be honest with you about physical things of the opposite sex that I found most appealing: Heavy at the top, nice fingers and pleasant walking style. (Does this hold water?!!!)
9.
I think I am a loving father that can be a bit sentimental when talk about my kids. I do carry pictures of them when they were babies in my wallet. Another way of saying, don’t grow up, please be my babies for as long as I live.
10.
I can be down to all minute and petty things around the house as I love to see things in perfect order but when you’re dealing with growing up kids, you can’t be too ideal.
11.
Man, forgot to write this in the earlier point – I was born in Narathiwatt, Thailand. Technically that makes me a Thai but that’s not the case as my parents are both Malays from Malaysia. Southern Thailand is actually as good as a part of Malaysia in the perspectives of livelihood, values, religion, language, custom and culture but rather unfortunate we are divided by a political barrier that the separation became obvious by the day.
12.
There are things that I wish I had but I don’t have it right now, like having time and enough savings for me to be on holidays round the world with my wife. Perhaps it’d take one year or two to complete. My other wish is to be granted with opportunity to travel into space – I wanna see how small the earth is from distance just to relate to how small I am as a person.
13.
I appreciate good music and I used to be a big fan of heavy metal music during my younger days. You name it, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Whitesnake, Deep Purple, Ozzy Osbourne and many, many more. I’ve seen most of them live in concerts those days during my reign of terror hunting for concerts in the eastern part of the American continent starts from Miami, Florida in the south until New Haven, Connecticut in the north, together with a few of my partners-in-crime. When thrash metal like Metallica came into picture, it was rather too late already. I was making an exit from the ring, and started to fall heavily for classical – I started to enjoy music by Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Bart, Beethoven and whatnot.
14.
If you asked me about my all-time favorite songs, I’d say too many of them. Offhand I’d say Just Another Brick in the Wall by Pink Floyd, Selimut Putih – the original rendition of spiritual song by Orkes El-Soraya of Indonesia and Hotel California by the Eagles (the song that I sang during a talentime when I was a kid that I even memorize the lyrics until today), Tchaikovsky symphony No. 5, Mozart - 7th Symphony, a few numbers by Deep Purple, Jimmy Hendrix, Whitesnake, Fleetwood Mac and Rush, just to name a few. If you allow me to add in a few more to the list, I’d say a local folk song “Pok Amai Amai” and Indonesian folk song of “Kodok Ngorek”. (It does not fit the profile? LOL!) No… that Boom Boom Pow by The Black-Eyed Peas is not my type.
15.
Wanna know things that I love doing in my spare time? I love to do drawing & designing (especially when my girl Fara is on my side appreciating my work), driving around with kids if I am not engrossed with my garden. And I just love to be by myself in the woods next to a waterfall or being somewhere in the busy crowds sitting there like stupid observing people. Funny, taking pictures not even my top priority.
16.
There are things that I want to do before I die: To impart as much as possible knowledge and values to my children and to let them know we’ll have yet another life together in eternity and to build an orphanage home (being an orphan myself when I was a kid, my heart goes to them)
Folks, I’d like to break the chain of this tagging thing by not tagging anyone.
A good thing continues
Some six months ago, I posted almost 100 images and a few thoughts I felt were missing from the many existing RX1 reviews. The outpouring of support and interest in that article was very gratifying. When I published, I had used the camera for six full months, enough time to come to a view of its strengths and weaknesses and to produce a small portfolio of good images, but not enough time to see the full picture (pun intended). In the following six months, I have used the camera at least as frequently as in the first six and have produced another small set of good images. It should be noted that my usage of the RX1 in the last six (and especially in the last 3) months has involved less travel and more time with the family and around the house; I will share relatively few of these images but will spend some time sharing my impressions of its functionality for family snapshots as I am sure there is some interest. And let it be said here: one of the primary motivations to purchase the camera was to take more photos with the family, and after one full year I can confidently say: money well spent.
The A7/r game-changer?
In the past six months, Sony have announced and released two full-frame, interchangeable lens cameras that clearly take design cues from the RX1: the A7 and the A7r. These cameras are innovative and highly capable and, as such, are in the midst of taking the photography world by storm. I think they are compelling enough cameras that I wonder whether Sony is wasting its energy continuing to develop further A-mount cameras. Sony deserve credit for a bold strategy—many companies would have been content to allow the success of the the RX1 (and RX1R) generate further sales before pushing further into the white space left unexplored by camera makers with less ambition.This is not the place to detail the relative advantages and disadvantages of the RX1 versus the A7/r except to make the following point. I currently use a Nikon D800 and an RX1: were I to sell both and purchase the A7r + 35mm f/2.8 I would in many ways lose nothing by way of imaging capability or lens compatibility but would pocket the surplus $1250-1750. Indeed this loyal Nikon owner thought long and hard about doing so, which speaks to the strategic importance of these cameras for a company trying to make inroads into a highly concentrated market.Ultimately, I opted to hang onto the two cameras I have (although this decision is one that I revisit time and time again) and continue to use them as I have for the past year. Let me give you a quick flavor of why.
The RX1 is smaller and more discrete
This is a small a point, but my gut reaction to the A7/r was: much smaller than the D800, not as small as the RX1. The EVF atop the A7/r and the larger profile of interchangeable mount lenses means that I would not be able to slip the A7/r into a pocket the way I can the RX1. Further, by virtue of using the EVF and its loud mechanical shutter, the A7/r just isn’t as stealthy as the RX1. Finally, f/2 beats the pants off of f/2.8 at the same or smaller size.At this point, some of you may be saying, “Future Sony releases will allow you to get a body without an EVF and get an f/2 lens that has a slimmer profile, etc, etc.” And that’s just the point: to oversimplify things, the reason I am keeping my RX1 is that Sony currently offers something close to an A7 body without a built-in EVF and with a slimmer profile 35mm f/2.
The D800 has important functional advantages
On the other side of the spectrum, the AF speed of the A7/r just isn’t going to match the D800, especially when the former is equipped with a Nikon lens and F-mount adapter. EVFs cannot yet match the experience of looking through the prism and the lens (I expect they will match soon, but aren’t there yet). What’s more, I have made such an investment in Nikon glass that I can’t yet justify purchasing an adapter for a Sony mount or selling them all for Sony’s offerings (many of which aren’t to market yet).Now, all of these are minor points and I think all of them disappear with an A8r, but they add up to something major: I have two cameras very well suited to two different types of shooting, and I ask myself if I gain or lose by getting something in between—something that wasn’t quite a pocket shooter and something that was quite a DSLR? You can imagine, however, that if I were coming to the market without a D800 and an RX1, that my decision would be far different: dollar for dollar, the A7/r would be a no-brainer.During the moments when I consider selling to grab an A7r, I keep coming back to a thought I had a month or so before the RX1 was announced. At that time I was considering something like the NEX cameras with a ZM 21mm f/2.8 and I said in my head, “I wish someone would make a carry-around camera with a full frame sensor and a fixed 35mm f/2.8 or f/2.” Now you understand how attractive the RX1 is to me and what a ridiculously high bar exists for another camera system to reach.
Okay, so what is different from the last review?
For one, I had an issue with the camera’s AF motor failing to engage and giving me an E61:00 error. I had to send it out to Sony for repairs (via extended warranty and service plan). I detailed my experience with Sony Service here [insert link] and I write to you as a very satisfied customer. That is to say, I have 3 years left on a 4 year + accidental damage warranty and I feel confident enough in that coverage to say that I will have this beauty in working order for at least another 3 years.For two, I’ve spent significantly less time thinking of this camera as a DSLR replacement and have instead started to develop a very different way of shooting with it. The activation barrier to taking a shot with my D800 is quite high. Beyond having to bring a large camera wherever you go and have it in hand, a proper camera takes two hands and full attention to produce an image. I shoot slowly and methodically and often from a tripod with the D800. In contrast, I can pull the RX1 out, pop off the lens cap, line up and take a shot with one hand (often with a toddler in the other). This fosters a totally different type of photography.
My “be-there” camera
The have-everywhere camera that gives DSLR type controls to one-handed shooting lets me pursue images that happen very quickly or images that might not normally meet the standards of “drag-the-DSLR-out-of-the-bag.” Many of those images you’ll see on this post. A full year of shooting and I can say this with great confidence: the RX1 is a terrific mash-up of point-and-shoot and DSLR not just in image quality and features, but primarily in the product it helps me create. To take this thinking a bit further: I find myself even processing images from the RX1 differently than I would from my DSLR. So much so that I have strongly considered starting a tumblr and posting JPEGs directly from the RX1 via my phone or an iPad rather than running the bulk of them through Lightroom, onto Flickr and then on the blog (really this is just a matter of time, stay tuned, and those readers who have experience with tumblr, cloud image storage and editing, etc, etc, please contact me, I want to pick your brain).Put simply, I capture more spontaneous and beautiful “moments” than I might have otherwise. Photography is very much an exercise in “f/8 and be there,” and the RX1 is my go-to “be there” camera.
The family camera
I mentioned earlier that I justified the purchase of the RX1 partly as a camera to be used to document the family moments into which a DSLR doesn’t neatly fit. Over the past year I’ve collected thousands and thousands of family images with the RX1. The cold hard truth is that many of those photos could be better if I’d taken a full DSLR kit with me to the park or the beach or the grocery store each time. The RX1 is a difficult camera to use on a toddler (or any moving subject for that matter); autofocus isn’t as fast as a professional DSLR, it’s difficult to perfectly compose via an LCD (especially in bright sunlight), but despite these shortcomings, it’s been an incredibly useful family camera. There are simply so many beautiful moments where I had the RX1 over my shoulder, ready to go that whatever difficulties exist relative to a DSLR, those pale in comparison to the power of it’s convenience. The best camera is the one in your hand.
Where to go from here.
So what is the value of these RX1 going forward, especially in a world of the A7/r and it’s yet-to-be-born siblings without an EVF and a pancake lens? Frankly, at its current price (which is quite fair when you consider the value of the the body and the lens) I see precious little room for an independent offering versus a mirrorless, interchangeable lens system with the same image quality in a package just as small. That doesn’t mean Sony won’t make an RX2 or an RX1 Mark II (have a look at it’s other product lines to see how many SKUs are maintained despite low demand). Instead, I see the RX1 as a bridge that needed to exist for engineers, managers, and the market to make it to the A7/r and it’s descendants.A Facebook friend recently paid me a great compliment; he said something like, “Justin, via your blog, you’ve sold a ton of RX1 cameras.” Indeed, despite my efforts not to be a salesman, I think he’s right: I have and would continue to recommend this camera.The true value of the RX1 going forward is for those of us who have the thing on our shoulders; and yes, if you have an investment in and a love for a DSLR system, there’s still tremendous value in getting one, slinging it over your shoulder, and heading out into the wide, bright world; A7/r or no, this is just an unbelievably capable camera.
Somewhere in a far away land in the 1940’s....
“Rat-a-tat-tat” came the sound as a hand laid a rap on the screen door as it reverberated and rattled against its framing. Steps could be heard making their way for the door shortly afterwards. “Just a minute.” The unique knock could be that of only one but yet familiar person.
Of the stops on his route as a railroad messenger boy, this was one the few stops around town he enjoyed if not looked forward to. The Mister of this house was never one he had to chase down. Young Frank just out of school would often have to wade along riverbanks calling out the name of some brakeman trying his luck at the local fishing hole or stick his head in the doors of local stores, barbershops, car shops, pool halls or eateries to see if a conductor or engineer on his call list could be found. If an employee on this list couldn’t be found, it meant starting back over at square one with another exhaustive search for the next pulse holder. It could be a troublesome puzzle to put together but it was a matter of first come first serve with no predictability. “Why wasn’t I called?” The counter question was “Why couldn’t you be found?” Luck of the draw for better or worse.
Frank got along well with most of the flock under his steed. The job was an eye-opening experience for him. One minute he seemed shy and too immature for his job yet other moments he could out foul tongue many of the local tavern patrons and charge into places that they, let alone angels, would fear to tread.
Interrupting a family picnic could either be pleasantly cordial or could end with a volcano of cursing if not the occasional fist throwing by the recipient and dodging by the deliverer. He was just a mere delivery boy but because he was the first representation of the ball and chain they signed up for, he caught more than his share of flak. Though sympathetic, his face represented an intrusion. It was deciding whatever face he had to wear at any given moment that could be taxing more so than the long walks around town out on the hunt for another name but he was slowly adapting to the terrain in which he found himself deployed. He wasn’t bipolar. His job just had a bipolar atmosphere and outsiders were clueless. Maybe they had no idea just how lucky they were.
The worst for Frank, however, was the search for none other than one Walter Baum, a man who cared little for a rigid organized lifestyle of living by the clock. This was a man who lived by his own conceptions and if there were misconceptions in between then playing the victim was his preferred escape route no matter what side of the fence he was on at any given moment. He wreaked of stale cigarette smoke, flat beer and any other odorous trademark of the places where he called home in the concrete and neon jungles. To Walt paying rent meant spending money on bills which he saw as an encroachment into his frivolous lifestyle. He said fun was all that concerned him most. It appeared instead that he wanted to forget something.
The smell of repulsive body odor was just a small glimpse to his self-indulgence. Some of the local homeless would feel a bit better off than to be victims of the circumstances that this guy needlessly put himself through. The career he held was as unpredictable as he was. Walt was a well known drunk around town and to locate him for a call meant going to shady parts of town searching the local bars. If not in one of the local sipping troughs, his claim to fame as a ladies man could be waining. This then meant a trip to the obscure whore house in search of him nursing his self inflicted wounds at cost. The hollowed out walls Walt called home seemed to host the finest recent graduates of the nearby Pine Acres Correctional facility or at best their future clientele. One could be certain that many graduates would go back for further enlightenment.
Walt somehow intermingled with them and yet was never caught up in his cohorts lawless shenanigans and sent away to share bunks with them. Some claimed he was a mediator amongst them yet given his exploits many would beg to differ. Walt played the devils advocate for his own interest. He always seemed to have a ready supply of greenbacks or the name of some local eye candy on hand to dissuade a messenger boy of “having found his presence” so he could continue living it up. Many others in the town had kept their noses clean and their hopes aspired to hold down a lofty job at the railroad but found themselves toiling along in less glamorous jobs as they couldn’t fit through the eye of the needle. So many wanted that chance but the tidal wave of applications trying to get in watered down their efforts. Yet Walt had it made and seemed to have cared less. His grace was he stumbled in on the right day at right time. Whether he was sober or bored that day when he inked his name on the dotted line we’ll never know.
Sometimes his drunken incoherence upon being encountered made putting him on duty a bad proposition. This could go on for several days on end. Walt wasn’t a particularly bad person but he had different ways than the other railroaders of coping with the effects of the job but his methods caused his reputation to extend beyond himself him a bit. Back at Felix’s place with a home he and friends had built board by board and brick by brick things were different.
“Well hi there. Won’t you come in?”
“Mrs. Loretta, good afternoon to you. Smells like a nice dinner you have cooking. As much as I’d love to hang around until dinner is served I’m quite busy today.” Loretta glances down at Franks small satchel at his side bristling with envelopes awaiting delivery.
“Oh heavens, I would say so yes!”
Frank double checked the writing on the envelope that read...
“F. T. Strawbridge
217 Sycamore Street”
He handed it to Loretta saying “It’s the Beltmoore. He should be home in time for festival Sunday. Could you sign here please?”
Once a signature was received on the company crew call roster sheet, Franks job had been done. He couldn’t ring the doorbell and run leaving an envelope at a door step no matter how much he’d love to do so in most cases. Passing the buck to another blindly would have been better than Christmas or at best rivaling a sinners prayer. The employees signature was required as this showed they were alive, functioning and breathing enough to sign their name thus signifying their acceptance and acknowledgment that they would report for work. In the 27 years of the Strawbridge calls, there was never an issue. Loretta’s signature was as good as gold in place of her husbands.
“If you happen to have any leftovers I’d gladly accept them at the festival. Hope to see you and Felix and the family there.”
Mrs. Strawbridge waved a farewell to Frank who left for his scaling of the town for another name on the roster and closed the door behind herself. She ambled back up to the bedroom to find Felix sitting at the edge of the bed groggily rubbing his eyes and yawning as he said “Well let me see the prize winnings today. Only Frank has a knock that sounds like a fat kid tiptoeing through a field of crunchy dried out daisies. Loretta, I do believe if you could learn his knock you could awaken my dead carcass to attend church with you some mornings. By the second day of his knocking, I knew it couldn’t be anyone else aside from him. Any other knock would have bored me into a deeper sleep.”
“Well, they are putting in the new telephone wires just a few blocks away. The storms last week took a lot of the phone lines out. Hopefully, ours will be back in service next week. Seems weird seeing railroads using crew call boys again. I’m sure as they make more and more headway poor Frank will have to find a new line of work. Maybe he will enlist in the Navy. He said he had been thinking about it and their motto ‘Join The Navy And See The World’ had appealed to him.”
“Dear. Doing what he’s doing right now....he’s seeing things he wouldn’t see no matter how many times he sailed around the earth. Especially if he gets out looking for Walt.”
Felix reached for his glasses as Loretta handed him the envelope oblivious to the plight of the one who delivered it. He asks how her day has been as he opens the envelope and pulled out the paper. Atop it was the company logo of a 5 pointed star representing the 5 states served by his employer's rails. He giggled softly as he wondered what a Jewish Star of David for a logo would look like being the “Starlight Route” recently bought a connecting shortline in an adjacent state bringing them up to 6. His great grandfather would approve.
“The 136....” Felix said to himself in puzzlement.
“Felix he said the Bigbee Turn.”
Felix glanced up at the ceiling then to the floor as he struggled to put two and two together from his just awakened slumber. The railroad gave their trains numbers but the locals and railroaders gave them names to better understand their whereabouts and “where’a’to’s.” Rarely did the numbers mean anything to the outsiders so the namesakes helped things along.
“Well, that won’t be a bad nights worth of work. Just hope the rain holds off until the morning. Those crossties and roadbed were already beyond sponge stage from soaking up the previous week's rain.”
A distant train whistle blew and from the sounds of it, it was not the one Felix would take the helm of. Another shouldn’t be heard for another few hours giving Felix no sense of urgency. A look at his orders on the paper confirmed his thoughts. Frank wouldn’t knock too soon and yet even though his on duty time was a few hours away the tempting thought of another hours rest would do little but result in useless tossing and turning.
“Well come on down and I’ll put some coffee on for you. Madeleine and the kids are here. Little John has been raving all afternoon how he wants to see his pa paw. He wants to hear some of your ‘tales from the rails’ “ Loretta says laughingly.
“Glad I didn’t want another nap,” Felix thought to himself in light of the circumstances but was glad of the news of company before work.
After a few moments, Felix came downstairs into the kitchen as his wife and daughter sat at the table with plates already in place. The grandfather passed a tall grandfather clock, an assortment of pictures of his honeymoon, vacations, family and of fellow Marine Corps buddies continuing past well-crafted hand made in America furniture from a shop just down the road a piece. His grandson and granddaughter giggled as they played with Felix’s cocker spaniel, Wendy. Felix poured a cup of coffee and sat at the head of the table as a light Indian summers breeze flowed through curtains in an opened window.
“Kids, come on, s....”
He hushed Madeline’s command bringing a puzzled look to her face. There was no need to rush right into the early dinner. Time was available for talk and catching up.
“Shhhhh, let 'em play a little longer.”
She smiled and rested her chin in the palm of her hand, fingers resting along her cheek while looking at her father as her black hair rested lazily on her shoulders.
“So, how've ya been dad?”
A glance over his glasses as he sipped down his coffee and crossed his eyes caused the two women to burst into laughter.
“Ahhh come on pa. Surely it hasn’t been that crazy!”
He placed the coffee cup down and let out a giggle.
“Nah, all is well. Just been busy lately. There’s always something to do around this place. Always something needing tending too. Just trying to do my part to keep your mother from being run ragged.”
Loretta smiled as she got up and walked to the stove and began bringing dinner to the table.
Felix glanced in his wife’s direction and back over to Madeleine. “So how’s life on your end?”
“Fine...fine...” said half-heartedly.
“Audrey and John have been doing well in school and the new job is going well. Mr. Wallace gave me a raise and says I can work all the hours I want if need be. With the holidays coming up there’ll be no shortage there. He and his wife have been most generous. They’ve been understanding and working around my night classes. I only have one more semester.”
Glancing over at the two youngest, Madeline continued. “They have seemed to accept it a little. While they were in school last week, I....”
Her soft red lips began to quiver as she began to fight back a sudden unexpected tear. She told Felix in a barely controlled sob, “I miss Donnie so much.”
Loretta eased to her daughter's side to lightly console her and to shield the glances of the two littlest ones in the room away from their mother's condition. Their laughter continued as Wendy ran back and forth across the living room unwittingly diverting their attention from their grief-stricken remaining parent caught in the snares of a seemingly empty questionable future. For the moment Wendy was welcomed comedy relief.
“I lay in the bed at night reaching for someone who isn’t there and stare at the ceiling or out the window at the stars at night. It seems no matter how deep I bury my head into the pillow the kids still hear my sobs. They come in asking me what is wrong and I don’t know what to tell them. Its been almost a year now and no matter how much I pace the floors praying for an answer or seeking hope I just come up empty handed. Why the hell did...”
Madeleine drifted off into even deeper tears.
Felix extended his hand across the table to Madeleine, taking her grip in his, he softly kissed and softly squeezed her hand rubbing his thumb slowly back and forth over the top of it.
Regaining her composure yet looking into the table as if into an abyss she softly said “Mom...dad...your help the past year has meant so much to me. Thank you.” She was afraid to look up and make eye contact for fear of another rush of sudden emotions.
Felix leaned back and took another sip of coffee. “Maggie....that help will continue to be there as long as your mother and I have breath in our bodies. We can’t begin to imagine what it must be like with Donald gone. But rest assured our help for you will never cease.”
After a pause, Felix opted to Maggie, “If you need to there are two empty rooms right up those stairs there behind you. I seem to recall one once being yours and the other one belonging to that knuckleheaded brother of yours. If you need to, you, John and Audrey are welcome to stay with us. Your mother and I have already discussed this. If it’s to help shoulder the burden of your loss or if it just feels right....you can stay as long as you want or need to. With your brother gone, my erratic long hours and days away from home...and well...now with Donald being gone...I’m sure you could both use one another’s company...”
Madeleine slowly raised her head looking up at her mother and over to her father. “Thank you. Things are ok but we’ll see. Thank you for a safe harbor.”
Assured Madeleine was ok, Loretta went back to prepping the dinner table as Felix got up to let Wendy outside. The children filed to the table as Felix came back to have a seat. The time ticked on.
After dinner was finished little John walked over to his grandfather gathering all of his work gear. He said nothing but watched intensely as Felix slipped on his work shoes and grabbed his shiny leather satchel containing rule books, time tables, forms, pens, pencils, one days worth of clothes and several outdated but interesting copies of National Geographic. About that time Madeleine came to gather John. John looked up at his mom. “But pa paw was going to tell me a story.” Felix winked at his daughter and nodded.
“John, I tell you what little buddy, I have to get down to the station and be ready to take a train out. So sadly I won’t have the time to do that but...”
Felix dug into his satchel and pulled out a new cellophane wrapped copy of The Little Golden Books “The Little Engine That Could” and handed it to John who shrieked with joy jumping up and down. He had bought it some time ago and was keeping it ready for just such an occasion.
