Mud
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Rothschild's swordtail (left) and other butterfly eating minerals on river bank in Manu National Park.
Mud-puddling, or simply puddling, is a behaviour most conspicuous in butterflies, but occurs in other animals as well, mainly insects; they seek out nutrients in certain moist substances such as rotting plant matter, mud and carrion and they suck up the fluid. Where the conditions are suitable, conspicuous insects such as butterflies commonly form aggregations on wet soil, dung or carrion. From the fluids they obtain salts and amino acids that play various roles in their physiology, ethology and ecology.
Protesilaus earis, the Rothschild's swordtail, is a species of butterfly found in the Neotropical realm.
Peruvian Amazon Rainforest, ManĂş National Park
Please don't use my images without my permission. All images © Aivar Mikko.
There is an almost alive quality with fresh-molded mud that makes me want to cry when someone has gone slip-sliding across its folds and joints. I try to leave it as I found it to delight the next person who chooses to admire its unique beauty.
American coots display several interesting breeding habits; mothers will preferentially feed offspring with the brightest plume feathers, which has resulted in coot chicks having brightly ornamented plumage which becomes drabber as they age.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_coot
Central Park, Ormond Beach. Florida, USA
www.alltrails.com/trail/us/florida/ormond-beach-central-p...
House Sparrows (Passer domesticus) When you have a bath in a muddy puddle even the splashes are muddy!
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Not the clearest of shots, but it gives you an idea how much horses enjoy the stuff. This is Olè having fun.
Thank you everyone for your comments and favs. I have some personal issues to deal with, but hope to visit as many of your photos as soon as possible.
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Was going through old photos and came across the original of this (see below) and a photoshopped version from that time period. I decided I'd like to rework it, and so brought the photoshopped version into the Develop module of Lr where I slud the shadows all the way to the right, and made it black and white. Oh, and cropped it a bit.
Then it was exported as a brand new Ps file. First, as usual, luminosity based channels were created in the channels panel, using information from Tony Kuyper.
An adjustment layer for photo filter was created next. I wanted to create a duotone, and so filters were used to create reddish tones and masked to only allow them to affect lighter mid tones and blue was used with masking to only allow that effect on darker mid tones.
In a screen shot of the photo below, one can see the expanded Layers panel and the expanded Channels panel. The Channels panel shows the luminosity based channels created using information from Tony Kuyper. These channels aren't the ones originally created. At times I would delete all of them and create new ones as the photo changed over time.
In the Layers panel one can see the photo filter layers with the masks created from the channels, so that the filter effects are constrained to particular luminosity based pixels.
Next are dodge burn layers. They are 50% grey filled, set to soft light blend mode so they are invisible. But if white or black is painted on them, it's akin to dodging and burning. One of the things I have taken from Tony Kuyper's information is the use of those luminosity based channels, creating self feathering selections and painting "through" them onto an active layer like a dodge burn, with lowered opacities of white or black to build the effect that is desired.
Then there are Curves adjustment layers to lighten some of the darkest pixels. Then more dodge burn layers.
There are more photo filter layers placing color in certain areas, some based in lighter pixels, some in dark, and some in mid tones. Again constrained by the use of those luminosity based channels, some subtracted from others.
I often use the high pass filter to create sharpening. Generally I use the luminosity based channels to create a mask preventing the high pass filter from affecting the lighter pixels. This time, I used those channels to prevent the high pass filter from affecting the dark pixels and only affect the light pixels. I wanted some extreme effects. And actually copied the high pass layer so it was doubled in its effect.
And when looking at the original image, the result is pretty extreme. Press L to view full screen.
I hope everyone's slider sunday is going well.
After spending the day at the Knoxville Zoo, far from home, it was nice to get back into my old stomping ground, and bring my friend back to experience nature in a different way. This of course is one of the elk I have been documenting for the past few years with my photography, strong, proud, antlers not symmetrical, and in this case, covered in mud. I managed to miss the large animal thrashing in the mud puddle, though the ranger I stopped to talk to gave me a full account. Of course this individual was apparently giddy for the rut a bit early, and was making a bit of a scene, despite that, I gathered my wits about me, and began capturing fresh images.
Aperture: f8
ISO: 800
SS: 1/250th
Focal: 560mm
Fujinon 100-400mm TC 1.4X
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Another from the Saturday outing with John Cothron. This is Mud Creek Falls in Georgia's highest city, Sky Valley.
