Minor League Baseball
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I allà era ell, amb menjar pel petit que hi havia dins del niu... No m'hi vaig acostar més, no volia estorbar-lo.
Picot garser petit
_DSC2005_Empordà_SPerePescador
Yellowhammer - Emberiza Citrinella
The yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella) is a passerine bird in the bunting family that is native to Eurasia and has been introduced to New Zealand and Australia. Most European birds remain in the breeding range year-round, but the eastern subspecies is partially migratory, with much of the population wintering further south. The male yellowhammer has a bright yellow head, streaked brown back, chestnut rump and yellow underparts. Other plumages are duller versions of the same pattern. The yellowhammer is common in open areas with some shrubs or trees, and forms small flocks in winter. Its song has a rhythm like "A little bit of bread and no cheese". The song is very similar to that of its closest relative, the pine bunting, with which it interbreeds.
Yellowhammer males learn their songs from their fathers, and over the course of time regional dialects have developed, with minor differences to the conclusion of the basic song; all are mutually recognised by birds from different areas. Each male has an individual repertoire of song variants within its regional dialect; females tend to mate with males that share their dialect, and prefer those with the largest repertoires.
The pine bunting and yellowhammer are so closely related that each responds to the other's song. The male yellowhammer's song is more attractive to females, and is one reason for the dominance of that species where the ranges overlap.
Yellowhammers of the British and Irish race, E. c. caliginosa were introduced to New Zealand by local acclimatisation societies in 1862, and soon spread over the main islands. They sometimes visit New Zealand's subantarctic islands, although rarely staying to breed, and have reached Australia's Lord Howe Island on a number of occasions. At the beginning of the 20th century, this bunting was seen as a serious agricultural pest in its adopted country.
Populations of yellowhammer have also been introduced to the Falkland Islands, and South Africa.
The yellowhammer is a bird of dry open country, preferably with a range of vegetation types and some trees from which to sing. It is absent from urban areas, forests and wetlands. Probably originally found at forest edges and large clearing, it has benefited from traditional agriculture, which created extensive open areas with hedges and clumps of trees.
Populations have declined in recent decades in western Europe, including the British Isles, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria and Italy. The yellowhammer is a red-list (severely declining) species in Ireland and the UK In eastern Europe, numbers appear to be stable, although the trend in Russia is unknown. Changes to agricultural practices are thought to be responsible for reduced breeding densities. The introduced population in New Zealand has been very successful, with breeding densities much higher than in the UK.
Spain; Alicante, El Hondo 17/2/22
Vagrant.
'Its presence in Spain is very recent and, although initially it was attributed to the release or escape of specimens in captivity, it is very possible that there are specimens that come from Africa in a natural way. The requirements and breeding habits are the same as those of the Greater Flamingo.'
'In 2007 reproduction could be confirmed in the Fuente de Piedra lagoon.'
Source; Diputación de Málaga
Or maybe global warming causing frequent drying out of sub-Saharan wetlands?
Dongdaemun Design Plaza's "Design Playground" is a long corridor inside the building winding its way through the snailhouse and has a total length of 533 meters! Us tiny humans get lost in it. Surprisingly, almost nobody was there when I visited.
• Lesser flamingo
• Flamenco enano, flamenco chico
Scientific classification:
Kingdom:Animalia
Phylum:Chordata
Class:Aves
Order:Phoenicopteriformes
Family:Phoenicopteridae
Genus:Phoeniconaias
Species:P. minor
The lesser flamingo is a species of flamingo occurring in sub-Saharan Africa and western India. Birds are occasionally reported from further north, but these are generally considered vagrants.
This is the smallest species of flamingo, though it is a tall and large bird by most standards. Most of the plumage is pinkish white. The clearest difference between this species and the greater flamingo, the only other Old World species of flamingo, is the much more extensive black on the bill. Size is less helpful unless the species are together, since the sexes of each species also differ in height.
This species may be the most numerous species of flamingo, with a population that (at its peak) probably numbered up to two million individual birds. This species feeds primarily on Spirulina, algae which grow only in very alkaline lakes. Presence of flamingo groups near water bodies is indication of sodic alkaline water which is not suitable for irrigation use. Although blue-green in colour, the algae contain the photosynthetic pigments that give the birds their pink colour. Their deep bill is specialised for filtering tiny food items.
Oasis Wildlife Fuerteventura, La Lajita, Fuerteventura, Islas Canarias
Ursa Minor (Latin: "Lesser Bear", contrasting with Ursa Major), also known as the Little Bear, is a constellation in the Northern Sky. Like the Great Bear, the tail of the Little Bear may also be seen as the handle of a ladle, hence the North American name, Little Dipper: seven stars with four in its bowl like its partner the Big Dipper. It was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, and remains one of the 88 modern constellations. Ursa Minor has traditionally been important for navigation, particularly by mariners, because of Polaris being the north pole star.
TD : 1/640 f/2.8 ISO 100 @50 mm
Today I saw a picture from an Uzbekistan city, which reminded me I still have lots of nice pictures from that part of the world that I never posted. Many are from older buildings, that are stunning pieces of architecture, but this one is a recent building (opened in 2014) that shows the people in Uzbekistan are still very talented when it comes to making magnificent mosques.
Earlier I posted a fragment (the inner dome www.flickr.com/photos/115540984@N02/49683223038/in/album-...), this is the building from the outside.
20 September 2019 I came back from my journey over a part of the Silk Road to and through Central Asia. 4 months of traveling through 14 countries (Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran) before I flew home from Teheran. An impressive journey in countries that are extremely beautiful, with lovely and welcoming people and diverse cultures and history.
Intense traveling with more than 20000 kilometers in our mobile home on sometimes roads that hardly could be called that way. We saw many villages and cities (some wonderful, others very ugly), countries that are transforming from the old Soviet era into something more related to older cultures and the way people live, often funded by oil readily available around the Caspian sea. We saw the amazing mountains south of the Black Sea, the wonderful Caucasus, and the high mountains in the far east close to China with peaks over 7000 meter, and not to forget the (Bulgarian) Alps!
We crossed the great steppe of Kazakhstan. a drive of at least 5000 km, the remnants of lake Aral, once one of the biggest lakes of the world, saw a rocket launch from Baikonur (this little part is Russian owned), we crossed many high mountains passes, and drove the breathtaking canyon that comes from the Pamir, beginning at ca 4500 meter, and going down for ca. 400km to an altitude of 1300 meter, driving for 100's of kilometers along the Afghan border.
And then the numerous lakes with all sorts of different colors from deep cobalt blue to turquoise, and one rare spectacle in Turkmenistan where a gas crater is burning already for more than 40 years. And finally and certainly not the least to mention an enormous amount of wonderful, hospitable and welcoming people. The woman often dressed in wonderful dresses, and bringing a lot of color in the streets of almost of all countries we visited.