“When pa paw can’t be here to tell you any stories perhaps mom or grandma will see fit to read you a few pages from this. That sound like a pretty good deal little fella?”
Madeleine held her arm out as John ran to his mother's side while Audrey was already on the other side. Felix wrapped them all in a hug as he excused himself to grab the last of his things. Loretta escorted them out as Felix fills his thermos with coffee. He glances out the window looking out at the ensemble of his family huddled together at Madeleine's car. Looking on as his family went about their business while work kept him frustratingly away at arm's length was nothing new. This was a scene he had repeated time and time again in his career. Yet Felix had just as well learned long ago to accept it. Luckily the family did too. Others weren’t as fortunate or conscientious. He turns his focus to gathering lunch from the suppers leftovers. Madeleine looks into the window seeing her fathers silhouette. She kisses her mother’s cheek and drives away.
“My word! You ate enough to sink a battleship earlier.” exclaimed Loretta as she closed the door looking on at Felix placing one piece of fried chicken after another in his lunchbox.
“What has gotten into you lately? Have you gotten a tapeworm?”
“Dear I would think at 49 my tapeworm days are quite well behind me.”
The couple looks at one another across the length of the kitchen and laugh as they walk towards one another. Loretta takes her man in her arms in a deep embrace.
“Do you think you’ll be back in time for the festival this weekend?
“Oh, I should be. If all goes well I should be back home tomorrow night around 10 or 11. When does that thing start again? I can’t remember.”
“10 Sunday morning.”
“Ok. I should be able to.”
After a deep sigh and kiss on his wife’s cheek Felix puts on his hat and grabs his thermos, lunchbox, and satchel then heads out the door in an exchange of I love you’s.
Felix starts down the sidewalk with this work and personal belongings for other means along with extra baggage in his hands as he walks to the depot a couple of miles away in town.
DuPlois is home to about 17,500 and its largest employer outside of the railroad is the old Westinghouse lightbulb and fixture facility. Both run 365/24/7 except holidays and both equally kept the town afloat as they dueled in noise making through out the little towns concert and brick blocked walls. Most of DuPlois offerings lie along the stretch of Highway 25 called “Main Street” that runs east/west before swinging back north at the edge of town near the river. Either side of it more or less could be shoppers galore. Jewelry, clothing, home redecoration and sportsman stores and the like along with book, musical instrument and record stores held things down a bit. The pleasant stream is rippled a bit by the mortgage and loan offices. Even after most of the businesses have closed for the day potential prospectors can be found window shopping. Felix would usually allow himself an extra few minutes time in his walk to work to gaze into the displays in the shop windows and loved doing so after many had closed as to not have to deal with a pushy salesman or eager loan officers preying upon ones hardships only to bury them further. Commission has to be made somewhere somehow. Sometimes he deliberately contemplated using a fly swatter to keep the pushy at bay. The parking meter maid plying the sidewalks felt the same vibe only glancing at his reflection in the shop widows to break his monotony to see if his foot bouncing kept things slim and trim. While most of the goings on around town could be heard at local bait shops, the bus stop, the depot, some hair salon or any given church steps, this was the financial epicenter. To Felix it felt like a cesspool.
The bell to the courthouse clock makes its announcement that it is 1:00 pm. Felix stops and pulls out his railroad issued pocket watch seeing its 12:57 pm.
He grumbles to himself “Next week it will be off by 4 minutes. Maybe by this time next year, it will be 24 hours off and I can claim an unearned payday or send a replica of myself in.” Tucking his watch in his pocket he walks into the local diner across the street.
“Bob lemme have two sandwiches. One ham and one turkey. Both all the way.”
Tommy Dorsey’s “I’m Getting Sentimental Over You“ plays on the radio as Bob ask “Felix how are things down there on the R and R?”
Felix giggles at Bob’s sarcastic monicker. “Anything but rest and relaxation that’s for sure. Since we acquired the Noxapater & Northern back last fall it’s been hectic. Hopefully, things will even out soon. And they are starting to. Not complaining much. The extra money has been nice indeed. Just glad we aren’t stretched as thin as we were.”
“Yes indeed...” Bob slowly says as he finishes wrapping the last sandwich in wax paper putting it in a brown bag.
“That’ll be 3 and 2 5 there Feely.”
—————————————————————
Felix slides a chair up to the large round gray wooden table located in the break area after placing all his belongings off to the side. If you were joked about and laughed about while being able to take the heat, you were in and welcomed to the table. If you weren’t you were either an unknown, an isolationist or a woeful man who had been excommunicated from their circle. Getting kicked out was easy. Getting back in was almost impossible. At the round table there was no score keeping for the card games but in stature and loyalty which earned you a seat there.
Having a loose tongue, having assed up on the job over and over, not heeding and utilizing the advice of old hand railroaders, showing less than stellar work ethics, betraying a fellow rail brother, trampling over others to become a company man without earning approval and respect beforehand...these were grounds for expulsion. It sometimes took years to get a seat at the table but a moment of stupidity could result in your seat being little more than a mere season ticket. To sit there was a privilege not lightly given. You better be a trustworthy soul that could be counted upon in ethics, ability and mentality. Passing the company pre hire exams was one thing but this was another beast entirely. Proving yourself in the field was harder. A seat would be waiting for you if you got it right. A satanic caricature of Mickey Mouse laid painted in the center of the table. Mickey held a pitch fork in one hand and an unfurled reversed facing scroll in the other that said “Before you sits the highest order of the lowest of the low. Where the crossroads of aptitude and attitude meet.” Impaled on his forked tail was a caricature of some smug man who could have well been a company official. Maybe it helped keep them honest by way of becoming a source of one another’s entertainment or enjoying each others comradeship.
The air was thick with smoke from Lucky Strikes and Chesterfields, the pungent smell of King Edward cigars and Prince Edward pipe tobacco. The sound of click and clacks not of the rails but of balls on the two pool tables just behind them could be heard along with opening and closing Zippo’s. Never mind the playing of dominoes and dice rattling in between. Any gaps in sound were filled in with the shuffling and dealing of cards. The clacking of cue balls were usually made by the outsiders with no place to go. Their table was the pool table. This area was located next to the wash and locker rooms, the constant sounds of shuffling feet from those coming and going from them rounded things out even further.
One could have been forgiven if they mistook the scene for a shady dance hall or watering hole. However this was inside the regional railroad's main depot that rested on a central division point of several rail lines converging upon it. A sign with the company logo had a statement that said all was fine and well with the arrangements so long as money never changed hands in the act of gambling or affected company operations. On the bottom edge of the sign were some rather tactful statements written countering other corporate points of view. The masses would have revolted if management had tampered in kind with dear old Mickey.
“You gonna draw sometime today? By the time you get around to it, I’ll be drawing my retirement.”
George shrugged off the comment and continued looking around the table at others conquest deciding methodically what move to make next.
“George...honestly...why don’t you go over there to Herb The Turd and take him up on a game of chess. That may be more up to par with your slow speed taking all day to get something done.”
“Bill, do you mean just here at the card table or at on the job as well?”
The table erupted into laughter but that quickly ended when George laid out a straight flush.
George smiled widely with a toothpick on one side of his mouth and a cigarette hanging out of the other. George could be a bit aggravating to work with because he seemed to assess everything about the job. But when it all fell together he could build up or break down a train rather well.
“Well, guys that’s it for me.”
Around the table sat railroaders of various crafts and capacities. It wasn’t uncommon for a few retirees to drift in and hang around as if the depot were a VFW post. This evening was no exception. As George walked out looking to see if his train had arrived the eyes around the table gazed over to one of retired hanger on’s who’d occasionally stop in to hang out with their former brethren.
“Ellis you sure spend a lot of time around here for someone who said they wanted no part of this mess when they started drawing their pennies.”
“Pennies are right!” Ellis challenges in a gruff bark.
“You pay in a dollar and by the time you retire it may as well be a few pennies that you get back.”
“Awww hush Ellis! No one at home wanna hear you bitching anymore? You’ll run off the new hires with that tone. If you haven’t heard we’re short-handed as it stands. If you run them away I’m gonna make your retired ass mark back up on the board!”
“Yeah, Elly. Why aren’t you at home anyway?”
“What for? All I’ve got is that naggy baggy wife of mine and 6 kids....well it was 6 when I last counted.”
“And you wonder how she got that way?!”
“Ok boys. Here here. I know just the thing for him. We need to take up some money for poor old down in his luck Elly. What Elly needs is a television. He needs some entertainment. By gosh, if you put a TV in that house maybe poor 'ol Margret could get a break from childbearing.”
The room exploded with yet another round of laughter. Felix took off his glasses to wipe away the tears from the result of a hysterical direct hit to his senses. Even Ellis couldn’t help but chuckle at the proposition.
Dale who launched into the comical tirade looked over at Felix exclaiming “Man down!”
The atmosphere around the depot and roundhouse could have an almost prison feel to it. Not in the sense of being locked up. But in the sense of the large concrete and cinder block walls, easy on the eyes green paint though dimly lit, the heavy smell of oil and warm electrical cabinets humming providing power to the adjacent mechanical building.
There were however the foremen, yard masters, train masters, division and district superintendents who may as well been wardens. Understandably a screw up from someone underneath their wings would result in stress. They couldn’t be an everyone everywhere at once person. They had to have faith in their troops in the field. But the troops in the field had to have faith in them. So long as things were an equal measure there was no argument. Gilding the lily.
But it seemed some among the upper echelons were either power hungry and loved to smear their positions in the faces of the ones they guided or tried to brow beat them to their benefit losing touch with reality along the way. A fantasy land pedestal. The higher up you were the more weight your voice had. A broken olive branch meant little. There were plenty among the ‘foremanintendents’ who were all too happy to convey their sentences upon others. Some were fair, some seemed to have been spawned from Satan himself. Others amongst their rank claimed God was showing off when he created them. Resentment and hatred ran rampant on both sides of the wielding swords.
“Anyone here want to clue me in as to what that means?”
Oliver Pope took a draw off his pipe then pointed it to the door leading to the yard office. Felix glanced over and looked above the door to see written in blue chalk..
“ARBEIT MACHT FREI!”
“Well Mr. Pope, I have to say I’m at a loss on this diatribe.”
Pope walked closer and pulled out a note pad and jotted the phrase down.
“You guys can write all the sinister comical messages you want. Have your laughs. But when I find out what this says in Latin you had better hope for the sake of the pen weasel that this isn’t an anti-company statement. ”
“I’m sorry you can’t pat Dale on top of the head like a loyal follower but he gyrates like a fish out of water when playing that tune” retorts an on looker.
Yet another round of united laughter filled the entire room in opinion as the door closed behind a fuming Pope. Their disdain ejected him. His persona was shot down again.
“You’d think being that’s in the same vein seemingly of his managements role model. Surely he ought to know what it is” Felix quips.
Dale ends playing “Ride Of The Valkyries” on his harmonica as Pope removes his presence. Felix shakes his head cutting his eyes away from Dale.
“I really don’t get that guy” Felix says looking at the floor.
“He’s like one of those people who won’t take a bite off of their plate unless the T.V. or some radio show is on. They’ll even stop eating until some commercial break is over then go back to putting some steak or greasy cheeseburger away.”
Dale looks at Felix as if watching a leaf floating down a river.
“Some people just don’t want to do anything unless they have some sense of entertainment for their entitled ego.”
After trying to come to terms with Pope’s latest flared ulcers or at least flared ego the duo of Felix and Dale leave from the table and walk over to the bulletin and train order boards. Above it is the company clock with the official railroad time displayed which is in use across the railroads of the nation and beyond.
Felix looks down at his pocket watch and over at Dale as he checks his wristwatch then up to the company clock.
“Yep. The county courthouse is off a bit.”
“You too eh?” prods Dale.
“I noticed that earlier on the way in..”
Dale nods in agreement as they both turn for the yard office. They hang around waiting on the clerk to return. Frank is back for a short break in his evening searches. He assures the duo that the other 3 who’ll make up his train crew were notified. Of them, one’s pending presence is still questionable.
“Hey guys, what can I do for ya?”
“Yeah just here to grab the work and train orders for 136. Any idea where she’s at at the moment?”
The clerk walks over asking the dispatcher the last logged position. “Yessir at Cogswell.”
They turn and head back for the roundhouse and walk outside
Two of 136’s new crew, Desmond and Stan walk up to Dale and Felix as they get out of Stan’s car.
“Anyone around here seen Walt? 136 is about 10 miles out.”
Felix pokes his head in the break area as Stan gives Walt’s last known whereabouts.
“When we passed the Red Rooster he was standing outside with some fellas. Looked like he was having quite the time too. He seemed in no hurry but heck you can’t ever tell with that guy if he’s gonna show or not. How in the world ol’ scumbag gets away with what he does is beyond me!”
Desmond offers his take. “He had to done seen some executive or boss doing something they ain’t sposed to be doin’. Good lawd, maybe quite a few of skeletons in the closet he be done seen. I notice though each time he be act up, they like they be scared of him or something. Ain’t no way anyone else would gedda way with that sort’o stuff. Ain’t no way. There ain’t no way.”
Just as Desmond brings his insight to a halt, Walt’s distinctive laugh and cackling could be heard behind them as he came up joking wildly and loudly with a couple of the baggage handlers.
The three men turn to look as Walt carries on with his cajoling with the guy trying to get the bags in the baggage car but being hindered.
Almost having arisen from the ground at the trio's feet, Pope seemed to turn every shade of red possible. He looks Walt up and down who’s far from dressed for duty holding up others going about their work. It seemed as if Pope would self incinerate into ashes and blow away at any second with wind that carried carried away the smoke from Dale’s pipe who’s eyes were widened like watching an approaching tornado with no where to flee.
“Walt! Get the hell over here boy and leave those men alone. Stop holding up my trains. You’re holding up those men and your scraggly butt is far from ready for work!”
Walt snaps his head around with a confused look on his face as he walks up stopping arms length away in front of Pope.
“From the smell of things I can’t decipher between your stench between from an unwashed ass or the alcohol on your breath escaping from your pores that you’re ready to get at it.”
Pope glares intently searching for further reasons to humiliate Walt deeper for his own enjoyment.
“Mornin’ the Pappy Pope. Do you see a kid out here? I don’t. Who ya think ya yellin’ at like that?”
“You got a problem with authority? You looking for work?”
“Well...I got a problem with those with a silver spoon up their butt. I have a problem with brown nosed, backstabbing cutthroats who played others like a fiddle to get where they are. Authority. No. No problem with authority here. Authority figures? Anything is plausible.”
Felix shouted as he sprinted up “Walt! Knock it off!”
“Pope if you wanna chop things, why don’t ya take your butt over in those woods there. I’m sure there’s an axe ‘round here somewhere. See if you can figure out what wood to chop out there instead of here! You might even make some friends with the local wildlife. I’m sure some of your forked tongued relatives are slithering around in there.! You sorry m...” The words only ceased so Walt could land a plop of tobacco browned spit at Popes feet.
Pope looked down in an embarrassing horror to see if his white polished shoes were browned then gazed slowly up to Walt.
“If they chew spearmint they are catholic. If they chew wintergreen they are Methodist. If they chew peppermint they are Baptist’s. If they chew cinnamon they are Pentecostal. True fire warriors. The lazy they just chew fruit flavored. A mindless wild card . If they chewed any of it while they were in school they were backsliders. So Pope? Do ya think you’re a real man chewing gum or do ya wanna dive headlong into hell with some Beechnut chewer? You don’t have a soul ya sack of shit. A cockroach chewing on shit is more noble than you are! Show us who ya really are Pope!”
Felix slid between the two just at the first millisecond of the pause before the duo’s riled minds could send signals to ball up let alone swing a fist.
“Walt! I said knock it off. That’s enough!”
Pope folded his arms together angrily glaring back and forth into Felix and Walt’s eyes looking as if a bloodthirsty wolf, the very semblance of what Pope was.
“Lemme tell ya what stank ass. I’m tired of your flippant ass attitude and flippant ass work ethic! You’re like a cockroach. Unpleasant and unwanted, you pop up out of nowhere! I dunno if squashing you would put you out of your misery. It damn sure would put me out of mine! So help me if you delay another one of my trains you’ll be kicked beneath pan handling breadline hell. From the looks of things a monkey could do your job.”
The whistle of 136 blowing for the crossing just north of the depot calmly quieted the dispute.
Felix grabbed Walt by the arm leading him away to the depot's platform.
The others watch as Pope walks away fuming. Desmond with his slow heavy Mississippi drawl testifies to the others, “See there. Say I ain’t toldja. Ain’t no way. Ain’t no way.”
As they and others look on in shock and disbelief, others adored the episode that exploded before them. For whatever it was Walt could get away with and why was of no concern to them. They relished that Pope was getting his position made fun of, was being called out to light and more so not behind his back but directly to his face. Pope was known for throwing a fist to assert his alpha status and getting away with it but compared to Walt, it was no contest. The Pope’s best would have been nursery rhyme compared to anything Walt would have done just for mere starters. Walt wasn’t going to be shamed like some kid who had to explain to his parents why he chose shit himself to avoid the gym class he disdained.
Most of the train service crews equally despised both of them but to choose sides meant leaning towards Walt who was the wildest amongst them who’s tirades were true and honest. Pope unleashed his upon the undeserving or to weed out the ones who cared little to placate his inflated persona. This event didn’t need the judge, bailiff, and jury. Both were labeled as being lower than whale shit the deepest depth of the ocean. Seeing the Pope hunkered down was better than a cold beer on a hot summers evening to the on lookers.
Dale walks over to the duo to get things underway as the thunder subsided. Playing cards with apathy had to be done by someone. Differences aside there was a job to be done.
“Walt, go on and get ready and we’ll go over the 136 while you do that.”
As Walt heads inside Dale cuts his eyes to Felix and mutters quietly himself, “Take a bath while you’re at it.”
“If his mouth doesn’t get him thrown outta here then his hygiene certainly could.”
“For all my late night soul searching and daily misunderstandings I still could always come up with an answer for my short comings if I stared them down enough. To me that man is a damn enigma at its finest.” Felix ponders aloud to himself as he watches Walt slide back inside a doorway hoping privately that the man is too naive to the self imposed torture he creates for himself.
“Maybe he’s just hiding or running from something” Dale sighs.
“Yeah no point in blaming myself if he won’t face his demons. Hell at least he’s here. Guess that’s good enough.”
Dale slowly takes a draw from his pipe as he looks over the paperwork and train orders as Stan, Desmond and Felix head over to the previous crew of 136 still holding down their post. They go over what work is left and what the evenings trip will lay out before them. Felix talks to Harold the fellow departing engineer and head end crew. Walt should be present but as so typical he’s busy with other matters.
After a few moments their huddle breaks as one group heads for the train and the other heads inside for home. As soon Harold opens the door leading into the break area there’s the sound of loud upset voices and the like.
“What in the....?”
“Harold, what is it?”
“Feely, you ain’t gonna believe this.”
Felix sticks his head around the door and looking across the break area into the washroom stands a butt naked Walt scrubbing himself with a bar of soap from a waist high sink with wet soapy hair and no proper way to rinse. Felix drops his head and sighs deeply.
It begins to dawn upon Walt that he’s the center of attention.
“Walt! What in the Sam Hill are you doing?”
“Dale said for me to take a bath or I could lose my job. All the showers in here are full. Just doing my part.”
Walt looks around at the passerby’s.
“Any you got any lizard green? Lustereen?”
“Listerine Walt!”
“Yeah. That stuff. Uncle Dale said my mouth was a problem too.”
———————————————————————————
Once all were aboard Felix knocked off the brakes after the signal to proceed was given.
From both sides of the locomotive cab, Walt and Felix in unison call “Green board” after having gazed at the tricolored lights for several minutes anticipating their next move.
The sound of hissing air fills the cab only for its last remnants of protest to be drowned out by the sudden guttural roar as the engine digs in to move its burden. Felix doesn’t rush things on as a patient hand beats an eager hand any time. Even if it holds together it will scarcely move any meaningful inch. The engine bucks and slips momentarily. Felix is as careful and understanding with the throttle as he is with his own Loretta. Finessing is key. Overdoing things will just break the train apart causing delay and extra work.
A steady stream of smoke and sparks quickly exit the exhaust stacks as things get more vocal yet still slowly responsive. Walt leans out the window looking backwards for any signs of trouble. The two locomotives give their all as they dig in and claw forward. The gut hitting throb sang deeply as the organized chaos began to put on its show. The slack between cars tightened as wheel after wheel began to move. The snap of draft gear, couplers snapping together, clacks of wheels hitting joints and hollow booms from empty cars in the train began to fill the air. The parade had begun. The metal snake is coming to life.
Felix kept an eye on the ammeter only adding further fuel to the caged beast as the needle dropped comfortably away from the red. The snake was writhing.
Stan’s voice comes over the radio, “Rolling on the tail end” as Desmond can be heard mumbling in the background. The ace in the hole had been found. Old Sure Hand had done it again. In all of his years of getting a train out and over the road, Felix never busted a train in half no matter the territory, standing still or with an ill handling train. No one train was the same but Felix knew better than to be over eager or just plain stupid with his hand at the throttle. He never felt he had an image to upkeep nor did he ever dabble in competition with others among his rank. He was just that good at what he did.
With knowledge in hand that his train is in one piece Felix notches out the throttle a little more. His eyes dart from ammeter, the track ahead and speedometer while slapping the bell ringer in and blowing for the crossing just south of the roundhouse. He tips his hat at a few lookers on standing in a trackside parking lot. Any kids who weren’t watching were aspiring of other careers. To the kids who looking on in awe, these guys were their heroes. All the comic book heroes other kids emulated were nothing compared the rulers of the steel beast. They were their masters of the universe. Somewhere inside they couldn’t wait to grow up and shine the rails themselves.
As the train reaches 10 miles per hour Felix notches back on the throttle and holds at 10 as they waddle out of the yard, engine swaying side to side along with the occupants of its seats.
Felix notices a stick of blue chalk.
“Who’s is that?” as he glares at it rolling around on the floor.
“Beats me!”
He looks over at Walt frantically feeling around outside of his pockets to see if his blue saber was still there.
“Walt? You got some kind of an itch or something? I told you about picking those bad apples hanging around Eden.”
“Feely....just put your hands back on the steering wheel and drive.”
“Pope said you’re handy work was written in Latin. We didn’t tell him any different.”
They both smirk as the train rolls out of the yard.
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Once the tail end of 136 clears the confines of the yard at DuPlois, Stan’s voice comes over the radio giving confirmation. Once that staticky crackle goes silent Felix leans into the throttle gaining momentum for an eventual climb down the rails. Despite pulling only a 51 car train, any momentum would help as Felix would have to battle an ascending S curve a few miles out of DuPlois which began a gradual dive at the other end tapering off into a long straight flat run for most of the way.
Behind the 136 is the pride of the company, their passenger train The Bluebird but known as the “BB” for short to many. More than one celebrity and a handful of Presidents had ridden the BB as the train was renowned for its class, luxury and service and none of the companies other passenger trains held the prestige of this torch bearer.
Any other time the lowly 136 would have waited for the BB to depart DuPlois and slither out behind it. However a delay a few towns back had it running far enough behind that the 136 was told to make Elmstadt siding and hold there some 40 miles away as the BB should be catching up by that point. It was all up to Felix.