We are fortunate to have Bear Lake National Wildlife Refuge, Idaho, here in the valley, just a 15 minute drive from home. I didn't have any luck finding wildlife there today, so looked for landscapes and found this mud circle. The area is a salty mud flat where I have photographed acres of bright red pickleweed in the past. Today most of the plants were gone, leaving a soggy mud flat and a few mysterious circles like this one. Each circle has a cluster of dead plants in the center. I suspect that the area around each plant is a little higher that the mud around it, so it has dried more than the rest of the mud flat, forming a light colored circle. The dark mud was still wet and sticky, so my hiking boots are a caked, muddy mess.
This image could be a close up or a hill side. I deliberately left out any scale indication. It is the eroding side of a hill. I just liked its graphical nature when isolated and stripped of reference points.
But the dried grasses might give it away.
Though warthogs appear ferocious, they are basically grazers. They eat grasses and plants, and also use their snouts to dig or “root” for roots or bulbs. When startled or threatened, warthogs can be surprisingly fast, running at speeds of up to 30 miles an hour.
Warthogs are adaptable and are able to go long periods without water, as much as several months in the dry season.
When water is available, warthogs will seek it and often submerge to cool down. They will also wallow in mud for the same purpose—and to gain relief from insects. Birds also aid these hogs in their battle with insects; oxpeckers and other species sometimes ride along on their warthog hosts, feeding on the tiny creatures invading their hides.
This little camper was walking through the mud with her purple umbrella after a thankfully, small mud slide that didn't cause too much damage. I found it to be a nice color contrast. Hope you enjoy!
Autumn and winter is when most female grey seals haul themselves ashore to give birth.
It seems like a strange time to do it, when icy winds are blowing and the nights are long. One explanation is that after a summer of catching fish, the females are simply in great shape to feed their young.
When pups are born the mothers spin round to sniff them and get to know their smell. The pups are covered in fluffy white fur, not good camouflage on sand or pebbles you might think, but that's because it's a relic from the ice age when they would have been born on snow!
Female grey seals are dedicated parents, spending several weeks feeding their pups and losing up-to 65kg in the process. The pups drink two and a half litres of milk every day and it's so rich pups can grow by as much as 30kg in two weeks.
After a month or so, females leave their pups and head back out to sea where they feed and mate again. The pups can spend up to two weeks all alone on the beach while they build up the courage (and the right fur) to take the plunge into the sea and learn to fish for themselves.
In addition to battling bulls, I was treated to a unique photo op during the bison rut when we found this bison cow and her friend enjoying some yummy mud.
Bison, like many other wildlife species, eat dirt occasionally to add some vital minerals to their diet.
These two yellow swallowtails were flittering around and stopping down in these little mud puddles. I wondered what was up with that. In checking afterwards, they extract the sodium they can get out of mud puddles to assist them with mating, called mud-puddlin'. So, was the flittering and cavorting around a little mating ritual, or two males fighting over the mud puddles? This was taken in the Timberwolf Ponds area of the Genesee County Parks, July, 2025.
Seventh picture of the series Canes & Mud.
(Is part of a third session, dawn last Saturday, with much softer lights. What do you think about this another sunrise? Soon I will post new photos of both session.)
Magical sunrise in this beautiful place that is the Albufera of Valencia.
The image title is because during the photoshoot, surrounded by all this beauty, calm water, boat, reeds, mud, tranquility, flying birds ... every moment reminded me a lot to the great novel "Cañas y Barro" of the great Valencian writer Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, set in rural Valencia (Albufera) of the early twentieth century, the novel observes and portrays the social reality of the time and place with absolute precision.
Would like to thank this picture to my friend Javier Girbés, which helped me a lot with the location and encouraged me to know this magnificent spot.
On the technical side, say that I only used a neutral gradient three steps filter.
I hope you like it. Have a nice Friday. :)
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Mud plugging, or
sporting trials, is an off-road motor-sport that involves driving a specialised vehicle through steep, muddy courses, prioritising skill and control over speed.
In this case speed is far less important than staying upright.
I bet he wished he had stayed on the roadway.
Mid Devon Show, Knightshayes Court, Tiverton, Devon, UK.
We visited Donna Nook yesterday and spent a pleasant, sunny and relatively mild day watching the Grey Seals and their new pups. The pups we saw were all fairly new - we've usually visited a few weeks later, when there are more of the slightly older, barrel shaped ones but there was still plenty to see. This one was enjoying splashing around in a rather muddy looking pool at the edge of the dunes.