Felix pulls one more notch into the growling beast as his train enters into first leg of the S curve. As the snake threads itself through the steel ribbons Walt again leans out the window looking back to the rolling wheels behind him for any signs of trouble. Just as the train curves into the other direction he tells Felix all was well. Felix begins toying with the air and throttle, manipulation of both as needed as his train starts it’s decent downgrade.
Felix looks back at his train anxious to see the caboose come out onto the straight away onto the flat straight away. When he turns back around there will be more throttle and no air brakes for the rest of the way until Elmstadt siding.
“Stan? Y’all hunkered down back there?”
“Yessiree we are.”
Felix throws the throttle wide open. With the BB breathing down their back this is the stretch that will give the 136 the rare opportunity to run at speeds reserved purely for company varnish.
Before their target siding lies the town of Elmstadt proper. As a coincidence 136 just happens to be polishing the rails at the exact same time the tardy Bluebird otherwise would be.
Before the station lies a curve with where a highway crossing runs interference.
Being a Friday evening the station platform is jammed with eager passengers ready to leave the confines of small town life and head for the concrete and neon jungles or just simply getting away or even further to put something behind them hoping to find another something somewhere beyond. The Bluebird was their savior for better or worse.
Almost on cue the grade crossing lights at the highway began to flash their message as the bell began to testify its warning. The passengers rushed to the edge of the platform to ready to board their savior.
Instead of the BB that would be slowing as it rounded the corner they were greeted with a speeding freight.
Felix laid into the horn blaring against the onrushing wind as the train roared around the curve drawing a bead on the station and platform. Before anyone had any scant chance of rushing back, the 136 descended upon them as if a beast sprung loose from the depths of hell. So much for their savior.
Walt looked back as they sped past in concern for the masses safety but laughed hysterically.
“Walt? What’s so funny?!”
Struggling to regain his composure he replied to Felix’s inquiry...
“In a swirl of newspapers and hats blown off heads I do believe I saw every shade of underskirts there could be from all those dresses flying up! It looked like the paper boy exploded in a clothing store!”
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
After having allowed the Blue Bird to stampede past them, the 136 ambles on into the low evening light as it arrives at Phoenix Creek to make pick up and set outs for a nearby industry. Stan and Desmond climb down from their perches into the thick oppressive humid summer evening to begin their first part of work as fireflies dance aimlessly casting their lights into the nearing darkness. After a few minutes a man, woman and their daughter come out from a tent in the woods and up to the tracks looking up to the cab of the locomotive.
Walt steps down from the engine and turns looking up as Felix hands down a bag full of food taken from home by himself and others among the crew. As Felix follows Walt, the small family walks closer. Walt passes off the bag and a $20 bill from his own pocket.
“Guys we really appreciate it. How we’d made it without you we don’t know. We hate to ask anymore of you considering all you’ve done.”
“Don’t worry about it. That’s what we do.”
Ben’s wife and daughter carry the care packages back to their tent as he and the others look on. Its a half lit area thick with trees and heavy kudzu and on days like today with heavy clouds, one could never know if it were just after sunrise or just before sunset unless they had a watch. For those among the woods here, telling time was set only by campfires set to cook the 3 daily meals and at best just once was a moment too few and far between. That was only when time meant the most to them. Smelling only fresh blooming honey suckles instead of sizzling bacon or boiling stew let the crew of 136 know that their offerings had arrived at a needed moment. The fireflies floating in the light breeze were about the only clock available letting one know nightfall was just around the corner.
Ben had been a fellow rail brother who lost his job with the railroad. With 7 years of service on the rails, he was never late, performed his duties with excellence and without grumble. For two years in a row right up to his termination he was deemed best employee on his district. One day as he reported to work he was fired and no reason was given. The matter was a mystery to everyone. Having lost his job and fallen on hard times during an economic downturn, he was unable to find work of any meaningful kind and looking further abroad was impossible. One by one the dominos fell until he and his family became squatters roaming the land. Eventually they ended up living along the tracks with a few others in search of work.
During a late night switching move, Ben creeped up out of the darkness upon Desmond and Stan. Looking for food and seeking employment he was desperate but his approach scared the two workers so bad they stuck him down beating him until he questioned aloud with a voice familiar to them if this is how they treated all rail brothers. Realizing their mistake and shining their lanterns upon him, they stood him up and brushed him off amongst a flurry of apologies. Shoot first and ask questions later had became the law of the land in the area riddled with economic woes and shady dwellers. They knew of Ben from another local railroad but in the inky darkness he could just as well been another over eager panhandler ready to make off with their wallets.
From that night on the crew of that nights 136 made a vow to look after him and the others as best they could. They were a source to Felix’s sudden tapeworms and gained his unopened army tent stollen on a dare during his stint in the Marines for their homestead. Ben would help them with work secretly along their route in order to meet what he felt were their charitable contributions. They never asked or welcomed him to do so but his persistence prevailed. Worried some railroad officers would notice an extra man on the playing field, they had a reason for their reservations. Ben however knew when to become a phantom. That along with his skill built their trust.
“Ben, why don’t you come down to DuPlois and talk to Murray about a job?”
“I don’t feel like that life again.”
“Do what?! You do pretty good at it.”
“I’m only trying repay your kindness.”
“We’ve told you that you don’t have to. Kindness is doing something without expecting a pay back.”
“Well still...”
“Still what? You wanna keep living like this? Why don’t you go try.”
“Because of Pope! That’s good and damn well why. I couldn’t put up with what y’all do.”
“His time is coming. That’s for sure.”
“Oh bull crap! You know how long that’s been said? I’d rather count nails in a burlap sack for 50 years than to have a step on step off job on his railroad for one night. He’s a snake and has blood on his fangs. If you want to call them hands then I’ll leave that up to you. One day y’all are gonna see it”
“We can’t support you and the others forever.”
“I’m not asking you to. There’s just no way I’m coming out there. A man has got to know his limitations and I know mine. Pope has smeared my name and no other railroad will touch me. If I got a gig with y’all I’d kill him the second my eyes saw him. I’d be a boundary he wouldn’t want to reckon with. Maybe hiding in his shadow is best for me.”
(Continuation & Editing Pause. This reading is posted here merely for the benefit of personal friends and family and if you’ve stumbled across it out of boredom please overlook my meanderings. It’s just a simple writing exercise and nothing more and written totally on the fly as the whim to do so strikes me. It’s not presented in it’s final form nor is it meant to be a professional writing by any means. If you enjoy it so though far I’d love to hear your comments even if I end up mortified by them ; )
A good thing continues
Some six months ago, I posted almost 100 images and a few thoughts I felt were missing from the many existing RX1 reviews. The outpouring of support and interest in that article was very gratifying. When I published, I had used the camera for six full months, enough time to come to a view of its strengths and weaknesses and to produce a small portfolio of good images, but not enough time to see the full picture (pun intended). In the following six months, I have used the camera at least as frequently as in the first six and have produced another small set of good images. It should be noted that my usage of the RX1 in the last six (and especially in the last 3) months has involved less travel and more time with the family and around the house; I will share relatively few of these images but will spend some time sharing my impressions of its functionality for family snapshots as I am sure there is some interest. And let it be said here: one of the primary motivations to purchase the camera was to take more photos with the family, and after one full year I can confidently say: money well spent.
The A7/r game-changer?
In the past six months, Sony have announced and released two full-frame, interchangeable lens cameras that clearly take design cues from the RX1: the A7 and the A7r. These cameras are innovative and highly capable and, as such, are in the midst of taking the photography world by storm. I think they are compelling enough cameras that I wonder whether Sony is wasting its energy continuing to develop further A-mount cameras. Sony deserve credit for a bold strategy—many companies would have been content to allow the success of the the RX1 (and RX1R) generate further sales before pushing further into the white space left unexplored by camera makers with less ambition.This is not the place to detail the relative advantages and disadvantages of the RX1 versus the A7/r except to make the following point. I currently use a Nikon D800 and an RX1: were I to sell both and purchase the A7r + 35mm f/2.8 I would in many ways lose nothing by way of imaging capability or lens compatibility but would pocket the surplus $1250-1750. Indeed this loyal Nikon owner thought long and hard about doing so, which speaks to the strategic importance of these cameras for a company trying to make inroads into a highly concentrated market.Ultimately, I opted to hang onto the two cameras I have (although this decision is one that I revisit time and time again) and continue to use them as I have for the past year. Let me give you a quick flavor of why.
The RX1 is smaller and more discrete
This is a small a point, but my gut reaction to the A7/r was: much smaller than the D800, not as small as the RX1. The EVF atop the A7/r and the larger profile of interchangeable mount lenses means that I would not be able to slip the A7/r into a pocket the way I can the RX1. Further, by virtue of using the EVF and its loud mechanical shutter, the A7/r just isn’t as stealthy as the RX1. Finally, f/2 beats the pants off of f/2.8 at the same or smaller size.At this point, some of you may be saying, “Future Sony releases will allow you to get a body without an EVF and get an f/2 lens that has a slimmer profile, etc, etc.” And that’s just the point: to oversimplify things, the reason I am keeping my RX1 is that Sony currently offers something close to an A7 body without a built-in EVF and with a slimmer profile 35mm f/2.
The D800 has important functional advantages
On the other side of the spectrum, the AF speed of the A7/r just isn’t going to match the D800, especially when the former is equipped with a Nikon lens and F-mount adapter. EVFs cannot yet match the experience of looking through the prism and the lens (I expect they will match soon, but aren’t there yet). What’s more, I have made such an investment in Nikon glass that I can’t yet justify purchasing an adapter for a Sony mount or selling them all for Sony’s offerings (many of which aren’t to market yet).Now, all of these are minor points and I think all of them disappear with an A8r, but they add up to something major: I have two cameras very well suited to two different types of shooting, and I ask myself if I gain or lose by getting something in between—something that wasn’t quite a pocket shooter and something that was quite a DSLR? You can imagine, however, that if I were coming to the market without a D800 and an RX1, that my decision would be far different: dollar for dollar, the A7/r would be a no-brainer.During the moments when I consider selling to grab an A7r, I keep coming back to a thought I had a month or so before the RX1 was announced. At that time I was considering something like the NEX cameras with a ZM 21mm f/2.8 and I said in my head, “I wish someone would make a carry-around camera with a full frame sensor and a fixed 35mm f/2.8 or f/2.” Now you understand how attractive the RX1 is to me and what a ridiculously high bar exists for another camera system to reach.
Okay, so what is different from the last review?
For one, I had an issue with the camera’s AF motor failing to engage and giving me an E61:00 error. I had to send it out to Sony for repairs (via extended warranty and service plan). I detailed my experience with Sony Service here [insert link] and I write to you as a very satisfied customer. That is to say, I have 3 years left on a 4 year + accidental damage warranty and I feel confident enough in that coverage to say that I will have this beauty in working order for at least another 3 years.For two, I’ve spent significantly less time thinking of this camera as a DSLR replacement and have instead started to develop a very different way of shooting with it. The activation barrier to taking a shot with my D800 is quite high. Beyond having to bring a large camera wherever you go and have it in hand, a proper camera takes two hands and full attention to produce an image. I shoot slowly and methodically and often from a tripod with the D800. In contrast, I can pull the RX1 out, pop off the lens cap, line up and take a shot with one hand (often with a toddler in the other). This fosters a totally different type of photography.
My “be-there” camera
The have-everywhere camera that gives DSLR type controls to one-handed shooting lets me pursue images that happen very quickly or images that might not normally meet the standards of “drag-the-DSLR-out-of-the-bag.” Many of those images you’ll see on this post. A full year of shooting and I can say this with great confidence: the RX1 is a terrific mash-up of point-and-shoot and DSLR not just in image quality and features, but primarily in the product it helps me create. To take this thinking a bit further: I find myself even processing images from the RX1 differently than I would from my DSLR. So much so that I have strongly considered starting a tumblr and posting JPEGs directly from the RX1 via my phone or an iPad rather than running the bulk of them through Lightroom, onto Flickr and then on the blog (really this is just a matter of time, stay tuned, and those readers who have experience with tumblr, cloud image storage and editing, etc, etc, please contact me, I want to pick your brain).Put simply, I capture more spontaneous and beautiful “moments” than I might have otherwise. Photography is very much an exercise in “f/8 and be there,” and the RX1 is my go-to “be there” camera.
The family camera
I mentioned earlier that I justified the purchase of the RX1 partly as a camera to be used to document the family moments into which a DSLR doesn’t neatly fit. Over the past year I’ve collected thousands and thousands of family images with the RX1. The cold hard truth is that many of those photos could be better if I’d taken a full DSLR kit with me to the park or the beach or the grocery store each time. The RX1 is a difficult camera to use on a toddler (or any moving subject for that matter); autofocus isn’t as fast as a professional DSLR, it’s difficult to perfectly compose via an LCD (especially in bright sunlight), but despite these shortcomings, it’s been an incredibly useful family camera. There are simply so many beautiful moments where I had the RX1 over my shoulder, ready to go that whatever difficulties exist relative to a DSLR, those pale in comparison to the power of it’s convenience. The best camera is the one in your hand.
Where to go from here.
So what is the value of these RX1 going forward, especially in a world of the A7/r and it’s yet-to-be-born siblings without an EVF and a pancake lens? Frankly, at its current price (which is quite fair when you consider the value of the the body and the lens) I see precious little room for an independent offering versus a mirrorless, interchangeable lens system with the same image quality in a package just as small. That doesn’t mean Sony won’t make an RX2 or an RX1 Mark II (have a look at it’s other product lines to see how many SKUs are maintained despite low demand). Instead, I see the RX1 as a bridge that needed to exist for engineers, managers, and the market to make it to the A7/r and it’s descendants.A Facebook friend recently paid me a great compliment; he said something like, “Justin, via your blog, you’ve sold a ton of RX1 cameras.” Indeed, despite my efforts not to be a salesman, I think he’s right: I have and would continue to recommend this camera.The true value of the RX1 going forward is for those of us who have the thing on our shoulders; and yes, if you have an investment in and a love for a DSLR system, there’s still tremendous value in getting one, slinging it over your shoulder, and heading out into the wide, bright world; A7/r or no, this is just an unbelievably capable camera.
Cape Clear Co.Cork 13-10-2019
Scientific classification
Kingdom:Animalia
Phylum:Chordata
Class:Aves
Order:Passeriformes
Family:Vireonidae
Genus:Vireo
Species:V. olivaceus
Binomial name
Vireo olivaceus
Call
A series of short, musical, robin-like phrases endlessly repeated; like that of Blue-headed Vireo but faster and not so musical.
FamilyVireos
HabitatWoodlands, shade trees, groves. Breeds in deciduous and mixed forest, occasionally in conifers. Also well wooded suburbs, orchards, parks. Prefers open woods with undergrowth of saplings, clearings or edges of burns, areas along streams in solid forest, or prairie groves. Winters in lowland tropical forest in South America.
One of the most numerous summer birds in eastern woods. It is not the most often seen, because it tends to stay out of sight in the leafy treetops, searching methodically among the foliage for insects. However, its song -- a series of short, monotonous phrases, as if it were endlessly asking and answering the same question -- can be heard constantly during the nesting season, even on hot summer afternoons.
Feeding Behaviour
Forages in trees by picking insects from foliage and from undersides of leaves and flowers, often while hovering momentarily.
Eggs
4, sometimes 3-5. White with brown or black spots near large end. Incubation is by female only, 11-14 days. Frequently parasitized by cowbirds; rarely deters cowbirds by burying their eggs under a second floor of nest. Young: Nestlings are fed by both parents. Young leave the nest 10-12 days after hatching.
Young
Nestlings are fed by both parents. Young leave the nest 10-12 days after hatching.
Diet
Mostly insects; also berries. In summer feeds mainly on insects, including caterpillars, moths, beetles, wasps, bees, ants, bugs, flies, walkingsticks, cicadas, treehoppers, scale insects; also some snails and spiders. Also eats many berries, especially in late summer, including those of Virginia creeper, sumac, elderberry, blackberry, dogwood, many other. In winter in the tropics, may feed heavily on berries and small fruit.
Nesting
Male sings persistently throughout the day during the breeding season. In courtship, male displays to female with feathers sleeked down, swaying body and head from side to side; both birds then vibrate wings simultaneously. Nest: Placed usually 5-30' above the ground, sometimes 2-60' up, in deciduous shrub or sapling. Nest (built by female) is a compact, dainty cup, with its rim woven onto a horizontal forked twig. Made of strips of bark, grass stems, weeds, rootlets, spiderwebs, and cocoons.
The water buffalo or domestic Asian water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) is a large bovid originating in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and China. Today, it is also found in Europe, Australia, and some American countries. The wild water buffalo (Bubalus arnee) native to Southeast Asia is considered a different species, but most likely represents the ancestor of the domestic water buffalo.
Two extant types of water buffalo are recognized based on morphological and behavioural criteria – the river buffalo of South Asia and further west to the Balkans, Egypt, and Italy, and the swamp buffalo, found from Assam in the west through Southeast Asia to the Yangtze valley of China in the east. The origins of the domestic water buffalo types are debated, although results of a phylogenetic study indicate that the swamp type may have originated in China and was domesticated about 4,000 years ago, while the river type may have originated from India and was domesticated about 5,000 years ago. Water buffalo were traded from the Indus Valley Civilisation to Mesopotamia, in modern Iraq, 2500 BC by the Meluhhas. The seal of a scribe employed by an Akkadian king shows the sacrifice of water buffalo.
At least 130 million domestic water buffalo exist, and more human beings depend on them than on any other domestic animal. They are especially suitable for tilling rice fields, and their milk is richer in fat and protein than that of dairy cattle. The large feral population of northern Australia became established in the late 19th century, and smaller feral herds are in New Guinea, Tunisia, and northeastern Argentina. Feral herds are also present in New Britain, New Ireland, Irian Jaya, Papua New Guinea, Colombia, Guyana, Suriname, Brazil, and Uruguay.
CHARACTERISTICS
The skin of river buffalo is black, but some specimens may have dark, slate-coloured skin. Swamp buffalo have a grey skin at birth, but become slate blue later. Albinoids are present in some populations. River buffalo have comparatively longer faces, smaller girths, and bigger limbs than swamp buffalo. Their dorsal ridges extend further back and taper off more gradually. Their horns grow downward and backward, then curve upward in a spiral. Swamp buffalo are heavy-bodied and stockily built; the body is short and the belly large. The forehead is flat, the eyes prominent, the face short, and the muzzle wide. The neck is comparatively long, and the withers and croup are prominent. A dorsal ridge extends backward and ends abruptly just before the end of the chest. Their horns grow outward, and curve in a semicircle, but always remain more or less on the plane of the forehead. The tail is short, reaching only to the hocks. Height at withers is 129–133 cm for males, and 120–127 cm for females. They range in weight from 300–550 kg, but weights of over 1,000 kg have also been observed.
Tedong bonga is a black pied buffalo featuring a unique black and white colouration that is favoured by the Toraja of Sulawesi.
The swamp buffalo has 48 chromosomes; the river buffalo has 50 chromosomes. The two types do not readily interbreed, but fertile offspring can occur. Buffalo-cattle hybrids have not been observed to occur, and the embryos of such hybrids do not reach maturity in laboratory experiments.
The rumen of the water buffalo has important differences from that of other ruminants. It contains a larger population of bacteria, particularly the cellulolytic bacteria, lower protozoa, and higher fungi zoospores. In addition, higher rumen ammonia nitrogen (NH4-N) and higher pH have been found as compared to those in cattle
ECOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR
River buffalo prefer deep water. Swamp buffalo prefer to wallow in mudholes which they make with their horns. During wallowing, they acquire a thick coating of mud. Both are well adapted to a hot and humid climate with temperatures ranging from 0 °C in the winter to 30 °C and greater in the summer. Water availability is important in hot climates, since they need wallows, rivers, or splashing water to assist in thermoregulation. Some breeds are adapted to saline seaside shores and saline sandy terrain.
DIET
Water buffalo thrive on many aquatic plants and during floods, will graze submerged, raising their heads above the water and carrying quantities of edible plants. They eat reeds (quassab), a giant reed (birdi), a kind of bulrush (kaulan), water hyacinth, and marsh grasses. Some of these plants are of great value to local peoples. Others, such as water hyacinth, are a major problem in some tropical valleys, and water buffalo may help to keep waterways clear.
Green fodders are used widely for intensive milk production and for fattening. Many fodder crops are conserved as hay, chaffed, or pulped. Fodders include alfalfa, berseem and bancheri, the leaves, stems or trimmings of banana, cassava, fodder beet, halfa, ipil-ipil and kenaf, maize, oats, pandarus, peanut, sorghum, soybean, sugarcane, bagasse, and turnips. Citrus pulp and pineapple wastes have been fed safely to buffalo. In Egypt, whole sun-dried dates are fed to milk-buffalo up to 25% of the standard feed mixture.
REPRODUCTION
Swamp buffalo generally become reproductive at an older age than river breeds. Young males in Egypt, India, and Pakistan are first mated at about 3.0–3.5 years of age, but in Italy
they may be used as early as 2 years of age. Successful mating behaviour may continue until the animal is 12 years or even older. A good river male can impregnate 100 females in a year. A strong seasonal influence on mating occurs. Heat stress reduces libido
Although buffalo are polyoestrous, their reproductive efficiency shows wide variation throughout the year. Buffalo cows exhibit a distinct seasonal change in displaying oestrus, conception rate, and calving rate. The age at first oestrus of heifers varies between breeds from 13–33 months, but mating at the first oestrus is often infertile and usually deferred until they are 3 years old. Gestation lasts from 281–334 days, but most reports give a range between 300 and 320 days. Swamp buffalo carry their calves for one or two weeks longer than river buffalo. It is not rare to find buffalo that continue to work well at the age of 30, and instances of a working life of 40 years are recorded.
TAXONOMIC HISTORY
Carl Linnaeus first described the genus Bos and the water buffalo under the binomial Bubalis bubalus in 1758; the latter was known to occur in Asia and as a domestic form in Italy. Ellerman and Morrison-Scott treated the wild and domestic forms of the water buffalo as conspecifics whereas others treated them as different species. The nomenclatorial treatment of wild and domestic forms has been inconsistent and varies between authors and even within the works of single authors.
In March 2003, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature achieved consistency in the naming of wild and domestic water buffalo by ruling that the scientific name Bubalus arnee is valid for the wild form. B. bubalis continues to be valid for the domestic form and applies also to feral populations.
DOMESTICATION AND BREEDING
Water buffalo were domesticated in India about 5000 years ago, and in China about 4000 years ago. Two types are recognized, based on morphological and behavioural criteria – the river buffalo of the Indian subcontinent and further west to the Balkans and Italy, and the swamp buffalo, found from Assam in the west through Southeast Asia to the Yangtze valley of China in the east. The present-day river buffalo is the result of complex domestication processes involving more than one maternal lineage and a significant maternal gene flow from wild populations after the initial domestication events. Twenty-two breeds of the river type water buffalo are known, including Murrah, Nili-Ravi, Surti, Jafarabadi, Anatolian, Mediterranean, and Egyptian buffalo. China has a huge variety of buffalo genetic resources, comprising 16 local swamp buffalo breeds in various regions.
Results of mitochondrial DNA analyses indicate that the two types were domesticated independently. Sequencing of cytochrome b genes of Bubalus species implies that the domestic buffalo originated from at least two populations, and that the river and the swamp types have differentiated at the full species level. The genetic distance between the two types is so large that a divergence time of about 1.7 million years has been suggested. The swamp type was noticed to have the closest relationship with the tamaraw.
DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATIONS
The water buffalo population in the world is about 172 million.
IN ASIA
More than 95.8% of the world population of water buffalo are found in Asia including both river and swamp types. The water buffalo population in India numbered over 97.9 million head in 2003, representing 56.5% of the world population. They are primarily of the river type, with 10 well-defined breeds comprising Badhawari, Murrah, Nili-Ravi, Jafarabadi, Marathwada, Mehsana, Nagpuri, Pandharpuri, Toda, and Surti. Swamp buffalo occur only in small areas in the north-eastern part of the country and are not distinguished into breeds.
In 2003, the second-largest population lived in China, with 22.759 million head, all of the swamp type with breeds kept only in the lowlands, and other breeds kept only in the mountains; as of 2003, 3.2 million swamp-type carabao buffalo were in the Philippines, nearly three million swamp buffalo were in Vietnam, and 772,764 buffalo were in Bangladesh. About 750,000 head were estimated in Sri Lanka in 1997.
The water buffalo is the main dairy animal in Pakistan, with 23.47 million head in 2010. Of these, 76% are kept in the Punjab. The rest of them are mostly in the province of Sindh. Breeds used are Nili-Ravi, Kundi, and Azi Kheli. Karachi has the largest population of water buffalos for an area where fodder is not grown, consisting of 350,000 head kept mainly for milking.
In Thailand, the number of water buffalo dropped from more than 3 million head in 1996 to less than 1.24 million head in 2011. Slightly over 75% of them are kept in the country's northeastern region. The statistics also indicate that by the beginning of 2012, less than one million were in the country, partly as a result of illegal shipments to neighboring countries where sales prices are higher than in Thailand.
Water buffalo are also present in the southern region of Iraq, in the marshes. These marshes were drained by Saddam Hussein in 1991 in an attempt to punish the south for the uprisings of 1991. Following 2003, and the fall of the Saddam regime, these lands were reflooded and a 2007 report in the provinces of Maysan and Thi Qar shows a steady increase in the number of water buffalo. The report puts the number at 40,008 head in those two provinces.
IN EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN
Water buffalo likely were introduced to Europe from India or other Oriental countries. To Italy they were introduced about the year 600 in the reign of the Longobard King Agilulf. As they appear in the company of wild horses, they probably were a present from the Khan of the Avars, a Turkic nomadic tribe that dwelt near the Danube River at the time. Sir H. Johnston knew of a herd of water buffalo presented by a King of Naples to the Bey of Tunis in the mid-19th century that had resumed the feral state in northern Tunis.
European buffalo are all of the river type and considered to be of the same breed named Mediterranean buffalo. In Italy, the Mediterranean type was particularly selected and is called Mediterranean Italian breed to distinguish it from other European breeds, which differ genetically. Mediterranean buffalo are also found in Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Kosovo, and the Republic of Macedonia, with a few hundred in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Hungary. Little exchange of breeding buffalo has occurred among countries, so each population has its own phenotypic features and performances. In Bulgaria, they were crossbred with the Indian Murrah breed, and in Romania, some were crossbred with Bulgarian Murrah. Populations in Turkey are of the Anatolian buffalo breed.
IN AUSTRALIA
Between 1824 and 1849, water buffalo were introduced into the Northern Territory from Timor, Kisar, and probably other islands in the Indonesian archipelago. In 1886, a few milking types were brought from India to Darwin. They have been the main grazing animals on the subcoastal plains and river basins between Darwin and Arnhem Land since the 1880s. In the early 1960s, an estimated population of 150,000 to 200,000 buffalo were living in the plains and nearby areas.
They became feral and are causing significant environmental damage. Buffalo are also found in the Top End. As a result, they were hunted in the Top End from 1885 until 1980. The commencement of the brucellosis and tuberculosis campaign (BTEC) resulted in a huge culling program to reduce buffalo herds to a fraction of the numbers that were reached in the 1980s. The BTEC was finished when the Northern Territory was declared free of the disease in 1997. Numbers dropped dramatically as a result of the campaign, but have since recovered to an estimated 150,000 animals across northern Australia in 2008.
During the 1950s, buffalo were hunted for their skins and meat, which was exported and used in the local trade. In the late 1970s, live exports were made to Cuba and continued later into other countries. Buffalo are now crossed with riverine buffalo in artificial insemination programs, and may be found in many areas of Australia. Some of these crossbreds are used for milk production. Melville Island is a popular hunting location, where a steady population up to 4,000 individuals exists. Safari outfits are run from Darwin to Melville Island and other locations in the Top End, often with the use of bush pilots. The horns, which can measure up to a record of 3.1 m tip-to-tip, are prized hunting trophies.
The buffalo have developed a different appearance from the Indonesian buffalo from which they descend. They live mainly in freshwater marshes and billabongs, and their territory range can be quite expansive during the wet season. Their only natural predators in Australia are adult saltwater crocodiles, with whom they share the billabongs, and dingoes, which have been known to prey on buffalo calves and occasionally adult buffalo when the dingoes are in large packs.
Buffalo were exported live to Indonesia until 2011, at a rate of about 3000 per year. After the live export ban that year, the exports dropped to zero, and had not resumed as of June 2013.
IN SOUTH AMERICA
Water buffalo were introduced into the Amazon River basin in 1895. They are now extensively used there for meat and dairy production. In 2005, the buffalo herd in the Brazilian Amazon stood at roughly 1.6 million head, of which 460,000 were located in the lower Amazon floodplain. Breeds used include Mediterranean from Italy, Murrah and Jafarabadi from India, and Carabao from the Philippines.
During the 1970s, small herds were imported to Costa Rica, Ecuador, Cayenne, Panama, Surinam, Guyana, and Venezuela.
In Argentina, many game ranches raise water buffalo for commercial hunting
IN NORTH AMERICA
In 1974, four water buffalo were imported to the United States from Guam to be studied at the University of Florida. In February 1978, the first herd arrived for commercial farming. Until 2002, only one commercial breeder was in the United States. Water buffalo meat is imported from Australia. Until 2011, water buffalo were raised in Gainesville, Florida, from young obtained from zoo overflow. They were used primarily for meat production, frequently sold as hamburger.[38] Other US ranchers use them for production of high-quality mozzarella cheese.
HUSBANDRY
The husbandry system of water buffalo depends on the purpose for which they are bred and maintained. Most of them are kept by people who work on small farms in family units. Their buffalo live in very close association with them, and are often their greatest capital asset. The women and girls in India generally look after the milking buffalo while the men and boys are concerned with the working animals. Throughout Asia, they are commonly tended by children who are often seen leading or riding their charges to wallowing places. Water buffalo are the ideal animals for work in the deep mud of paddy fields because of their large hooves and flexible foot joints. They are often referred to as "the living tractor of the East". It probably is possible to plough deeper with buffalo than with either oxen or horses. They are the most efficient and economical means of cultivation of small fields. In most rice-producing countries, they are used for threshing and for transporting the sheaves during the rice harvest. They provide power for oilseed mills, sugarcane presses, and devices for raising water. They are widely used as pack animals, and in India and Pakistan also for heavy haulage. In their invasions of Europe, the Turks used buffalo for hauling heavy battering rams. Their dung is used as a fertilizer, and as a fuel when dried.
Buffalo contribute 72 million tones of milk and three million tones of meat annually to world food, much of it in areas that are prone to nutritional imbalances. In India, river-type buffalo are kept mainly for milk production and for transport, whereas swamp-type buffalo are kept mainly for work and a small amount of milk.
DAIRY PRODUCTS
Water buffalo milk presents physicochemical features different from that of other ruminant species, such as a higher content of fatty acids and proteins. The physical and chemical parameters of swamp and river type water buffalo milk differ. Water buffalo milk contains higher levels of total solids, crude protein, fat, calcium, and phosphorus, and slightly higher content of lactose compared with those of cow milk. The high level of total solids makes water buffalo milk ideal for processing into value-added dairy products such as cheese. The conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) content in milk ranged from 4.4 mg/g fat in September to 7.6 mg/g fat in June. Seasons and genetics may play a role in variation of CLA level and changes in gross composition of the water buffalo milk.
Water buffalo milk is processed into a large variety of dairy products:
- Cream churns much faster at higher fat levels and gives higher overrun than cow cream.
- Butter from water buffalo cream displays more stability than that from cow cream.
- Ghee from water buffalo milk has a different texture with a bigger grain size than ghee from cow milk.
- Heat-concentrated milk products in the Indian subcontinent include paneer, khoa, rabri, kheer and basundi.
- Fermented milk products include dahi, yogurt, and chakka.
- Whey is used for making ricotta and mascarpone in Italy, and alkarish in Syria and Egypt.
- Soft cheeses made include mozzarella in Italy, karish, mish, and domiati in Egypt, madhfor in Iraq, alghab in Syria, kesong puti in the Philippines, and vladeasa in Romania.
- The semihard cheese beyaz peynir is made in Turkey.
- Hard cheeses include braila in Romania, rahss in Egypt, white brine in Bulgaria, and akkawi in Syria.
- Watered-down buffalo milk is used as a cheaper alternative to regular milk.
MEAT AND SKIN PRODUCTS
Water buffalo meat, sometimes called "carabeef", is often passed off as beef in certain regions, and is also a major source of export revenue for India. In many Asian regions, buffalo meat is less preferred due to its toughness; however, recipes have evolved (rendang, for example) where the slow cooking process and spices not only make the meat palatable, but also preserve it, an important factor in hot climates where refrigeration is not always available.Their hides provide tough and useful leather, often used for shoes.
BONE AND HORN PRODUCTS
The bones and horns are often made into jewellery, especially earrings. Horns are used for the embouchure of musical instruments, such as ney and kaval.
ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS
Wildlife conservation scientists have started to recommend and use introduced populations of feral domestic water buffalo in far-away lands to manage uncontrolled vegetation growth in and around natural wetlands. Introduced water buffalo at home in such environs provide cheap service by regularly grazing the uncontrolled vegetation and opening up clogged water bodies for waterfowl, wetland birds, and other wildlife. Grazing water buffalo are sometimes used in Great Britain for conservation grazing, such as in Chippenham Fen National Nature Reserve. The buffalo can better adapt to wet conditions and poor-quality vegetation than cattle.
Currently, research is being conducted at the Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies to determine the levels of nutrients removed and returned to wetlands when water buffalo are used for wetland vegetation management.
However, in uncontrolled circumstances, water buffalo can cause environmental damage, such as trampling vegetation, disturbing bird and reptile nesting sites, and spreading exotic weeds.
RESEARCH
The world's first cloned buffalo was developed by Indian scientists from National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal. The buffalo calf was named Samrupa. The calf did not survive more than a week, and died due to some genetic disorders. So, the scientists created another cloned buffalo a few months later, and named it Garima.
On 15 September 2007, the Philippines announced its development of Southeast Asia's first cloned buffalo. The Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD), under the Department of Science and Technology in Los Baños, Laguna, approved this project. The Department of Agriculture's Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) will implement cloning through somatic cell nuclear transfer as a tool for genetic improvement in water buffalo. "Super buffalo calves" will be produced. There will be no modification or alteration of the genetic materials, as in genetically modified organisms.
On 1 January 2008, the Philippine Carabao Center in Nueva Ecija, per Filipino scientists, initiated a study to breed a super water buffalo that could produce 4 to 18 litres of milk per day using gene-based technology. Also, the first in vitro river buffalo was born there in 2004 from an in vitro-produced, vitrified embryo, named "Glory" after President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Joseph Estrada's most successful project as an opposition senator, the PCC was created through Republic Act 3707, the Carabao Act of 1992.
IN CULTURE
Some ethnic groups, such as Batak and Toraja in Indonesia and the Derung in China, use water buffalo or kerbau (called horbo in Batak or tedong in Toraja) as sacrificial animals at several festivals.
- Legend has it that the Chinese philosophical sage Laozi left China through the Han Gu Pass riding a water buffalo.
- According to Hindu lore, the god of death Yama, rides on a male water buffalo.
- The carabao subspecies is considered a national symbol in the Philippines.
- In Vietnam, water buffalo are often the most valuable possession of poor farmers: "Con trâu là đầu cơ nghiệp". They are treated as a member of the family: "Chồng cày, vợ cấy, con trâu đi bừa" ("The husband ploughs, the wife sows, water buffalo draws the rake") and are friends of the children. Children talk to their water buffalo, "Bao giờ cây lúa còn bông. Thì còn ngọn cỏ ngoài đồng trâu ăn." (Vietnamese children are responsible for grazing water buffalo. They feed them grass if they work laboriously for men.) In the old days, West Lake, Hà Nội, was named Kim Ngưu - Golden Water Buffalo.
- The Yoruban Orisha Oya (goddess of change) takes the form of a water buffalo.
FIGHTING FESTIVALS
- Pasungay Festival is held annually in the town of San Joaquin, Iloilo in the Philippines.
- Moh juj Water Buffalo fighting, is held every year in Bhogali Bihu in Assam. Ahotguri in Nagaon is famous for it.
- Do Son Water Buffalo Fighting Festival of Vietnam, held each year on the ninth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar at Do Son Township, Haiphong City in Vietnam, is one of the most popular Vietnam festivals and events in Haiphong City. The preparations for this buffalo fighting festival begin from the two to three months earlier. The competing buffalo are selected and methodically trained months in advance. It is a traditional festival of Vietnam attached to a Water God worshipping ceremony and the Hien Sinh custom to show martial spirit of the local people of Do Son, Haiphong.
- "Hai Luu" Water Buffalo Fighting Festival of Vietnam, According to ancient records, the buffalo fighting in Hai Luu Commune has existed from the 2nd century B.C. General Lu Gia at that time, had the buffalo slaughtered to give a feast to the local people and the warriors, and organized buffalo fighting for amusement. Eventually, all the fighting buffalo will be slaughtered as tributes to the deities.
- "Ko Samui" Water Buffalo Fighting Festival of Thailand, is a very popular event held on special occasions such as New Year's Day in January, and Songkran in mid-April, this festival features head-wrestling bouts in which two male Asian water buffalo are pitted against one another. Unlike in Spanish Bullfighting, wherein bulls get killed while fighting sword-wielding men, Buffalo Fighting Festival held at Ko Samui, Thailand is fairly harmless contest. The fighting season varies according to ancient customs & ceremonies. The first Buffalo to turn and run away is considered the loser, the winning buffalo becomes worth several million baht. Ko Samui is an island in the Gulf of Thailand in the South China Sea, it is 700 km from Bangkok and is connected to it by regular flights.
- "Ma'Pasilaga Tedong" Water Buffalo Fighting Festival, in Tana Toraja Regency of Sulawesi Island, Indonesia, is a very popular event where the Rambu Solo' or a Burial Festival took place in Tana Toraja.
RACING FESTIVALS
Carabao Carroza Festival is being held annually every May in the town of Pavia, Iloilo, Philippines.
Kambala races of Karnataka, India, take place between December and March. The races are conducted by having the water buffalo (he buffalo) run in long parallel slushy ditches, where they are driven by men standing on wooden planks drawn by the buffalo. The objectives of the race are to finish first and to raise the water to the greatest height and also a rural sport. Kambala races are arranged with competition, as well as without competition and as a part of thanks giving (to god) in about 50 villages of coastal Karnataka.
In the Chonburi Province of Thailand, and in Pakistan, there are annual water buffalo races.
Chon Buri Water buffalo racing festival, Thailand In downtown Chonburi, 70 km south of Bangkok, at the annual water buffalo festival held in mid-October. About 300 buffalo race in groups of five or six, spurred on by bareback jockeys wielding wooden sticks, as hundreds of spectators cheer. The water buffalo has always played an important role in agriculture in Thailand. For farmers of Chon Buri Province, near Bangkok, it is an important annual festival, beginning in mid-October. It is also a celebration among rice farmers before the rice harvest. At dawn, farmers walk their buffalo through surrounding rice fields, splashing them with water to keep them cool before leading them to the race field. This amazing festival started over a hundred years ago when two men arguing about whose buffalo was the fastest ended up having a race between them. That’s how it became a tradition and gradually a social event for farmers who gathered from around the country in Chonburi to trade their goods. The festival also helps a great deal in preserving the number of buffalo, which have been dwindling at quite an alarming rate in other regions. Modern machinery is rapidly replacing buffalo in Thai agriculture. With most of the farm work mechanized, the buffalo-racing tradition has continued. Racing buffalo are now raised just to race; they do not work at all. The few farm buffalo which still do work are much bigger than the racers because of the strenuous work they perform. Farm buffalo are in the "Buffalo Beauty Pageant", a Miss Farmer beauty contest and a comic buffalo costume contest etc.. This festival perfectly exemplifies a favored Thai attitude to life — "sanuk," meaning fun.
Babulang Water buffalo racing festival, Sarawak, Malaysia, is the largest or grandest of the many rituals, ceremonies and festivals of the traditional Bisaya (Borneo) community of Limbang, Sarawak. Highlights are the Ratu Babulang competition and the Water buffalo races which can only be found in this town in Sarawak, Malaysia.
Vihear Suor village Water buffalo racing festival, in Cambodia, each year, people visit Buddhist temples across the country to honor their deceased loved ones during a 15-day period commonly known as the Festival of the Dead but in Vihear Suor village, about 35 km northeast of Cambodia, citizens each year wrap up the festival with a water buffalo race to entertain visitors and honour a pledge made hundreds of years ago. There was a time when many village cattle which provide rural Cambodians with muscle power to plough their fields and transport agricultural products died from an unknown disease. The villagers prayed to a spirit to help save their animals from the disease and promised to show their gratitude by holding a buffalo race each year on the last day of "P'chum Ben" festival as it is known in Cambodian. The race draws hundreds of spectators who come to see riders and their animals charge down the racing field, the racers bouncing up and down on the backs of their buffalo, whose horns were draped with colorful cloth.
Pothu puttu matsaram, Kerala, South India, is similar to Kambala races.
WIKIPEDIA
Going on a “Snipe hunt” is a well-known practical joke where an unsuspecting dupe is given a pillow case and led outdoors in the middle of the night and tricked to go on a hunt for an imaginary creature called a “Snipe.” However, the joke may really be on the jokesters, because Snipes are not imaginary.
This is a Wilson’s Snipe. One of about 26 types of Snipes, the Wilson’s Snipe is commonly found wading in and around the edges of swamps, bogs and wetlands, using its long narrow bill to methodically probe into the mud in search of insect larvae, worms, and other invertebrate prey. The bill has a flexible tip which allows the Wilson’s Snipe to grasp food while keeping the base of its bill closed, and allowing them to actually “slurp” their prey from the mud without having to remove their bill from the soil. Their eyes are set far back on their head, allowing them to see behind as well as in front and to the sides, making it difficult for predators (or photographers) to sneak up on them. Wilson’s Snipe have massive flight muscles and can reach speeds of 60 M.P.H.
So next time someone laughs about taking someone on an imaginary Snipe hunt, you can have the last laugh and tell them that they are actually real.
Taken March 28, 2020, at Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area in Boone County, Missouri.
© All rights reserved - - No Usage Allowed in Any Form Without the Written Consent of the photographer, Mark S. Schuver.
The best way to view my photostream is on Flickriver: Nikon66's photos on Flickriver
A good thing continues
Some six months ago, I posted almost 100 images and a few thoughts I felt were missing from the many existing RX1 reviews. The outpouring of support and interest in that article was very gratifying. When I published, I had used the camera for six full months, enough time to come to a view of its strengths and weaknesses and to produce a small portfolio of good images, but not enough time to see the full picture (pun intended). In the following six months, I have used the camera at least as frequently as in the first six and have produced another small set of good images. It should be noted that my usage of the RX1 in the last six (and especially in the last 3) months has involved less travel and more time with the family and around the house; I will share relatively few of these images but will spend some time sharing my impressions of its functionality for family snapshots as I am sure there is some interest. And let it be said here: one of the primary motivations to purchase the camera was to take more photos with the family, and after one full year I can confidently say: money well spent.
The A7/r game-changer?
In the past six months, Sony have announced and released two full-frame, interchangeable lens cameras that clearly take design cues from the RX1: the A7 and the A7r. These cameras are innovative and highly capable and, as such, are in the midst of taking the photography world by storm. I think they are compelling enough cameras that I wonder whether Sony is wasting its energy continuing to develop further A-mount cameras. Sony deserve credit for a bold strategy—many companies would have been content to allow the success of the the RX1 (and RX1R) generate further sales before pushing further into the white space left unexplored by camera makers with less ambition.This is not the place to detail the relative advantages and disadvantages of the RX1 versus the A7/r except to make the following point. I currently use a Nikon D800 and an RX1: were I to sell both and purchase the A7r + 35mm f/2.8 I would in many ways lose nothing by way of imaging capability or lens compatibility but would pocket the surplus $1250-1750. Indeed this loyal Nikon owner thought long and hard about doing so, which speaks to the strategic importance of these cameras for a company trying to make inroads into a highly concentrated market.Ultimately, I opted to hang onto the two cameras I have (although this decision is one that I revisit time and time again) and continue to use them as I have for the past year. Let me give you a quick flavor of why.
The RX1 is smaller and more discrete
This is a small a point, but my gut reaction to the A7/r was: much smaller than the D800, not as small as the RX1. The EVF atop the A7/r and the larger profile of interchangeable mount lenses means that I would not be able to slip the A7/r into a pocket the way I can the RX1. Further, by virtue of using the EVF and its loud mechanical shutter, the A7/r just isn’t as stealthy as the RX1. Finally, f/2 beats the pants off of f/2.8 at the same or smaller size.At this point, some of you may be saying, “Future Sony releases will allow you to get a body without an EVF and get an f/2 lens that has a slimmer profile, etc, etc.” And that’s just the point: to oversimplify things, the reason I am keeping my RX1 is that Sony currently offers something close to an A7 body without a built-in EVF and with a slimmer profile 35mm f/2.
The D800 has important functional advantages
On the other side of the spectrum, the AF speed of the A7/r just isn’t going to match the D800, especially when the former is equipped with a Nikon lens and F-mount adapter. EVFs cannot yet match the experience of looking through the prism and the lens (I expect they will match soon, but aren’t there yet). What’s more, I have made such an investment in Nikon glass that I can’t yet justify purchasing an adapter for a Sony mount or selling them all for Sony’s offerings (many of which aren’t to market yet).Now, all of these are minor points and I think all of them disappear with an A8r, but they add up to something major: I have two cameras very well suited to two different types of shooting, and I ask myself if I gain or lose by getting something in between—something that wasn’t quite a pocket shooter and something that was quite a DSLR? You can imagine, however, that if I were coming to the market without a D800 and an RX1, that my decision would be far different: dollar for dollar, the A7/r would be a no-brainer.During the moments when I consider selling to grab an A7r, I keep coming back to a thought I had a month or so before the RX1 was announced. At that time I was considering something like the NEX cameras with a ZM 21mm f/2.8 and I said in my head, “I wish someone would make a carry-around camera with a full frame sensor and a fixed 35mm f/2.8 or f/2.” Now you understand how attractive the RX1 is to me and what a ridiculously high bar exists for another camera system to reach.
Okay, so what is different from the last review?
For one, I had an issue with the camera’s AF motor failing to engage and giving me an E61:00 error. I had to send it out to Sony for repairs (via extended warranty and service plan). I detailed my experience with Sony Service here [insert link] and I write to you as a very satisfied customer. That is to say, I have 3 years left on a 4 year + accidental damage warranty and I feel confident enough in that coverage to say that I will have this beauty in working order for at least another 3 years.For two, I’ve spent significantly less time thinking of this camera as a DSLR replacement and have instead started to develop a very different way of shooting with it. The activation barrier to taking a shot with my D800 is quite high. Beyond having to bring a large camera wherever you go and have it in hand, a proper camera takes two hands and full attention to produce an image. I shoot slowly and methodically and often from a tripod with the D800. In contrast, I can pull the RX1 out, pop off the lens cap, line up and take a shot with one hand (often with a toddler in the other). This fosters a totally different type of photography.
My “be-there” camera
The have-everywhere camera that gives DSLR type controls to one-handed shooting lets me pursue images that happen very quickly or images that might not normally meet the standards of “drag-the-DSLR-out-of-the-bag.” Many of those images you’ll see on this post. A full year of shooting and I can say this with great confidence: the RX1 is a terrific mash-up of point-and-shoot and DSLR not just in image quality and features, but primarily in the product it helps me create. To take this thinking a bit further: I find myself even processing images from the RX1 differently than I would from my DSLR. So much so that I have strongly considered starting a tumblr and posting JPEGs directly from the RX1 via my phone or an iPad rather than running the bulk of them through Lightroom, onto Flickr and then on the blog (really this is just a matter of time, stay tuned, and those readers who have experience with tumblr, cloud image storage and editing, etc, etc, please contact me, I want to pick your brain).Put simply, I capture more spontaneous and beautiful “moments” than I might have otherwise. Photography is very much an exercise in “f/8 and be there,” and the RX1 is my go-to “be there” camera.
The family camera
I mentioned earlier that I justified the purchase of the RX1 partly as a camera to be used to document the family moments into which a DSLR doesn’t neatly fit. Over the past year I’ve collected thousands and thousands of family images with the RX1. The cold hard truth is that many of those photos could be better if I’d taken a full DSLR kit with me to the park or the beach or the grocery store each time. The RX1 is a difficult camera to use on a toddler (or any moving subject for that matter); autofocus isn’t as fast as a professional DSLR, it’s difficult to perfectly compose via an LCD (especially in bright sunlight), but despite these shortcomings, it’s been an incredibly useful family camera. There are simply so many beautiful moments where I had the RX1 over my shoulder, ready to go that whatever difficulties exist relative to a DSLR, those pale in comparison to the power of it’s convenience. The best camera is the one in your hand.
Where to go from here.
So what is the value of these RX1 going forward, especially in a world of the A7/r and it’s yet-to-be-born siblings without an EVF and a pancake lens? Frankly, at its current price (which is quite fair when you consider the value of the the body and the lens) I see precious little room for an independent offering versus a mirrorless, interchangeable lens system with the same image quality in a package just as small. That doesn’t mean Sony won’t make an RX2 or an RX1 Mark II (have a look at it’s other product lines to see how many SKUs are maintained despite low demand). Instead, I see the RX1 as a bridge that needed to exist for engineers, managers, and the market to make it to the A7/r and it’s descendants.A Facebook friend recently paid me a great compliment; he said something like, “Justin, via your blog, you’ve sold a ton of RX1 cameras.” Indeed, despite my efforts not to be a salesman, I think he’s right: I have and would continue to recommend this camera.The true value of the RX1 going forward is for those of us who have the thing on our shoulders; and yes, if you have an investment in and a love for a DSLR system, there’s still tremendous value in getting one, slinging it over your shoulder, and heading out into the wide, bright world; A7/r or no, this is just an unbelievably capable camera.
A good thing continues
Some six months ago, I posted almost 100 images and a few thoughts I felt were missing from the many existing RX1 reviews. The outpouring of support and interest in that article was very gratifying. When I published, I had used the camera for six full months, enough time to come to a view of its strengths and weaknesses and to produce a small portfolio of good images, but not enough time to see the full picture (pun intended). In the following six months, I have used the camera at least as frequently as in the first six and have produced another small set of good images. It should be noted that my usage of the RX1 in the last six (and especially in the last 3) months has involved less travel and more time with the family and around the house; I will share relatively few of these images but will spend some time sharing my impressions of its functionality for family snapshots as I am sure there is some interest. And let it be said here: one of the primary motivations to purchase the camera was to take more photos with the family, and after one full year I can confidently say: money well spent.
The A7/r game-changer?
In the past six months, Sony have announced and released two full-frame, interchangeable lens cameras that clearly take design cues from the RX1: the A7 and the A7r. These cameras are innovative and highly capable and, as such, are in the midst of taking the photography world by storm. I think they are compelling enough cameras that I wonder whether Sony is wasting its energy continuing to develop further A-mount cameras. Sony deserve credit for a bold strategy—many companies would have been content to allow the success of the the RX1 (and RX1R) generate further sales before pushing further into the white space left unexplored by camera makers with less ambition.This is not the place to detail the relative advantages and disadvantages of the RX1 versus the A7/r except to make the following point. I currently use a Nikon D800 and an RX1: were I to sell both and purchase the A7r + 35mm f/2.8 I would in many ways lose nothing by way of imaging capability or lens compatibility but would pocket the surplus $1250-1750. Indeed this loyal Nikon owner thought long and hard about doing so, which speaks to the strategic importance of these cameras for a company trying to make inroads into a highly concentrated market.Ultimately, I opted to hang onto the two cameras I have (although this decision is one that I revisit time and time again) and continue to use them as I have for the past year. Let me give you a quick flavor of why.
The RX1 is smaller and more discrete
This is a small a point, but my gut reaction to the A7/r was: much smaller than the D800, not as small as the RX1. The EVF atop the A7/r and the larger profile of interchangeable mount lenses means that I would not be able to slip the A7/r into a pocket the way I can the RX1. Further, by virtue of using the EVF and its loud mechanical shutter, the A7/r just isn’t as stealthy as the RX1. Finally, f/2 beats the pants off of f/2.8 at the same or smaller size.At this point, some of you may be saying, “Future Sony releases will allow you to get a body without an EVF and get an f/2 lens that has a slimmer profile, etc, etc.” And that’s just the point: to oversimplify things, the reason I am keeping my RX1 is that Sony currently offers something close to an A7 body without a built-in EVF and with a slimmer profile 35mm f/2.
The D800 has important functional advantages
On the other side of the spectrum, the AF speed of the A7/r just isn’t going to match the D800, especially when the former is equipped with a Nikon lens and F-mount adapter. EVFs cannot yet match the experience of looking through the prism and the lens (I expect they will match soon, but aren’t there yet). What’s more, I have made such an investment in Nikon glass that I can’t yet justify purchasing an adapter for a Sony mount or selling them all for Sony’s offerings (many of which aren’t to market yet).Now, all of these are minor points and I think all of them disappear with an A8r, but they add up to something major: I have two cameras very well suited to two different types of shooting, and I ask myself if I gain or lose by getting something in between—something that wasn’t quite a pocket shooter and something that was quite a DSLR? You can imagine, however, that if I were coming to the market without a D800 and an RX1, that my decision would be far different: dollar for dollar, the A7/r would be a no-brainer.During the moments when I consider selling to grab an A7r, I keep coming back to a thought I had a month or so before the RX1 was announced. At that time I was considering something like the NEX cameras with a ZM 21mm f/2.8 and I said in my head, “I wish someone would make a carry-around camera with a full frame sensor and a fixed 35mm f/2.8 or f/2.” Now you understand how attractive the RX1 is to me and what a ridiculously high bar exists for another camera system to reach.
Okay, so what is different from the last review?
For one, I had an issue with the camera’s AF motor failing to engage and giving me an E61:00 error. I had to send it out to Sony for repairs (via extended warranty and service plan). I detailed my experience with Sony Service here [insert link] and I write to you as a very satisfied customer. That is to say, I have 3 years left on a 4 year + accidental damage warranty and I feel confident enough in that coverage to say that I will have this beauty in working order for at least another 3 years.For two, I’ve spent significantly less time thinking of this camera as a DSLR replacement and have instead started to develop a very different way of shooting with it. The activation barrier to taking a shot with my D800 is quite high. Beyond having to bring a large camera wherever you go and have it in hand, a proper camera takes two hands and full attention to produce an image. I shoot slowly and methodically and often from a tripod with the D800. In contrast, I can pull the RX1 out, pop off the lens cap, line up and take a shot with one hand (often with a toddler in the other). This fosters a totally different type of photography.
My “be-there” camera
The have-everywhere camera that gives DSLR type controls to one-handed shooting lets me pursue images that happen very quickly or images that might not normally meet the standards of “drag-the-DSLR-out-of-the-bag.” Many of those images you’ll see on this post. A full year of shooting and I can say this with great confidence: the RX1 is a terrific mash-up of point-and-shoot and DSLR not just in image quality and features, but primarily in the product it helps me create. To take this thinking a bit further: I find myself even processing images from the RX1 differently than I would from my DSLR. So much so that I have strongly considered starting a tumblr and posting JPEGs directly from the RX1 via my phone or an iPad rather than running the bulk of them through Lightroom, onto Flickr and then on the blog (really this is just a matter of time, stay tuned, and those readers who have experience with tumblr, cloud image storage and editing, etc, etc, please contact me, I want to pick your brain).Put simply, I capture more spontaneous and beautiful “moments” than I might have otherwise. Photography is very much an exercise in “f/8 and be there,” and the RX1 is my go-to “be there” camera.
The family camera
I mentioned earlier that I justified the purchase of the RX1 partly as a camera to be used to document the family moments into which a DSLR doesn’t neatly fit. Over the past year I’ve collected thousands and thousands of family images with the RX1. The cold hard truth is that many of those photos could be better if I’d taken a full DSLR kit with me to the park or the beach or the grocery store each time. The RX1 is a difficult camera to use on a toddler (or any moving subject for that matter); autofocus isn’t as fast as a professional DSLR, it’s difficult to perfectly compose via an LCD (especially in bright sunlight), but despite these shortcomings, it’s been an incredibly useful family camera. There are simply so many beautiful moments where I had the RX1 over my shoulder, ready to go that whatever difficulties exist relative to a DSLR, those pale in comparison to the power of it’s convenience. The best camera is the one in your hand.
Where to go from here.
So what is the value of these RX1 going forward, especially in a world of the A7/r and it’s yet-to-be-born siblings without an EVF and a pancake lens? Frankly, at its current price (which is quite fair when you consider the value of the the body and the lens) I see precious little room for an independent offering versus a mirrorless, interchangeable lens system with the same image quality in a package just as small. That doesn’t mean Sony won’t make an RX2 or an RX1 Mark II (have a look at it’s other product lines to see how many SKUs are maintained despite low demand). Instead, I see the RX1 as a bridge that needed to exist for engineers, managers, and the market to make it to the A7/r and it’s descendants.A Facebook friend recently paid me a great compliment; he said something like, “Justin, via your blog, you’ve sold a ton of RX1 cameras.” Indeed, despite my efforts not to be a salesman, I think he’s right: I have and would continue to recommend this camera.The true value of the RX1 going forward is for those of us who have the thing on our shoulders; and yes, if you have an investment in and a love for a DSLR system, there’s still tremendous value in getting one, slinging it over your shoulder, and heading out into the wide, bright world; A7/r or no, this is just an unbelievably capable camera.
A dramatic moment from 'Kin' by Barely Methodical Troupe which is part of the The Underbelly Circus Hub at this year's Edinburgh Fringe.
You can book tickets here: www.underbellyedinburgh.co.uk/whats-on/kin
Should be methodical and pace myself, but it's so much more fun to jump around the different annuals.
Cover art by George Giusti.
A small, dark heron arrayed in moody blues and purples, the Little Blue Heron is a common but inconspicuous resident of marshes and estuaries in the Southeast. They stalk shallow waters for small fish and amphibians, adopting a quiet, methodical approach that can make these gorgeous herons surprisingly easy to overlook at first glance. Little Blue Herons build stick nests in trees alongside other colonial waterbirds. In the U.S., their populations have been in a gradual decline since the mid-twentieth century.
Blending into your environment takes dedication and skill, two British Army snipers show us how it’s done.
Whatever their environment, British Army snipers need to blend in. They use various methods of concealment, from breaking up the body shape with a ghillie suit to moving slowly and methodically. A sniper might change camouflage several times before reaching their target. You could pass within five meters of a sniper without knowing they’re there.
This piece includes various shots of a two-man sniper team performing camouflage and concealment drills in snowy woodlands near Tapa, Estonia.
The British Army are in Estonia as part of NATO’s enhanced Forward Presence in the region.
Video: Natochannel
Great Blue Heron
Ardea herodias
On the grounds of Metropolitan State Hospital
Norwalk, California
The hospital occupies about 170 acres in a completely urbanized portion the metropolitan Los Angeles area, and there are numerous large grassy plots with a thriving population of pocket gophers. This bird started at the north end of the facility and over a period of about three weeks worked his way south for the entire 3/4 mile length of the hospital grounds. His hunting method was remarkably methodical and patient - he stalked around slowly, then staked himself out within reach of a burrow and waited motionless, sometimes for 30 ~ 60 minutes, until a gopher barely poked his head out to survey the area. The ensuing strike was lightning-quick. During the several hours overall that I spent watching him I never saw him miss. Amazing.
Member of the Flickr Bird Brigade
Activists for birds and wildlife
here's another shot from the box of embroidery floss. this time I decided to do a macro with my point and shoot camera.
Robyn has been doing some sewing recently. we were out couch shopping last weekend and we saw some fancy pillows at the furniture store. "I could make pillows just like that!" she exclaimed.
sure enough...she did. :)
Felix was formerly a Pilot of unique (and often super natural) ability; rumours suggest he killed a Jedi (thus receiving some of her ability to control the force) which resulted in the super reflexes that, in hindsight, earned him more recognition then he would have liked.
This unique ability to pilot spacefighters drew the attention of many crimelords and cartels which eventually led to him joining the under world consortium and crime syndicate known as the Zann Consortium; led by the notourious (and shamed Imperial Academy Cadet) Tyber Zann.
Soon after the Battle of Yavin, Felix was put in charge of a specialist group of pilots which conducted all the Narcotic runs to and from the other cartels. He and his team purpose built Space-Runners with secret holds to move the narcotics and their payments around.
Unfortunately Felix was ambushed on a return run to Tyber's HQ and was captured and then tortured.
Dumped back in his space-runner, he was left to drift in space before eventually being found.
Felix had been tortured for the whereabouts of the Zann consortium HQ - his kidnappers had removed his leg at the knee and one of his arms at the shoulder in the hope it would force him into giving them what they wanted.
Saved by his Crimelord boss. Narcotics were used during his treatment made Felix arrogant, methodical and ruthless. When well enough to leave the confines of the medical facilities of the cartel, he made a choice. Decision made he would hold a grudge on those that were behind his kidnapping and torture. And not let it go until he made them pay.
Felix used some of the vast funds he had saved to purchase psycho conditioning treatments and training to enhance his fighting ability to match his piloting. Turning his attention to his Starfighter which he named Grudge Bearer, he converted the "narcotics" hold into an area which could hold his bounty, he then added a more powerful hyperdrive, a cloaking device, a cloaking jammer and two double rapid firing laser canons to each wing. Felix also added an experimental Combat/Runner shield which adapts to the situation - ie. when in Runner mode the shield is weaker however it allows more power to be directed to the controls allowing greater manouverablility.
Felix has found that Bounty Hunting has led him to a number of his kidnappers and is slowly making his way to the man/creature behind his ordeal.
His pilot instincts have never left him and he adds a yellow and black stripe for every kidnapper he finds and in addition for every 100 bounties he adds a green stripe to the wings of Grudge Bearer
I had the distinct honor and pleasure to meet a true visionary while I was in Louisiana a few weeks ago, and I would like you to know a little about him as well. Please meet Rick Newcomer.
Rick designs houses, and has been doing so for about 25 years. He explained to me that he loves to build as much as, if not more than, designing. After hurricane Katrina, he was able to help out on the very first Katrina Cottage (please read more about the Katrina Cottage here). The experience helped him realize how much value and interest there is in very small and efficient houses. For many years, he has also been interested in deconstructing old buildings for the purpose of reusing the lumber, windows, doors and fixtures. So, a few years ago Rick had the idea to purchase the warehouses and property in downtown Monroe and begin tearing down buildings and rebuilding dignified, small, prefab cottages. He began the project with his father and the two of them worked together until his father's passing a year ago. Today, he works mostly by himself and has to be content with very slow but methodical progress. He doesn't borrow money for the project and he works on it during free or found time.
The structure you see in the background of this shot (and the full and outside views in the comments) is the first of three cottages that he plans to build on this narrow lot when he can manage to obtain city approval. The people who will one day occupy these cottages will be able to use his warehouse space across the way to store out-of-season and rarely-used belongings. This will allow occupants to live efficiently in the cottages, keeping energy costs to a minimum since they won't be heating or cooling unoccupied space.
Rick's main interest is to get people living in downtown Monroe again. He would love to see the downtown area thrive again, and having people living as well as working downtown is the only way for it to happen. His dedication and passion overflow when he talks about it.
For now, Rick plans to just keep working and to keep the faith. I have no doubt that his vision will come to fruition one day. I plan to check on his progress as well as to come and visit when the three buildings are occupied, and to hear first-hand what he will plans to do next.
Thank you, Rick, for being number 16 in my 100 Strangers Project. It was truly an honor to meet you.
Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at 100 Strangers Flickr Group
The water buffalo or domestic Asian water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) is a large bovid originating in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and China. Today, it is also found in Europe, Australia, and some American countries. The wild water buffalo (Bubalus arnee) native to Southeast Asia is considered a different species, but most likely represents the ancestor of the domestic water buffalo.
Two extant types of water buffalo are recognized based on morphological and behavioural criteria – the river buffalo of South Asia and further west to the Balkans, Egypt, and Italy, and the swamp buffalo, found from Assam in the west through Southeast Asia to the Yangtze valley of China in the east. The origins of the domestic water buffalo types are debated, although results of a phylogenetic study indicate that the swamp type may have originated in China and was domesticated about 4,000 years ago, while the river type may have originated from India and was domesticated about 5,000 years ago. Water buffalo were traded from the Indus Valley Civilisation to Mesopotamia, in modern Iraq, 2500 BC by the Meluhhas. The seal of a scribe employed by an Akkadian king shows the sacrifice of water buffalo.
At least 130 million domestic water buffalo exist, and more human beings depend on them than on any other domestic animal. They are especially suitable for tilling rice fields, and their milk is richer in fat and protein than that of dairy cattle. The large feral population of northern Australia became established in the late 19th century, and smaller feral herds are in New Guinea, Tunisia, and northeastern Argentina. Feral herds are also present in New Britain, New Ireland, Irian Jaya, Papua New Guinea, Colombia, Guyana, Suriname, Brazil, and Uruguay.
CHARACTERISTICS
The skin of river buffalo is black, but some specimens may have dark, slate-coloured skin. Swamp buffalo have a grey skin at birth, but become slate blue later. Albinoids are present in some populations. River buffalo have comparatively longer faces, smaller girths, and bigger limbs than swamp buffalo. Their dorsal ridges extend further back and taper off more gradually. Their horns grow downward and backward, then curve upward in a spiral. Swamp buffalo are heavy-bodied and stockily built; the body is short and the belly large. The forehead is flat, the eyes prominent, the face short, and the muzzle wide. The neck is comparatively long, and the withers and croup are prominent. A dorsal ridge extends backward and ends abruptly just before the end of the chest. Their horns grow outward, and curve in a semicircle, but always remain more or less on the plane of the forehead. The tail is short, reaching only to the hocks. Height at withers is 129–133 cm for males, and 120–127 cm for females. They range in weight from 300–550 kg, but weights of over 1,000 kg have also been observed.
Tedong bonga is a black pied buffalo featuring a unique black and white colouration that is favoured by the Toraja of Sulawesi.
The swamp buffalo has 48 chromosomes; the river buffalo has 50 chromosomes. The two types do not readily interbreed, but fertile offspring can occur. Buffalo-cattle hybrids have not been observed to occur, and the embryos of such hybrids do not reach maturity in laboratory experiments.
The rumen of the water buffalo has important differences from that of other ruminants. It contains a larger population of bacteria, particularly the cellulolytic bacteria, lower protozoa, and higher fungi zoospores. In addition, higher rumen ammonia nitrogen (NH4-N) and higher pH have been found as compared to those in cattle
ECOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR
River buffalo prefer deep water. Swamp buffalo prefer to wallow in mudholes which they make with their horns. During wallowing, they acquire a thick coating of mud. Both are well adapted to a hot and humid climate with temperatures ranging from 0 °C in the winter to 30 °C and greater in the summer. Water availability is important in hot climates, since they need wallows, rivers, or splashing water to assist in thermoregulation. Some breeds are adapted to saline seaside shores and saline sandy terrain.
DIET
Water buffalo thrive on many aquatic plants and during floods, will graze submerged, raising their heads above the water and carrying quantities of edible plants. They eat reeds (quassab), a giant reed (birdi), a kind of bulrush (kaulan), water hyacinth, and marsh grasses. Some of these plants are of great value to local peoples. Others, such as water hyacinth, are a major problem in some tropical valleys, and water buffalo may help to keep waterways clear.
Green fodders are used widely for intensive milk production and for fattening. Many fodder crops are conserved as hay, chaffed, or pulped. Fodders include alfalfa, berseem and bancheri, the leaves, stems or trimmings of banana, cassava, fodder beet, halfa, ipil-ipil and kenaf, maize, oats, pandarus, peanut, sorghum, soybean, sugarcane, bagasse, and turnips. Citrus pulp and pineapple wastes have been fed safely to buffalo. In Egypt, whole sun-dried dates are fed to milk-buffalo up to 25% of the standard feed mixture.
REPRODUCTION
Swamp buffalo generally become reproductive at an older age than river breeds. Young males in Egypt, India, and Pakistan are first mated at about 3.0–3.5 years of age, but in Italy
they may be used as early as 2 years of age. Successful mating behaviour may continue until the animal is 12 years or even older. A good river male can impregnate 100 females in a year. A strong seasonal influence on mating occurs. Heat stress reduces libido
Although buffalo are polyoestrous, their reproductive efficiency shows wide variation throughout the year. Buffalo cows exhibit a distinct seasonal change in displaying oestrus, conception rate, and calving rate. The age at first oestrus of heifers varies between breeds from 13–33 months, but mating at the first oestrus is often infertile and usually deferred until they are 3 years old. Gestation lasts from 281–334 days, but most reports give a range between 300 and 320 days. Swamp buffalo carry their calves for one or two weeks longer than river buffalo. It is not rare to find buffalo that continue to work well at the age of 30, and instances of a working life of 40 years are recorded.
TAXONOMIC HISTORY
Carl Linnaeus first described the genus Bos and the water buffalo under the binomial Bubalis bubalus in 1758; the latter was known to occur in Asia and as a domestic form in Italy. Ellerman and Morrison-Scott treated the wild and domestic forms of the water buffalo as conspecifics whereas others treated them as different species. The nomenclatorial treatment of wild and domestic forms has been inconsistent and varies between authors and even within the works of single authors.
In March 2003, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature achieved consistency in the naming of wild and domestic water buffalo by ruling that the scientific name Bubalus arnee is valid for the wild form. B. bubalis continues to be valid for the domestic form and applies also to feral populations.
DOMESTICATION AND BREEDING
Water buffalo were domesticated in India about 5000 years ago, and in China about 4000 years ago. Two types are recognized, based on morphological and behavioural criteria – the river buffalo of the Indian subcontinent and further west to the Balkans and Italy, and the swamp buffalo, found from Assam in the west through Southeast Asia to the Yangtze valley of China in the east. The present-day river buffalo is the result of complex domestication processes involving more than one maternal lineage and a significant maternal gene flow from wild populations after the initial domestication events. Twenty-two breeds of the river type water buffalo are known, including Murrah, Nili-Ravi, Surti, Jafarabadi, Anatolian, Mediterranean, and Egyptian buffalo. China has a huge variety of buffalo genetic resources, comprising 16 local swamp buffalo breeds in various regions.
Results of mitochondrial DNA analyses indicate that the two types were domesticated independently. Sequencing of cytochrome b genes of Bubalus species implies that the domestic buffalo originated from at least two populations, and that the river and the swamp types have differentiated at the full species level. The genetic distance between the two types is so large that a divergence time of about 1.7 million years has been suggested. The swamp type was noticed to have the closest relationship with the tamaraw.
DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATIONS
The water buffalo population in the world is about 172 million.
IN ASIA
More than 95.8% of the world population of water buffalo are found in Asia including both river and swamp types. The water buffalo population in India numbered over 97.9 million head in 2003, representing 56.5% of the world population. They are primarily of the river type, with 10 well-defined breeds comprising Badhawari, Murrah, Nili-Ravi, Jafarabadi, Marathwada, Mehsana, Nagpuri, Pandharpuri, Toda, and Surti. Swamp buffalo occur only in small areas in the north-eastern part of the country and are not distinguished into breeds.
In 2003, the second-largest population lived in China, with 22.759 million head, all of the swamp type with breeds kept only in the lowlands, and other breeds kept only in the mountains; as of 2003, 3.2 million swamp-type carabao buffalo were in the Philippines, nearly three million swamp buffalo were in Vietnam, and 772,764 buffalo were in Bangladesh. About 750,000 head were estimated in Sri Lanka in 1997.
The water buffalo is the main dairy animal in Pakistan, with 23.47 million head in 2010. Of these, 76% are kept in the Punjab. The rest of them are mostly in the province of Sindh. Breeds used are Nili-Ravi, Kundi, and Azi Kheli. Karachi has the largest population of water buffalos for an area where fodder is not grown, consisting of 350,000 head kept mainly for milking.
In Thailand, the number of water buffalo dropped from more than 3 million head in 1996 to less than 1.24 million head in 2011. Slightly over 75% of them are kept in the country's northeastern region. The statistics also indicate that by the beginning of 2012, less than one million were in the country, partly as a result of illegal shipments to neighboring countries where sales prices are higher than in Thailand.
Water buffalo are also present in the southern region of Iraq, in the marshes. These marshes were drained by Saddam Hussein in 1991 in an attempt to punish the south for the uprisings of 1991. Following 2003, and the fall of the Saddam regime, these lands were reflooded and a 2007 report in the provinces of Maysan and Thi Qar shows a steady increase in the number of water buffalo. The report puts the number at 40,008 head in those two provinces.
IN EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN
Water buffalo likely were introduced to Europe from India or other Oriental countries. To Italy they were introduced about the year 600 in the reign of the Longobard King Agilulf. As they appear in the company of wild horses, they probably were a present from the Khan of the Avars, a Turkic nomadic tribe that dwelt near the Danube River at the time. Sir H. Johnston knew of a herd of water buffalo presented by a King of Naples to the Bey of Tunis in the mid-19th century that had resumed the feral state in northern Tunis.
European buffalo are all of the river type and considered to be of the same breed named Mediterranean buffalo. In Italy, the Mediterranean type was particularly selected and is called Mediterranean Italian breed to distinguish it from other European breeds, which differ genetically. Mediterranean buffalo are also found in Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Kosovo, and the Republic of Macedonia, with a few hundred in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Hungary. Little exchange of breeding buffalo has occurred among countries, so each population has its own phenotypic features and performances. In Bulgaria, they were crossbred with the Indian Murrah breed, and in Romania, some were crossbred with Bulgarian Murrah. Populations in Turkey are of the Anatolian buffalo breed.
IN AUSTRALIA
Between 1824 and 1849, water buffalo were introduced into the Northern Territory from Timor, Kisar, and probably other islands in the Indonesian archipelago. In 1886, a few milking types were brought from India to Darwin. They have been the main grazing animals on the subcoastal plains and river basins between Darwin and Arnhem Land since the 1880s. In the early 1960s, an estimated population of 150,000 to 200,000 buffalo were living in the plains and nearby areas.
They became feral and are causing significant environmental damage. Buffalo are also found in the Top End. As a result, they were hunted in the Top End from 1885 until 1980. The commencement of the brucellosis and tuberculosis campaign (BTEC) resulted in a huge culling program to reduce buffalo herds to a fraction of the numbers that were reached in the 1980s. The BTEC was finished when the Northern Territory was declared free of the disease in 1997. Numbers dropped dramatically as a result of the campaign, but have since recovered to an estimated 150,000 animals across northern Australia in 2008.
During the 1950s, buffalo were hunted for their skins and meat, which was exported and used in the local trade. In the late 1970s, live exports were made to Cuba and continued later into other countries. Buffalo are now crossed with riverine buffalo in artificial insemination programs, and may be found in many areas of Australia. Some of these crossbreds are used for milk production. Melville Island is a popular hunting location, where a steady population up to 4,000 individuals exists. Safari outfits are run from Darwin to Melville Island and other locations in the Top End, often with the use of bush pilots. The horns, which can measure up to a record of 3.1 m tip-to-tip, are prized hunting trophies.
The buffalo have developed a different appearance from the Indonesian buffalo from which they descend. They live mainly in freshwater marshes and billabongs, and their territory range can be quite expansive during the wet season. Their only natural predators in Australia are adult saltwater crocodiles, with whom they share the billabongs, and dingoes, which have been known to prey on buffalo calves and occasionally adult buffalo when the dingoes are in large packs.
Buffalo were exported live to Indonesia until 2011, at a rate of about 3000 per year. After the live export ban that year, the exports dropped to zero, and had not resumed as of June 2013.
IN SOUTH AMERICA
Water buffalo were introduced into the Amazon River basin in 1895. They are now extensively used there for meat and dairy production. In 2005, the buffalo herd in the Brazilian Amazon stood at roughly 1.6 million head, of which 460,000 were located in the lower Amazon floodplain. Breeds used include Mediterranean from Italy, Murrah and Jafarabadi from India, and Carabao from the Philippines.
During the 1970s, small herds were imported to Costa Rica, Ecuador, Cayenne, Panama, Surinam, Guyana, and Venezuela.
In Argentina, many game ranches raise water buffalo for commercial hunting
IN NORTH AMERICA
In 1974, four water buffalo were imported to the United States from Guam to be studied at the University of Florida. In February 1978, the first herd arrived for commercial farming. Until 2002, only one commercial breeder was in the United States. Water buffalo meat is imported from Australia. Until 2011, water buffalo were raised in Gainesville, Florida, from young obtained from zoo overflow. They were used primarily for meat production, frequently sold as hamburger.[38] Other US ranchers use them for production of high-quality mozzarella cheese.
HUSBANDRY
The husbandry system of water buffalo depends on the purpose for which they are bred and maintained. Most of them are kept by people who work on small farms in family units. Their buffalo live in very close association with them, and are often their greatest capital asset. The women and girls in India generally look after the milking buffalo while the men and boys are concerned with the working animals. Throughout Asia, they are commonly tended by children who are often seen leading or riding their charges to wallowing places. Water buffalo are the ideal animals for work in the deep mud of paddy fields because of their large hooves and flexible foot joints. They are often referred to as "the living tractor of the East". It probably is possible to plough deeper with buffalo than with either oxen or horses. They are the most efficient and economical means of cultivation of small fields. In most rice-producing countries, they are used for threshing and for transporting the sheaves during the rice harvest. They provide power for oilseed mills, sugarcane presses, and devices for raising water. They are widely used as pack animals, and in India and Pakistan also for heavy haulage. In their invasions of Europe, the Turks used buffalo for hauling heavy battering rams. Their dung is used as a fertilizer, and as a fuel when dried.
Buffalo contribute 72 million tones of milk and three million tones of meat annually to world food, much of it in areas that are prone to nutritional imbalances. In India, river-type buffalo are kept mainly for milk production and for transport, whereas swamp-type buffalo are kept mainly for work and a small amount of milk.
DAIRY PRODUCTS
Water buffalo milk presents physicochemical features different from that of other ruminant species, such as a higher content of fatty acids and proteins. The physical and chemical parameters of swamp and river type water buffalo milk differ. Water buffalo milk contains higher levels of total solids, crude protein, fat, calcium, and phosphorus, and slightly higher content of lactose compared with those of cow milk. The high level of total solids makes water buffalo milk ideal for processing into value-added dairy products such as cheese. The conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) content in milk ranged from 4.4 mg/g fat in September to 7.6 mg/g fat in June. Seasons and genetics may play a role in variation of CLA level and changes in gross composition of the water buffalo milk.
Water buffalo milk is processed into a large variety of dairy products:
- Cream churns much faster at higher fat levels and gives higher overrun than cow cream.
- Butter from water buffalo cream displays more stability than that from cow cream.
- Ghee from water buffalo milk has a different texture with a bigger grain size than ghee from cow milk.
- Heat-concentrated milk products in the Indian subcontinent include paneer, khoa, rabri, kheer and basundi.
- Fermented milk products include dahi, yogurt, and chakka.
- Whey is used for making ricotta and mascarpone in Italy, and alkarish in Syria and Egypt.
- Soft cheeses made include mozzarella in Italy, karish, mish, and domiati in Egypt, madhfor in Iraq, alghab in Syria, kesong puti in the Philippines, and vladeasa in Romania.
- The semihard cheese beyaz peynir is made in Turkey.
- Hard cheeses include braila in Romania, rahss in Egypt, white brine in Bulgaria, and akkawi in Syria.
- Watered-down buffalo milk is used as a cheaper alternative to regular milk.
MEAT AND SKIN PRODUCTS
Water buffalo meat, sometimes called "carabeef", is often passed off as beef in certain regions, and is also a major source of export revenue for India. In many Asian regions, buffalo meat is less preferred due to its toughness; however, recipes have evolved (rendang, for example) where the slow cooking process and spices not only make the meat palatable, but also preserve it, an important factor in hot climates where refrigeration is not always available.Their hides provide tough and useful leather, often used for shoes.
BONE AND HORN PRODUCTS
The bones and horns are often made into jewellery, especially earrings. Horns are used for the embouchure of musical instruments, such as ney and kaval.
ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS
Wildlife conservation scientists have started to recommend and use introduced populations of feral domestic water buffalo in far-away lands to manage uncontrolled vegetation growth in and around natural wetlands. Introduced water buffalo at home in such environs provide cheap service by regularly grazing the uncontrolled vegetation and opening up clogged water bodies for waterfowl, wetland birds, and other wildlife. Grazing water buffalo are sometimes used in Great Britain for conservation grazing, such as in Chippenham Fen National Nature Reserve. The buffalo can better adapt to wet conditions and poor-quality vegetation than cattle.
Currently, research is being conducted at the Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies to determine the levels of nutrients removed and returned to wetlands when water buffalo are used for wetland vegetation management.
However, in uncontrolled circumstances, water buffalo can cause environmental damage, such as trampling vegetation, disturbing bird and reptile nesting sites, and spreading exotic weeds.
RESEARCH
The world's first cloned buffalo was developed by Indian scientists from National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal. The buffalo calf was named Samrupa. The calf did not survive more than a week, and died due to some genetic disorders. So, the scientists created another cloned buffalo a few months later, and named it Garima.
On 15 September 2007, the Philippines announced its development of Southeast Asia's first cloned buffalo. The Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD), under the Department of Science and Technology in Los Baños, Laguna, approved this project. The Department of Agriculture's Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) will implement cloning through somatic cell nuclear transfer as a tool for genetic improvement in water buffalo. "Super buffalo calves" will be produced. There will be no modification or alteration of the genetic materials, as in genetically modified organisms.
On 1 January 2008, the Philippine Carabao Center in Nueva Ecija, per Filipino scientists, initiated a study to breed a super water buffalo that could produce 4 to 18 litres of milk per day using gene-based technology. Also, the first in vitro river buffalo was born there in 2004 from an in vitro-produced, vitrified embryo, named "Glory" after President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Joseph Estrada's most successful project as an opposition senator, the PCC was created through Republic Act 3707, the Carabao Act of 1992.
IN CULTURE
Some ethnic groups, such as Batak and Toraja in Indonesia and the Derung in China, use water buffalo or kerbau (called horbo in Batak or tedong in Toraja) as sacrificial animals at several festivals.
- Legend has it that the Chinese philosophical sage Laozi left China through the Han Gu Pass riding a water buffalo.
- According to Hindu lore, the god of death Yama, rides on a male water buffalo.
- The carabao subspecies is considered a national symbol in the Philippines.
- In Vietnam, water buffalo are often the most valuable possession of poor farmers: "Con trâu là đầu cơ nghiệp". They are treated as a member of the family: "Chồng cày, vợ cấy, con trâu đi bừa" ("The husband ploughs, the wife sows, water buffalo draws the rake") and are friends of the children. Children talk to their water buffalo, "Bao giờ cây lúa còn bông. Thì còn ngọn cỏ ngoài đồng trâu ăn." (Vietnamese children are responsible for grazing water buffalo. They feed them grass if they work laboriously for men.) In the old days, West Lake, Hà Nội, was named Kim Ngưu - Golden Water Buffalo.
- The Yoruban Orisha Oya (goddess of change) takes the form of a water buffalo.
FIGHTING FESTIVALS
- Pasungay Festival is held annually in the town of San Joaquin, Iloilo in the Philippines.
- Moh juj Water Buffalo fighting, is held every year in Bhogali Bihu in Assam. Ahotguri in Nagaon is famous for it.
- Do Son Water Buffalo Fighting Festival of Vietnam, held each year on the ninth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar at Do Son Township, Haiphong City in Vietnam, is one of the most popular Vietnam festivals and events in Haiphong City. The preparations for this buffalo fighting festival begin from the two to three months earlier. The competing buffalo are selected and methodically trained months in advance. It is a traditional festival of Vietnam attached to a Water God worshipping ceremony and the Hien Sinh custom to show martial spirit of the local people of Do Son, Haiphong.
- "Hai Luu" Water Buffalo Fighting Festival of Vietnam, According to ancient records, the buffalo fighting in Hai Luu Commune has existed from the 2nd century B.C. General Lu Gia at that time, had the buffalo slaughtered to give a feast to the local people and the warriors, and organized buffalo fighting for amusement. Eventually, all the fighting buffalo will be slaughtered as tributes to the deities.
- "Ko Samui" Water Buffalo Fighting Festival of Thailand, is a very popular event held on special occasions such as New Year's Day in January, and Songkran in mid-April, this festival features head-wrestling bouts in which two male Asian water buffalo are pitted against one another. Unlike in Spanish Bullfighting, wherein bulls get killed while fighting sword-wielding men, Buffalo Fighting Festival held at Ko Samui, Thailand is fairly harmless contest. The fighting season varies according to ancient customs & ceremonies. The first Buffalo to turn and run away is considered the loser, the winning buffalo becomes worth several million baht. Ko Samui is an island in the Gulf of Thailand in the South China Sea, it is 700 km from Bangkok and is connected to it by regular flights.
- "Ma'Pasilaga Tedong" Water Buffalo Fighting Festival, in Tana Toraja Regency of Sulawesi Island, Indonesia, is a very popular event where the Rambu Solo' or a Burial Festival took place in Tana Toraja.
RACING FESTIVALS
Carabao Carroza Festival is being held annually every May in the town of Pavia, Iloilo, Philippines.
Kambala races of Karnataka, India, take place between December and March. The races are conducted by having the water buffalo (he buffalo) run in long parallel slushy ditches, where they are driven by men standing on wooden planks drawn by the buffalo. The objectives of the race are to finish first and to raise the water to the greatest height and also a rural sport. Kambala races are arranged with competition, as well as without competition and as a part of thanks giving (to god) in about 50 villages of coastal Karnataka.
In the Chonburi Province of Thailand, and in Pakistan, there are annual water buffalo races.
Chon Buri Water buffalo racing festival, Thailand In downtown Chonburi, 70 km south of Bangkok, at the annual water buffalo festival held in mid-October. About 300 buffalo race in groups of five or six, spurred on by bareback jockeys wielding wooden sticks, as hundreds of spectators cheer. The water buffalo has always played an important role in agriculture in Thailand. For farmers of Chon Buri Province, near Bangkok, it is an important annual festival, beginning in mid-October. It is also a celebration among rice farmers before the rice harvest. At dawn, farmers walk their buffalo through surrounding rice fields, splashing them with water to keep them cool before leading them to the race field. This amazing festival started over a hundred years ago when two men arguing about whose buffalo was the fastest ended up having a race between them. That’s how it became a tradition and gradually a social event for farmers who gathered from around the country in Chonburi to trade their goods. The festival also helps a great deal in preserving the number of buffalo, which have been dwindling at quite an alarming rate in other regions. Modern machinery is rapidly replacing buffalo in Thai agriculture. With most of the farm work mechanized, the buffalo-racing tradition has continued. Racing buffalo are now raised just to race; they do not work at all. The few farm buffalo which still do work are much bigger than the racers because of the strenuous work they perform. Farm buffalo are in the "Buffalo Beauty Pageant", a Miss Farmer beauty contest and a comic buffalo costume contest etc.. This festival perfectly exemplifies a favored Thai attitude to life — "sanuk," meaning fun.
Babulang Water buffalo racing festival, Sarawak, Malaysia, is the largest or grandest of the many rituals, ceremonies and festivals of the traditional Bisaya (Borneo) community of Limbang, Sarawak. Highlights are the Ratu Babulang competition and the Water buffalo races which can only be found in this town in Sarawak, Malaysia.
Vihear Suor village Water buffalo racing festival, in Cambodia, each year, people visit Buddhist temples across the country to honor their deceased loved ones during a 15-day period commonly known as the Festival of the Dead but in Vihear Suor village, about 35 km northeast of Cambodia, citizens each year wrap up the festival with a water buffalo race to entertain visitors and honour a pledge made hundreds of years ago. There was a time when many village cattle which provide rural Cambodians with muscle power to plough their fields and transport agricultural products died from an unknown disease. The villagers prayed to a spirit to help save their animals from the disease and promised to show their gratitude by holding a buffalo race each year on the last day of "P'chum Ben" festival as it is known in Cambodian. The race draws hundreds of spectators who come to see riders and their animals charge down the racing field, the racers bouncing up and down on the backs of their buffalo, whose horns were draped with colorful cloth.
Pothu puttu matsaram, Kerala, South India, is similar to Kambala races.
WIKIPEDIA
The water buffalo or domestic Asian water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) is a large bovid originating in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and China. Today, it is also found in Europe, Australia, and some American countries. The wild water buffalo (Bubalus arnee) native to Southeast Asia is considered a different species, but most likely represents the ancestor of the domestic water buffalo.
Two extant types of water buffalo are recognized based on morphological and behavioural criteria – the river buffalo of South Asia and further west to the Balkans, Egypt, and Italy, and the swamp buffalo, found from Assam in the west through Southeast Asia to the Yangtze valley of China in the east. The origins of the domestic water buffalo types are debated, although results of a phylogenetic study indicate that the swamp type may have originated in China and was domesticated about 4,000 years ago, while the river type may have originated from India and was domesticated about 5,000 years ago. Water buffalo were traded from the Indus Valley Civilisation to Mesopotamia, in modern Iraq, 2500 BC by the Meluhhas. The seal of a scribe employed by an Akkadian king shows the sacrifice of water buffalo.
At least 130 million domestic water buffalo exist, and more human beings depend on them than on any other domestic animal. They are especially suitable for tilling rice fields, and their milk is richer in fat and protein than that of dairy cattle. The large feral population of northern Australia became established in the late 19th century, and smaller feral herds are in New Guinea, Tunisia, and northeastern Argentina. Feral herds are also present in New Britain, New Ireland, Irian Jaya, Papua New Guinea, Colombia, Guyana, Suriname, Brazil, and Uruguay.
CHARACTERISTICS
The skin of river buffalo is black, but some specimens may have dark, slate-coloured skin. Swamp buffalo have a grey skin at birth, but become slate blue later. Albinoids are present in some populations. River buffalo have comparatively longer faces, smaller girths, and bigger limbs than swamp buffalo. Their dorsal ridges extend further back and taper off more gradually. Their horns grow downward and backward, then curve upward in a spiral. Swamp buffalo are heavy-bodied and stockily built; the body is short and the belly large. The forehead is flat, the eyes prominent, the face short, and the muzzle wide. The neck is comparatively long, and the withers and croup are prominent. A dorsal ridge extends backward and ends abruptly just before the end of the chest. Their horns grow outward, and curve in a semicircle, but always remain more or less on the plane of the forehead. The tail is short, reaching only to the hocks. Height at withers is 129–133 cm for males, and 120–127 cm for females. They range in weight from 300–550 kg, but weights of over 1,000 kg have also been observed.
Tedong bonga is a black pied buffalo featuring a unique black and white colouration that is favoured by the Toraja of Sulawesi.
The swamp buffalo has 48 chromosomes; the river buffalo has 50 chromosomes. The two types do not readily interbreed, but fertile offspring can occur. Buffalo-cattle hybrids have not been observed to occur, and the embryos of such hybrids do not reach maturity in laboratory experiments.
The rumen of the water buffalo has important differences from that of other ruminants. It contains a larger population of bacteria, particularly the cellulolytic bacteria, lower protozoa, and higher fungi zoospores. In addition, higher rumen ammonia nitrogen (NH4-N) and higher pH have been found as compared to those in cattle
ECOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR
River buffalo prefer deep water. Swamp buffalo prefer to wallow in mudholes which they make with their horns. During wallowing, they acquire a thick coating of mud. Both are well adapted to a hot and humid climate with temperatures ranging from 0 °C in the winter to 30 °C and greater in the summer. Water availability is important in hot climates, since they need wallows, rivers, or splashing water to assist in thermoregulation. Some breeds are adapted to saline seaside shores and saline sandy terrain.
DIET
Water buffalo thrive on many aquatic plants and during floods, will graze submerged, raising their heads above the water and carrying quantities of edible plants. They eat reeds (quassab), a giant reed (birdi), a kind of bulrush (kaulan), water hyacinth, and marsh grasses. Some of these plants are of great value to local peoples. Others, such as water hyacinth, are a major problem in some tropical valleys, and water buffalo may help to keep waterways clear.
Green fodders are used widely for intensive milk production and for fattening. Many fodder crops are conserved as hay, chaffed, or pulped. Fodders include alfalfa, berseem and bancheri, the leaves, stems or trimmings of banana, cassava, fodder beet, halfa, ipil-ipil and kenaf, maize, oats, pandarus, peanut, sorghum, soybean, sugarcane, bagasse, and turnips. Citrus pulp and pineapple wastes have been fed safely to buffalo. In Egypt, whole sun-dried dates are fed to milk-buffalo up to 25% of the standard feed mixture.
REPRODUCTION
Swamp buffalo generally become reproductive at an older age than river breeds. Young males in Egypt, India, and Pakistan are first mated at about 3.0–3.5 years of age, but in Italy
they may be used as early as 2 years of age. Successful mating behaviour may continue until the animal is 12 years or even older. A good river male can impregnate 100 females in a year. A strong seasonal influence on mating occurs. Heat stress reduces libido
Although buffalo are polyoestrous, their reproductive efficiency shows wide variation throughout the year. Buffalo cows exhibit a distinct seasonal change in displaying oestrus, conception rate, and calving rate. The age at first oestrus of heifers varies between breeds from 13–33 months, but mating at the first oestrus is often infertile and usually deferred until they are 3 years old. Gestation lasts from 281–334 days, but most reports give a range between 300 and 320 days. Swamp buffalo carry their calves for one or two weeks longer than river buffalo. It is not rare to find buffalo that continue to work well at the age of 30, and instances of a working life of 40 years are recorded.
TAXONOMIC HISTORY
Carl Linnaeus first described the genus Bos and the water buffalo under the binomial Bubalis bubalus in 1758; the latter was known to occur in Asia and as a domestic form in Italy. Ellerman and Morrison-Scott treated the wild and domestic forms of the water buffalo as conspecifics whereas others treated them as different species. The nomenclatorial treatment of wild and domestic forms has been inconsistent and varies between authors and even within the works of single authors.
In March 2003, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature achieved consistency in the naming of wild and domestic water buffalo by ruling that the scientific name Bubalus arnee is valid for the wild form. B. bubalis continues to be valid for the domestic form and applies also to feral populations.
DOMESTICATION AND BREEDING
Water buffalo were domesticated in India about 5000 years ago, and in China about 4000 years ago. Two types are recognized, based on morphological and behavioural criteria – the river buffalo of the Indian subcontinent and further west to the Balkans and Italy, and the swamp buffalo, found from Assam in the west through Southeast Asia to the Yangtze valley of China in the east. The present-day river buffalo is the result of complex domestication processes involving more than one maternal lineage and a significant maternal gene flow from wild populations after the initial domestication events. Twenty-two breeds of the river type water buffalo are known, including Murrah, Nili-Ravi, Surti, Jafarabadi, Anatolian, Mediterranean, and Egyptian buffalo. China has a huge variety of buffalo genetic resources, comprising 16 local swamp buffalo breeds in various regions.
Results of mitochondrial DNA analyses indicate that the two types were domesticated independently. Sequencing of cytochrome b genes of Bubalus species implies that the domestic buffalo originated from at least two populations, and that the river and the swamp types have differentiated at the full species level. The genetic distance between the two types is so large that a divergence time of about 1.7 million years has been suggested. The swamp type was noticed to have the closest relationship with the tamaraw.
DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATIONS
The water buffalo population in the world is about 172 million.
IN ASIA
More than 95.8% of the world population of water buffalo are found in Asia including both river and swamp types. The water buffalo population in India numbered over 97.9 million head in 2003, representing 56.5% of the world population. They are primarily of the river type, with 10 well-defined breeds comprising Badhawari, Murrah, Nili-Ravi, Jafarabadi, Marathwada, Mehsana, Nagpuri, Pandharpuri, Toda, and Surti. Swamp buffalo occur only in small areas in the north-eastern part of the country and are not distinguished into breeds.
In 2003, the second-largest population lived in China, with 22.759 million head, all of the swamp type with breeds kept only in the lowlands, and other breeds kept only in the mountains; as of 2003, 3.2 million swamp-type carabao buffalo were in the Philippines, nearly three million swamp buffalo were in Vietnam, and 772,764 buffalo were in Bangladesh. About 750,000 head were estimated in Sri Lanka in 1997.
The water buffalo is the main dairy animal in Pakistan, with 23.47 million head in 2010. Of these, 76% are kept in the Punjab. The rest of them are mostly in the province of Sindh. Breeds used are Nili-Ravi, Kundi, and Azi Kheli. Karachi has the largest population of water buffalos for an area where fodder is not grown, consisting of 350,000 head kept mainly for milking.
In Thailand, the number of water buffalo dropped from more than 3 million head in 1996 to less than 1.24 million head in 2011. Slightly over 75% of them are kept in the country's northeastern region. The statistics also indicate that by the beginning of 2012, less than one million were in the country, partly as a result of illegal shipments to neighboring countries where sales prices are higher than in Thailand.
Water buffalo are also present in the southern region of Iraq, in the marshes. These marshes were drained by Saddam Hussein in 1991 in an attempt to punish the south for the uprisings of 1991. Following 2003, and the fall of the Saddam regime, these lands were reflooded and a 2007 report in the provinces of Maysan and Thi Qar shows a steady increase in the number of water buffalo. The report puts the number at 40,008 head in those two provinces.
IN EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN
Water buffalo likely were introduced to Europe from India or other Oriental countries. To Italy they were introduced about the year 600 in the reign of the Longobard King Agilulf. As they appear in the company of wild horses, they probably were a present from the Khan of the Avars, a Turkic nomadic tribe that dwelt near the Danube River at the time. Sir H. Johnston knew of a herd of water buffalo presented by a King of Naples to the Bey of Tunis in the mid-19th century that had resumed the feral state in northern Tunis.
European buffalo are all of the river type and considered to be of the same breed named Mediterranean buffalo. In Italy, the Mediterranean type was particularly selected and is called Mediterranean Italian breed to distinguish it from other European breeds, which differ genetically. Mediterranean buffalo are also found in Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Kosovo, and the Republic of Macedonia, with a few hundred in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Hungary. Little exchange of breeding buffalo has occurred among countries, so each population has its own phenotypic features and performances. In Bulgaria, they were crossbred with the Indian Murrah breed, and in Romania, some were crossbred with Bulgarian Murrah. Populations in Turkey are of the Anatolian buffalo breed.
IN AUSTRALIA
Between 1824 and 1849, water buffalo were introduced into the Northern Territory from Timor, Kisar, and probably other islands in the Indonesian archipelago. In 1886, a few milking types were brought from India to Darwin. They have been the main grazing animals on the subcoastal plains and river basins between Darwin and Arnhem Land since the 1880s. In the early 1960s, an estimated population of 150,000 to 200,000 buffalo were living in the plains and nearby areas.
They became feral and are causing significant environmental damage. Buffalo are also found in the Top End. As a result, they were hunted in the Top End from 1885 until 1980. The commencement of the brucellosis and tuberculosis campaign (BTEC) resulted in a huge culling program to reduce buffalo herds to a fraction of the numbers that were reached in the 1980s. The BTEC was finished when the Northern Territory was declared free of the disease in 1997. Numbers dropped dramatically as a result of the campaign, but have since recovered to an estimated 150,000 animals across northern Australia in 2008.
During the 1950s, buffalo were hunted for their skins and meat, which was exported and used in the local trade. In the late 1970s, live exports were made to Cuba and continued later into other countries. Buffalo are now crossed with riverine buffalo in artificial insemination programs, and may be found in many areas of Australia. Some of these crossbreds are used for milk production. Melville Island is a popular hunting location, where a steady population up to 4,000 individuals exists. Safari outfits are run from Darwin to Melville Island and other locations in the Top End, often with the use of bush pilots. The horns, which can measure up to a record of 3.1 m tip-to-tip, are prized hunting trophies.
The buffalo have developed a different appearance from the Indonesian buffalo from which they descend. They live mainly in freshwater marshes and billabongs, and their territory range can be quite expansive during the wet season. Their only natural predators in Australia are adult saltwater crocodiles, with whom they share the billabongs, and dingoes, which have been known to prey on buffalo calves and occasionally adult buffalo when the dingoes are in large packs.
Buffalo were exported live to Indonesia until 2011, at a rate of about 3000 per year. After the live export ban that year, the exports dropped to zero, and had not resumed as of June 2013.
IN SOUTH AMERICA
Water buffalo were introduced into the Amazon River basin in 1895. They are now extensively used there for meat and dairy production. In 2005, the buffalo herd in the Brazilian Amazon stood at roughly 1.6 million head, of which 460,000 were located in the lower Amazon floodplain. Breeds used include Mediterranean from Italy, Murrah and Jafarabadi from India, and Carabao from the Philippines.
During the 1970s, small herds were imported to Costa Rica, Ecuador, Cayenne, Panama, Surinam, Guyana, and Venezuela.
In Argentina, many game ranches raise water buffalo for commercial hunting
IN NORTH AMERICA
In 1974, four water buffalo were imported to the United States from Guam to be studied at the University of Florida. In February 1978, the first herd arrived for commercial farming. Until 2002, only one commercial breeder was in the United States. Water buffalo meat is imported from Australia. Until 2011, water buffalo were raised in Gainesville, Florida, from young obtained from zoo overflow. They were used primarily for meat production, frequently sold as hamburger.[38] Other US ranchers use them for production of high-quality mozzarella cheese.
HUSBANDRY
The husbandry system of water buffalo depends on the purpose for which they are bred and maintained. Most of them are kept by people who work on small farms in family units. Their buffalo live in very close association with them, and are often their greatest capital asset. The women and girls in India generally look after the milking buffalo while the men and boys are concerned with the working animals. Throughout Asia, they are commonly tended by children who are often seen leading or riding their charges to wallowing places. Water buffalo are the ideal animals for work in the deep mud of paddy fields because of their large hooves and flexible foot joints. They are often referred to as "the living tractor of the East". It probably is possible to plough deeper with buffalo than with either oxen or horses. They are the most efficient and economical means of cultivation of small fields. In most rice-producing countries, they are used for threshing and for transporting the sheaves during the rice harvest. They provide power for oilseed mills, sugarcane presses, and devices for raising water. They are widely used as pack animals, and in India and Pakistan also for heavy haulage. In their invasions of Europe, the Turks used buffalo for hauling heavy battering rams. Their dung is used as a fertilizer, and as a fuel when dried.
Buffalo contribute 72 million tones of milk and three million tones of meat annually to world food, much of it in areas that are prone to nutritional imbalances. In India, river-type buffalo are kept mainly for milk production and for transport, whereas swamp-type buffalo are kept mainly for work and a small amount of milk.
DAIRY PRODUCTS
Water buffalo milk presents physicochemical features different from that of other ruminant species, such as a higher content of fatty acids and proteins. The physical and chemical parameters of swamp and river type water buffalo milk differ. Water buffalo milk contains higher levels of total solids, crude protein, fat, calcium, and phosphorus, and slightly higher content of lactose compared with those of cow milk. The high level of total solids makes water buffalo milk ideal for processing into value-added dairy products such as cheese. The conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) content in milk ranged from 4.4 mg/g fat in September to 7.6 mg/g fat in June. Seasons and genetics may play a role in variation of CLA level and changes in gross composition of the water buffalo milk.
Water buffalo milk is processed into a large variety of dairy products:
- Cream churns much faster at higher fat levels and gives higher overrun than cow cream.
- Butter from water buffalo cream displays more stability than that from cow cream.
- Ghee from water buffalo milk has a different texture with a bigger grain size than ghee from cow milk.
- Heat-concentrated milk products in the Indian subcontinent include paneer, khoa, rabri, kheer and basundi.
- Fermented milk products include dahi, yogurt, and chakka.
- Whey is used for making ricotta and mascarpone in Italy, and alkarish in Syria and Egypt.
- Soft cheeses made include mozzarella in Italy, karish, mish, and domiati in Egypt, madhfor in Iraq, alghab in Syria, kesong puti in the Philippines, and vladeasa in Romania.
- The semihard cheese beyaz peynir is made in Turkey.
- Hard cheeses include braila in Romania, rahss in Egypt, white brine in Bulgaria, and akkawi in Syria.
- Watered-down buffalo milk is used as a cheaper alternative to regular milk.
MEAT AND SKIN PRODUCTS
Water buffalo meat, sometimes called "carabeef", is often passed off as beef in certain regions, and is also a major source of export revenue for India. In many Asian regions, buffalo meat is less preferred due to its toughness; however, recipes have evolved (rendang, for example) where the slow cooking process and spices not only make the meat palatable, but also preserve it, an important factor in hot climates where refrigeration is not always available.Their hides provide tough and useful leather, often used for shoes.
BONE AND HORN PRODUCTS
The bones and horns are often made into jewellery, especially earrings. Horns are used for the embouchure of musical instruments, such as ney and kaval.
ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS
Wildlife conservation scientists have started to recommend and use introduced populations of feral domestic water buffalo in far-away lands to manage uncontrolled vegetation growth in and around natural wetlands. Introduced water buffalo at home in such environs provide cheap service by regularly grazing the uncontrolled vegetation and opening up clogged water bodies for waterfowl, wetland birds, and other wildlife. Grazing water buffalo are sometimes used in Great Britain for conservation grazing, such as in Chippenham Fen National Nature Reserve. The buffalo can better adapt to wet conditions and poor-quality vegetation than cattle.
Currently, research is being conducted at the Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies to determine the levels of nutrients removed and returned to wetlands when water buffalo are used for wetland vegetation management.
However, in uncontrolled circumstances, water buffalo can cause environmental damage, such as trampling vegetation, disturbing bird and reptile nesting sites, and spreading exotic weeds.
RESEARCH
The world's first cloned buffalo was developed by Indian scientists from National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal. The buffalo calf was named Samrupa. The calf did not survive more than a week, and died due to some genetic disorders. So, the scientists created another cloned buffalo a few months later, and named it Garima.
On 15 September 2007, the Philippines announced its development of Southeast Asia's first cloned buffalo. The Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD), under the Department of Science and Technology in Los Baños, Laguna, approved this project. The Department of Agriculture's Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) will implement cloning through somatic cell nuclear transfer as a tool for genetic improvement in water buffalo. "Super buffalo calves" will be produced. There will be no modification or alteration of the genetic materials, as in genetically modified organisms.
On 1 January 2008, the Philippine Carabao Center in Nueva Ecija, per Filipino scientists, initiated a study to breed a super water buffalo that could produce 4 to 18 litres of milk per day using gene-based technology. Also, the first in vitro river buffalo was born there in 2004 from an in vitro-produced, vitrified embryo, named "Glory" after President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Joseph Estrada's most successful project as an opposition senator, the PCC was created through Republic Act 3707, the Carabao Act of 1992.
IN CULTURE
Some ethnic groups, such as Batak and Toraja in Indonesia and the Derung in China, use water buffalo or kerbau (called horbo in Batak or tedong in Toraja) as sacrificial animals at several festivals.
- Legend has it that the Chinese philosophical sage Laozi left China through the Han Gu Pass riding a water buffalo.
- According to Hindu lore, the god of death Yama, rides on a male water buffalo.
- The carabao subspecies is considered a national symbol in the Philippines.
- In Vietnam, water buffalo are often the most valuable possession of poor farmers: "Con trâu là đầu cơ nghiệp". They are treated as a member of the family: "Chồng cày, vợ cấy, con trâu đi bừa" ("The husband ploughs, the wife sows, water buffalo draws the rake") and are friends of the children. Children talk to their water buffalo, "Bao giờ cây lúa còn bông. Thì còn ngọn cỏ ngoài đồng trâu ăn." (Vietnamese children are responsible for grazing water buffalo. They feed them grass if they work laboriously for men.) In the old days, West Lake, Hà Nội, was named Kim Ngưu - Golden Water Buffalo.
- The Yoruban Orisha Oya (goddess of change) takes the form of a water buffalo.
FIGHTING FESTIVALS
- Pasungay Festival is held annually in the town of San Joaquin, Iloilo in the Philippines.
- Moh juj Water Buffalo fighting, is held every year in Bhogali Bihu in Assam. Ahotguri in Nagaon is famous for it.
- Do Son Water Buffalo Fighting Festival of Vietnam, held each year on the ninth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar at Do Son Township, Haiphong City in Vietnam, is one of the most popular Vietnam festivals and events in Haiphong City. The preparations for this buffalo fighting festival begin from the two to three months earlier. The competing buffalo are selected and methodically trained months in advance. It is a traditional festival of Vietnam attached to a Water God worshipping ceremony and the Hien Sinh custom to show martial spirit of the local people of Do Son, Haiphong.
- "Hai Luu" Water Buffalo Fighting Festival of Vietnam, According to ancient records, the buffalo fighting in Hai Luu Commune has existed from the 2nd century B.C. General Lu Gia at that time, had the buffalo slaughtered to give a feast to the local people and the warriors, and organized buffalo fighting for amusement. Eventually, all the fighting buffalo will be slaughtered as tributes to the deities.
- "Ko Samui" Water Buffalo Fighting Festival of Thailand, is a very popular event held on special occasions such as New Year's Day in January, and Songkran in mid-April, this festival features head-wrestling bouts in which two male Asian water buffalo are pitted against one another. Unlike in Spanish Bullfighting, wherein bulls get killed while fighting sword-wielding men, Buffalo Fighting Festival held at Ko Samui, Thailand is fairly harmless contest. The fighting season varies according to ancient customs & ceremonies. The first Buffalo to turn and run away is considered the loser, the winning buffalo becomes worth several million baht. Ko Samui is an island in the Gulf of Thailand in the South China Sea, it is 700 km from Bangkok and is connected to it by regular flights.
- "Ma'Pasilaga Tedong" Water Buffalo Fighting Festival, in Tana Toraja Regency of Sulawesi Island, Indonesia, is a very popular event where the Rambu Solo' or a Burial Festival took place in Tana Toraja.
RACING FESTIVALS
Carabao Carroza Festival is being held annually every May in the town of Pavia, Iloilo, Philippines.
Kambala races of Karnataka, India, take place between December and March. The races are conducted by having the water buffalo (he buffalo) run in long parallel slushy ditches, where they are driven by men standing on wooden planks drawn by the buffalo. The objectives of the race are to finish first and to raise the water to the greatest height and also a rural sport. Kambala races are arranged with competition, as well as without competition and as a part of thanks giving (to god) in about 50 villages of coastal Karnataka.
In the Chonburi Province of Thailand, and in Pakistan, there are annual water buffalo races.
Chon Buri Water buffalo racing festival, Thailand In downtown Chonburi, 70 km south of Bangkok, at the annual water buffalo festival held in mid-October. About 300 buffalo race in groups of five or six, spurred on by bareback jockeys wielding wooden sticks, as hundreds of spectators cheer. The water buffalo has always played an important role in agriculture in Thailand. For farmers of Chon Buri Province, near Bangkok, it is an important annual festival, beginning in mid-October. It is also a celebration among rice farmers before the rice harvest. At dawn, farmers walk their buffalo through surrounding rice fields, splashing them with water to keep them cool before leading them to the race field. This amazing festival started over a hundred years ago when two men arguing about whose buffalo was the fastest ended up having a race between them. That’s how it became a tradition and gradually a social event for farmers who gathered from around the country in Chonburi to trade their goods. The festival also helps a great deal in preserving the number of buffalo, which have been dwindling at quite an alarming rate in other regions. Modern machinery is rapidly replacing buffalo in Thai agriculture. With most of the farm work mechanized, the buffalo-racing tradition has continued. Racing buffalo are now raised just to race; they do not work at all. The few farm buffalo which still do work are much bigger than the racers because of the strenuous work they perform. Farm buffalo are in the "Buffalo Beauty Pageant", a Miss Farmer beauty contest and a comic buffalo costume contest etc.. This festival perfectly exemplifies a favored Thai attitude to life — "sanuk," meaning fun.
Babulang Water buffalo racing festival, Sarawak, Malaysia, is the largest or grandest of the many rituals, ceremonies and festivals of the traditional Bisaya (Borneo) community of Limbang, Sarawak. Highlights are the Ratu Babulang competition and the Water buffalo races which can only be found in this town in Sarawak, Malaysia.
Vihear Suor village Water buffalo racing festival, in Cambodia, each year, people visit Buddhist temples across the country to honor their deceased loved ones during a 15-day period commonly known as the Festival of the Dead but in Vihear Suor village, about 35 km northeast of Cambodia, citizens each year wrap up the festival with a water buffalo race to entertain visitors and honour a pledge made hundreds of years ago. There was a time when many village cattle which provide rural Cambodians with muscle power to plough their fields and transport agricultural products died from an unknown disease. The villagers prayed to a spirit to help save their animals from the disease and promised to show their gratitude by holding a buffalo race each year on the last day of "P'chum Ben" festival as it is known in Cambodian. The race draws hundreds of spectators who come to see riders and their animals charge down the racing field, the racers bouncing up and down on the backs of their buffalo, whose horns were draped with colorful cloth.
Pothu puttu matsaram, Kerala, South India, is similar to Kambala races.
WIKIPEDIA
The water buffalo or domestic Asian water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) is a large bovid originating in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and China. Today, it is also found in Europe, Australia, and some American countries. The wild water buffalo (Bubalus arnee) native to Southeast Asia is considered a different species, but most likely represents the ancestor of the domestic water buffalo.
Two extant types of water buffalo are recognized based on morphological and behavioural criteria – the river buffalo of South Asia and further west to the Balkans, Egypt, and Italy, and the swamp buffalo, found from Assam in the west through Southeast Asia to the Yangtze valley of China in the east. The origins of the domestic water buffalo types are debated, although results of a phylogenetic study indicate that the swamp type may have originated in China and was domesticated about 4,000 years ago, while the river type may have originated from India and was domesticated about 5,000 years ago. Water buffalo were traded from the Indus Valley Civilisation to Mesopotamia, in modern Iraq, 2500 BC by the Meluhhas. The seal of a scribe employed by an Akkadian king shows the sacrifice of water buffalo.
At least 130 million domestic water buffalo exist, and more human beings depend on them than on any other domestic animal. They are especially suitable for tilling rice fields, and their milk is richer in fat and protein than that of dairy cattle. The large feral population of northern Australia became established in the late 19th century, and smaller feral herds are in New Guinea, Tunisia, and northeastern Argentina. Feral herds are also present in New Britain, New Ireland, Irian Jaya, Papua New Guinea, Colombia, Guyana, Suriname, Brazil, and Uruguay.
CHARACTERISTICS
The skin of river buffalo is black, but some specimens may have dark, slate-coloured skin. Swamp buffalo have a grey skin at birth, but become slate blue later. Albinoids are present in some populations. River buffalo have comparatively longer faces, smaller girths, and bigger limbs than swamp buffalo. Their dorsal ridges extend further back and taper off more gradually. Their horns grow downward and backward, then curve upward in a spiral. Swamp buffalo are heavy-bodied and stockily built; the body is short and the belly large. The forehead is flat, the eyes prominent, the face short, and the muzzle wide. The neck is comparatively long, and the withers and croup are prominent. A dorsal ridge extends backward and ends abruptly just before the end of the chest. Their horns grow outward, and curve in a semicircle, but always remain more or less on the plane of the forehead. The tail is short, reaching only to the hocks. Height at withers is 129–133 cm for males, and 120–127 cm for females. They range in weight from 300–550 kg, but weights of over 1,000 kg have also been observed.
Tedong bonga is a black pied buffalo featuring a unique black and white colouration that is favoured by the Toraja of Sulawesi.
The swamp buffalo has 48 chromosomes; the river buffalo has 50 chromosomes. The two types do not readily interbreed, but fertile offspring can occur. Buffalo-cattle hybrids have not been observed to occur, and the embryos of such hybrids do not reach maturity in laboratory experiments.
The rumen of the water buffalo has important differences from that of other ruminants. It contains a larger population of bacteria, particularly the cellulolytic bacteria, lower protozoa, and higher fungi zoospores. In addition, higher rumen ammonia nitrogen (NH4-N) and higher pH have been found as compared to those in cattle
ECOLOGY AND BEHAVIOR
River buffalo prefer deep water. Swamp buffalo prefer to wallow in mudholes which they make with their horns. During wallowing, they acquire a thick coating of mud. Both are well adapted to a hot and humid climate with temperatures ranging from 0 °C in the winter to 30 °C and greater in the summer. Water availability is important in hot climates, since they need wallows, rivers, or splashing water to assist in thermoregulation. Some breeds are adapted to saline seaside shores and saline sandy terrain.
DIET
Water buffalo thrive on many aquatic plants and during floods, will graze submerged, raising their heads above the water and carrying quantities of edible plants. They eat reeds (quassab), a giant reed (birdi), a kind of bulrush (kaulan), water hyacinth, and marsh grasses. Some of these plants are of great value to local peoples. Others, such as water hyacinth, are a major problem in some tropical valleys, and water buffalo may help to keep waterways clear.
Green fodders are used widely for intensive milk production and for fattening. Many fodder crops are conserved as hay, chaffed, or pulped. Fodders include alfalfa, berseem and bancheri, the leaves, stems or trimmings of banana, cassava, fodder beet, halfa, ipil-ipil and kenaf, maize, oats, pandarus, peanut, sorghum, soybean, sugarcane, bagasse, and turnips. Citrus pulp and pineapple wastes have been fed safely to buffalo. In Egypt, whole sun-dried dates are fed to milk-buffalo up to 25% of the standard feed mixture.
REPRODUCTION
Swamp buffalo generally become reproductive at an older age than river breeds. Young males in Egypt, India, and Pakistan are first mated at about 3.0–3.5 years of age, but in Italy
they may be used as early as 2 years of age. Successful mating behaviour may continue until the animal is 12 years or even older. A good river male can impregnate 100 females in a year. A strong seasonal influence on mating occurs. Heat stress reduces libido
Although buffalo are polyoestrous, their reproductive efficiency shows wide variation throughout the year. Buffalo cows exhibit a distinct seasonal change in displaying oestrus, conception rate, and calving rate. The age at first oestrus of heifers varies between breeds from 13–33 months, but mating at the first oestrus is often infertile and usually deferred until they are 3 years old. Gestation lasts from 281–334 days, but most reports give a range between 300 and 320 days. Swamp buffalo carry their calves for one or two weeks longer than river buffalo. It is not rare to find buffalo that continue to work well at the age of 30, and instances of a working life of 40 years are recorded.
TAXONOMIC HISTORY
Carl Linnaeus first described the genus Bos and the water buffalo under the binomial Bubalis bubalus in 1758; the latter was known to occur in Asia and as a domestic form in Italy. Ellerman and Morrison-Scott treated the wild and domestic forms of the water buffalo as conspecifics whereas others treated them as different species. The nomenclatorial treatment of wild and domestic forms has been inconsistent and varies between authors and even within the works of single authors.
In March 2003, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature achieved consistency in the naming of wild and domestic water buffalo by ruling that the scientific name Bubalus arnee is valid for the wild form. B. bubalis continues to be valid for the domestic form and applies also to feral populations.
DOMESTICATION AND BREEDING
Water buffalo were domesticated in India about 5000 years ago, and in China about 4000 years ago. Two types are recognized, based on morphological and behavioural criteria – the river buffalo of the Indian subcontinent and further west to the Balkans and Italy, and the swamp buffalo, found from Assam in the west through Southeast Asia to the Yangtze valley of China in the east. The present-day river buffalo is the result of complex domestication processes involving more than one maternal lineage and a significant maternal gene flow from wild populations after the initial domestication events. Twenty-two breeds of the river type water buffalo are known, including Murrah, Nili-Ravi, Surti, Jafarabadi, Anatolian, Mediterranean, and Egyptian buffalo. China has a huge variety of buffalo genetic resources, comprising 16 local swamp buffalo breeds in various regions.
Results of mitochondrial DNA analyses indicate that the two types were domesticated independently. Sequencing of cytochrome b genes of Bubalus species implies that the domestic buffalo originated from at least two populations, and that the river and the swamp types have differentiated at the full species level. The genetic distance between the two types is so large that a divergence time of about 1.7 million years has been suggested. The swamp type was noticed to have the closest relationship with the tamaraw.
DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATIONS
The water buffalo population in the world is about 172 million.
IN ASIA
More than 95.8% of the world population of water buffalo are found in Asia including both river and swamp types. The water buffalo population in India numbered over 97.9 million head in 2003, representing 56.5% of the world population. They are primarily of the river type, with 10 well-defined breeds comprising Badhawari, Murrah, Nili-Ravi, Jafarabadi, Marathwada, Mehsana, Nagpuri, Pandharpuri, Toda, and Surti. Swamp buffalo occur only in small areas in the north-eastern part of the country and are not distinguished into breeds.
In 2003, the second-largest population lived in China, with 22.759 million head, all of the swamp type with breeds kept only in the lowlands, and other breeds kept only in the mountains; as of 2003, 3.2 million swamp-type carabao buffalo were in the Philippines, nearly three million swamp buffalo were in Vietnam, and 772,764 buffalo were in Bangladesh. About 750,000 head were estimated in Sri Lanka in 1997.
The water buffalo is the main dairy animal in Pakistan, with 23.47 million head in 2010. Of these, 76% are kept in the Punjab. The rest of them are mostly in the province of Sindh. Breeds used are Nili-Ravi, Kundi, and Azi Kheli. Karachi has the largest population of water buffalos for an area where fodder is not grown, consisting of 350,000 head kept mainly for milking.
In Thailand, the number of water buffalo dropped from more than 3 million head in 1996 to less than 1.24 million head in 2011. Slightly over 75% of them are kept in the country's northeastern region. The statistics also indicate that by the beginning of 2012, less than one million were in the country, partly as a result of illegal shipments to neighboring countries where sales prices are higher than in Thailand.
Water buffalo are also present in the southern region of Iraq, in the marshes. These marshes were drained by Saddam Hussein in 1991 in an attempt to punish the south for the uprisings of 1991. Following 2003, and the fall of the Saddam regime, these lands were reflooded and a 2007 report in the provinces of Maysan and Thi Qar shows a steady increase in the number of water buffalo. The report puts the number at 40,008 head in those two provinces.
IN EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN
Water buffalo likely were introduced to Europe from India or other Oriental countries. To Italy they were introduced about the year 600 in the reign of the Longobard King Agilulf. As they appear in the company of wild horses, they probably were a present from the Khan of the Avars, a Turkic nomadic tribe that dwelt near the Danube River at the time. Sir H. Johnston knew of a herd of water buffalo presented by a King of Naples to the Bey of Tunis in the mid-19th century that had resumed the feral state in northern Tunis.
European buffalo are all of the river type and considered to be of the same breed named Mediterranean buffalo. In Italy, the Mediterranean type was particularly selected and is called Mediterranean Italian breed to distinguish it from other European breeds, which differ genetically. Mediterranean buffalo are also found in Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Kosovo, and the Republic of Macedonia, with a few hundred in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Hungary. Little exchange of breeding buffalo has occurred among countries, so each population has its own phenotypic features and performances. In Bulgaria, they were crossbred with the Indian Murrah breed, and in Romania, some were crossbred with Bulgarian Murrah. Populations in Turkey are of the Anatolian buffalo breed.
IN AUSTRALIA
Between 1824 and 1849, water buffalo were introduced into the Northern Territory from Timor, Kisar, and probably other islands in the Indonesian archipelago. In 1886, a few milking types were brought from India to Darwin. They have been the main grazing animals on the subcoastal plains and river basins between Darwin and Arnhem Land since the 1880s. In the early 1960s, an estimated population of 150,000 to 200,000 buffalo were living in the plains and nearby areas.
They became feral and are causing significant environmental damage. Buffalo are also found in the Top End. As a result, they were hunted in the Top End from 1885 until 1980. The commencement of the brucellosis and tuberculosis campaign (BTEC) resulted in a huge culling program to reduce buffalo herds to a fraction of the numbers that were reached in the 1980s. The BTEC was finished when the Northern Territory was declared free of the disease in 1997. Numbers dropped dramatically as a result of the campaign, but have since recovered to an estimated 150,000 animals across northern Australia in 2008.
During the 1950s, buffalo were hunted for their skins and meat, which was exported and used in the local trade. In the late 1970s, live exports were made to Cuba and continued later into other countries. Buffalo are now crossed with riverine buffalo in artificial insemination programs, and may be found in many areas of Australia. Some of these crossbreds are used for milk production. Melville Island is a popular hunting location, where a steady population up to 4,000 individuals exists. Safari outfits are run from Darwin to Melville Island and other locations in the Top End, often with the use of bush pilots. The horns, which can measure up to a record of 3.1 m tip-to-tip, are prized hunting trophies.
The buffalo have developed a different appearance from the Indonesian buffalo from which they descend. They live mainly in freshwater marshes and billabongs, and their territory range can be quite expansive during the wet season. Their only natural predators in Australia are adult saltwater crocodiles, with whom they share the billabongs, and dingoes, which have been known to prey on buffalo calves and occasionally adult buffalo when the dingoes are in large packs.
Buffalo were exported live to Indonesia until 2011, at a rate of about 3000 per year. After the live export ban that year, the exports dropped to zero, and had not resumed as of June 2013.
IN SOUTH AMERICA
Water buffalo were introduced into the Amazon River basin in 1895. They are now extensively used there for meat and dairy production. In 2005, the buffalo herd in the Brazilian Amazon stood at roughly 1.6 million head, of which 460,000 were located in the lower Amazon floodplain. Breeds used include Mediterranean from Italy, Murrah and Jafarabadi from India, and Carabao from the Philippines.
During the 1970s, small herds were imported to Costa Rica, Ecuador, Cayenne, Panama, Surinam, Guyana, and Venezuela.
In Argentina, many game ranches raise water buffalo for commercial hunting
IN NORTH AMERICA
In 1974, four water buffalo were imported to the United States from Guam to be studied at the University of Florida. In February 1978, the first herd arrived for commercial farming. Until 2002, only one commercial breeder was in the United States. Water buffalo meat is imported from Australia. Until 2011, water buffalo were raised in Gainesville, Florida, from young obtained from zoo overflow. They were used primarily for meat production, frequently sold as hamburger.[38] Other US ranchers use them for production of high-quality mozzarella cheese.
HUSBANDRY
The husbandry system of water buffalo depends on the purpose for which they are bred and maintained. Most of them are kept by people who work on small farms in family units. Their buffalo live in very close association with them, and are often their greatest capital asset. The women and girls in India generally look after the milking buffalo while the men and boys are concerned with the working animals. Throughout Asia, they are commonly tended by children who are often seen leading or riding their charges to wallowing places. Water buffalo are the ideal animals for work in the deep mud of paddy fields because of their large hooves and flexible foot joints. They are often referred to as "the living tractor of the East". It probably is possible to plough deeper with buffalo than with either oxen or horses. They are the most efficient and economical means of cultivation of small fields. In most rice-producing countries, they are used for threshing and for transporting the sheaves during the rice harvest. They provide power for oilseed mills, sugarcane presses, and devices for raising water. They are widely used as pack animals, and in India and Pakistan also for heavy haulage. In their invasions of Europe, the Turks used buffalo for hauling heavy battering rams. Their dung is used as a fertilizer, and as a fuel when dried.
Buffalo contribute 72 million tones of milk and three million tones of meat annually to world food, much of it in areas that are prone to nutritional imbalances. In India, river-type buffalo are kept mainly for milk production and for transport, whereas swamp-type buffalo are kept mainly for work and a small amount of milk.
DAIRY PRODUCTS
Water buffalo milk presents physicochemical features different from that of other ruminant species, such as a higher content of fatty acids and proteins. The physical and chemical parameters of swamp and river type water buffalo milk differ. Water buffalo milk contains higher levels of total solids, crude protein, fat, calcium, and phosphorus, and slightly higher content of lactose compared with those of cow milk. The high level of total solids makes water buffalo milk ideal for processing into value-added dairy products such as cheese. The conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) content in milk ranged from 4.4 mg/g fat in September to 7.6 mg/g fat in June. Seasons and genetics may play a role in variation of CLA level and changes in gross composition of the water buffalo milk.
Water buffalo milk is processed into a large variety of dairy products:
- Cream churns much faster at higher fat levels and gives higher overrun than cow cream.
- Butter from water buffalo cream displays more stability than that from cow cream.
- Ghee from water buffalo milk has a different texture with a bigger grain size than ghee from cow milk.
- Heat-concentrated milk products in the Indian subcontinent include paneer, khoa, rabri, kheer and basundi.
- Fermented milk products include dahi, yogurt, and chakka.
- Whey is used for making ricotta and mascarpone in Italy, and alkarish in Syria and Egypt.
- Soft cheeses made include mozzarella in Italy, karish, mish, and domiati in Egypt, madhfor in Iraq, alghab in Syria, kesong puti in the Philippines, and vladeasa in Romania.
- The semihard cheese beyaz peynir is made in Turkey.
- Hard cheeses include braila in Romania, rahss in Egypt, white brine in Bulgaria, and akkawi in Syria.
- Watered-down buffalo milk is used as a cheaper alternative to regular milk.
MEAT AND SKIN PRODUCTS
Water buffalo meat, sometimes called "carabeef", is often passed off as beef in certain regions, and is also a major source of export revenue for India. In many Asian regions, buffalo meat is less preferred due to its toughness; however, recipes have evolved (rendang, for example) where the slow cooking process and spices not only make the meat palatable, but also preserve it, an important factor in hot climates where refrigeration is not always available.Their hides provide tough and useful leather, often used for shoes.
BONE AND HORN PRODUCTS
The bones and horns are often made into jewellery, especially earrings. Horns are used for the embouchure of musical instruments, such as ney and kaval.
ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS
Wildlife conservation scientists have started to recommend and use introduced populations of feral domestic water buffalo in far-away lands to manage uncontrolled vegetation growth in and around natural wetlands. Introduced water buffalo at home in such environs provide cheap service by regularly grazing the uncontrolled vegetation and opening up clogged water bodies for waterfowl, wetland birds, and other wildlife. Grazing water buffalo are sometimes used in Great Britain for conservation grazing, such as in Chippenham Fen National Nature Reserve. The buffalo can better adapt to wet conditions and poor-quality vegetation than cattle.
Currently, research is being conducted at the Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies to determine the levels of nutrients removed and returned to wetlands when water buffalo are used for wetland vegetation management.
However, in uncontrolled circumstances, water buffalo can cause environmental damage, such as trampling vegetation, disturbing bird and reptile nesting sites, and spreading exotic weeds.
RESEARCH
The world's first cloned buffalo was developed by Indian scientists from National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal. The buffalo calf was named Samrupa. The calf did not survive more than a week, and died due to some genetic disorders. So, the scientists created another cloned buffalo a few months later, and named it Garima.
On 15 September 2007, the Philippines announced its development of Southeast Asia's first cloned buffalo. The Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD), under the Department of Science and Technology in Los Baños, Laguna, approved this project. The Department of Agriculture's Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) will implement cloning through somatic cell nuclear transfer as a tool for genetic improvement in water buffalo. "Super buffalo calves" will be produced. There will be no modification or alteration of the genetic materials, as in genetically modified organisms.
On 1 January 2008, the Philippine Carabao Center in Nueva Ecija, per Filipino scientists, initiated a study to breed a super water buffalo that could produce 4 to 18 litres of milk per day using gene-based technology. Also, the first in vitro river buffalo was born there in 2004 from an in vitro-produced, vitrified embryo, named "Glory" after President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Joseph Estrada's most successful project as an opposition senator, the PCC was created through Republic Act 3707, the Carabao Act of 1992.
IN CULTURE
Some ethnic groups, such as Batak and Toraja in Indonesia and the Derung in China, use water buffalo or kerbau (called horbo in Batak or tedong in Toraja) as sacrificial animals at several festivals.
- Legend has it that the Chinese philosophical sage Laozi left China through the Han Gu Pass riding a water buffalo.
- According to Hindu lore, the god of death Yama, rides on a male water buffalo.
- The carabao subspecies is considered a national symbol in the Philippines.
- In Vietnam, water buffalo are often the most valuable possession of poor farmers: "Con trâu là đầu cơ nghiệp". They are treated as a member of the family: "Chồng cày, vợ cấy, con trâu đi bừa" ("The husband ploughs, the wife sows, water buffalo draws the rake") and are friends of the children. Children talk to their water buffalo, "Bao giờ cây lúa còn bông. Thì còn ngọn cỏ ngoài đồng trâu ăn." (Vietnamese children are responsible for grazing water buffalo. They feed them grass if they work laboriously for men.) In the old days, West Lake, Hà Nội, was named Kim Ngưu - Golden Water Buffalo.
- The Yoruban Orisha Oya (goddess of change) takes the form of a water buffalo.
FIGHTING FESTIVALS
- Pasungay Festival is held annually in the town of San Joaquin, Iloilo in the Philippines.
- Moh juj Water Buffalo fighting, is held every year in Bhogali Bihu in Assam. Ahotguri in Nagaon is famous for it.
- Do Son Water Buffalo Fighting Festival of Vietnam, held each year on the ninth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar at Do Son Township, Haiphong City in Vietnam, is one of the most popular Vietnam festivals and events in Haiphong City. The preparations for this buffalo fighting festival begin from the two to three months earlier. The competing buffalo are selected and methodically trained months in advance. It is a traditional festival of Vietnam attached to a Water God worshipping ceremony and the Hien Sinh custom to show martial spirit of the local people of Do Son, Haiphong.
- "Hai Luu" Water Buffalo Fighting Festival of Vietnam, According to ancient records, the buffalo fighting in Hai Luu Commune has existed from the 2nd century B.C. General Lu Gia at that time, had the buffalo slaughtered to give a feast to the local people and the warriors, and organized buffalo fighting for amusement. Eventually, all the fighting buffalo will be slaughtered as tributes to the deities.
- "Ko Samui" Water Buffalo Fighting Festival of Thailand, is a very popular event held on special occasions such as New Year's Day in January, and Songkran in mid-April, this festival features head-wrestling bouts in which two male Asian water buffalo are pitted against one another. Unlike in Spanish Bullfighting, wherein bulls get killed while fighting sword-wielding men, Buffalo Fighting Festival held at Ko Samui, Thailand is fairly harmless contest. The fighting season varies according to ancient customs & ceremonies. The first Buffalo to turn and run away is considered the loser, the winning buffalo becomes worth several million baht. Ko Samui is an island in the Gulf of Thailand in the South China Sea, it is 700 km from Bangkok and is connected to it by regular flights.
- "Ma'Pasilaga Tedong" Water Buffalo Fighting Festival, in Tana Toraja Regency of Sulawesi Island, Indonesia, is a very popular event where the Rambu Solo' or a Burial Festival took place in Tana Toraja.
RACING FESTIVALS
Carabao Carroza Festival is being held annually every May in the town of Pavia, Iloilo, Philippines.
Kambala races of Karnataka, India, take place between December and March. The races are conducted by having the water buffalo (he buffalo) run in long parallel slushy ditches, where they are driven by men standing on wooden planks drawn by the buffalo. The objectives of the race are to finish first and to raise the water to the greatest height and also a rural sport. Kambala races are arranged with competition, as well as without competition and as a part of thanks giving (to god) in about 50 villages of coastal Karnataka.
In the Chonburi Province of Thailand, and in Pakistan, there are annual water buffalo races.
Chon Buri Water buffalo racing festival, Thailand In downtown Chonburi, 70 km south of Bangkok, at the annual water buffalo festival held in mid-October. About 300 buffalo race in groups of five or six, spurred on by bareback jockeys wielding wooden sticks, as hundreds of spectators cheer. The water buffalo has always played an important role in agriculture in Thailand. For farmers of Chon Buri Province, near Bangkok, it is an important annual festival, beginning in mid-October. It is also a celebration among rice farmers before the rice harvest. At dawn, farmers walk their buffalo through surrounding rice fields, splashing them with water to keep them cool before leading them to the race field. This amazing festival started over a hundred years ago when two men arguing about whose buffalo was the fastest ended up having a race between them. That’s how it became a tradition and gradually a social event for farmers who gathered from around the country in Chonburi to trade their goods. The festival also helps a great deal in preserving the number of buffalo, which have been dwindling at quite an alarming rate in other regions. Modern machinery is rapidly replacing buffalo in Thai agriculture. With most of the farm work mechanized, the buffalo-racing tradition has continued. Racing buffalo are now raised just to race; they do not work at all. The few farm buffalo which still do work are much bigger than the racers because of the strenuous work they perform. Farm buffalo are in the "Buffalo Beauty Pageant", a Miss Farmer beauty contest and a comic buffalo costume contest etc.. This festival perfectly exemplifies a favored Thai attitude to life — "sanuk," meaning fun.
Babulang Water buffalo racing festival, Sarawak, Malaysia, is the largest or grandest of the many rituals, ceremonies and festivals of the traditional Bisaya (Borneo) community of Limbang, Sarawak. Highlights are the Ratu Babulang competition and the Water buffalo races which can only be found in this town in Sarawak, Malaysia.
Vihear Suor village Water buffalo racing festival, in Cambodia, each year, people visit Buddhist temples across the country to honor their deceased loved ones during a 15-day period commonly known as the Festival of the Dead but in Vihear Suor village, about 35 km northeast of Cambodia, citizens each year wrap up the festival with a water buffalo race to entertain visitors and honour a pledge made hundreds of years ago. There was a time when many village cattle which provide rural Cambodians with muscle power to plough their fields and transport agricultural products died from an unknown disease. The villagers prayed to a spirit to help save their animals from the disease and promised to show their gratitude by holding a buffalo race each year on the last day of "P'chum Ben" festival as it is known in Cambodian. The race draws hundreds of spectators who come to see riders and their animals charge down the racing field, the racers bouncing up and down on the backs of their buffalo, whose horns were draped with colorful cloth.
Pothu puttu matsaram, Kerala, South India, is similar to Kambala races.
WIKIPEDIA
On the reverse:
generous - Liberal; free
systematic - methodical
magnetic - attractive
emotional - seeing clearly
practical -
philosophical - calm . cool
spiritual - refined . baby
(at bottom)
Oscar Inman
Photographer
E. O. Daggett
Elm Street
Billings Missouri
15.02.2010 // Day 354
Wake up.
Dress entirely in blue.
Catch a train to London.
Ring a nice lady and accept her invitation to an interview.
Take photographs of bookshelves.
Write and re-write a pile of papers on a methodology.
Attend a lecture on Information Management.
Write in a book named 'Radical Self Love Bible'.
Catch a train back out of London.
Walk home listening to Ben Folds Five extremely loudly.
Eat waffles for breakfast.
Count directives.
Eat dinner.
Count directives.
Sleep.
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w_r:
Boots - ebay
Tights - gift
Slip - stolen from Ma!
Dress - Beyond Retro
Belt - New Look
Navy top (under the dress!) - Hand-me-down
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Taken on Islas Lobos de Tierra, Peru.
Though closely related, the Peruvian Pelican is almost twice as large as its northern congener, the Brown Pelican. The species breeds along the Pacific Coast of South America in Peru and Chile. Though still common, with about half a million breeding adults, the population has been negatively affected by strong El Niño fluctuations and changes in food fish populations, particularly anchoveta. Peruvian Pelicans are easily observed from shore as they fly back and forth in nearshore waters by means of soaring interrupted by deep, methodical wingbeats.