Switch Face (Hidden Faces All Around Us)
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“Make sense who may. I switch off.”
Quote - Samuel Beckett
Wishing you a nice weekend ahead, will be away for some days.
A Cement dust laden CBFX Switcher, an EMD SW1500 doing its job at the Giant Cement Co at Harleyville, SC.
A pair of BNSF Geeps shove a tanks and two insulated boxcars down the spur to spot Building 20 in the Spokane Business & Industrial Park. The crew would only spot the tank here and deliver the two boxcars to Building 32, but this spur also receives boxcars. At least five warehouses in the industrial park receive boxcars and they all seem to be a mix of these new Lineage Logistics 60' insulated boxcars and older standard height 60' cars. I don't know if they are all different customers that incidentally get the same type of car, or if it's largely one or two clients that use multiple warehouses. The rail to the right is used to switch out cars it appears but doesn't reach any other active customers. Spokane, WA
El 310.022 de Adif maniobra con unas plataformas de contenedores vacías en el cargadero de Laumar de Vicálvaro.
A small railroad locomotive used for maneuvering railroad cars inside a rail yard in a process known as switching (US) or shunting (UK).
This one is at the Niles Canyon Railway maintenance facility near Sunol, California.
Another frame of BNSF local Y-SPM220 switching in the caves at the Springfield Underground facility. To learn more check out the caption with my first post of this scene: flic.kr/p/2mm7sxC
Springfield, Missouri
Wednesday September 1, 2021
Eurasian Jay (Garrulus glandarius)
My best photos are here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/ticino-best-photos-of-southern-...
More TICINO/TESSIN Wildlife Photos (all taken in my garden in Monteggio/Ti, Switzerland): it.lacerta-bilineata.com/ramarro-occidentale-lacerta-bili...
If you're interested, you'll find a more detailed closeup here (it's the 8th photo from the top): www.lacerta-bilineata.com/western-green-lizard-lacerta-bi...
My latest ANIMAL VIDEO (it's very brief but pretty unusual: a tiny wall lizard attacks two young great tits): www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQqkSsyrm7E
THE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTO: MY LONG AND ARDUOUS JOURNEY TO BIRD PHOTOGRAPHY
If you've set yourself the challenge of exclusively shooting the wildlife in your own back yard, you might find - as I did - that bird photography is really, really hard.
It's not that reptiles are easy to photograph either, mind - but at least the ones in my garden stay (for the most part) on the ground, and one can learn how to carefully approach them with a camera. They're also clearly egoists, which from a photographer's point of view is is a great character trait: if a lizard detects a human in its vicinity, it's only interested in saving its own skin, and it won't alarm its buddies.
But birds... oh man. Over the years, my feathered friends and I have developed a lovely routine that now defines our peaceful co-existence. As soon as I as much as open a window (let alone the door), I'm instantly greeted by an eruption of panicky fluttering and hysterical shouts from my garden: "SAVE YOUR WOMEN AND CHILDREN AND FLY FOR YOUR LIVES: THE HAIRLESS, PINK MONSTER IS COMING!!! (Yes, I speak bird, and I know that this is exactly what they are shouting 😉).
Needless to say, with the exception of the redstart I already showed here, all my efforts to get the kind of detailed shots I usually strive for with my nature photography ended in complete failure and utter disillusionment. I was ready to give up on stalking the winged misanthropes in my garden altogether, but then winter came - and changed everything.
One day this past January I observed my neighbor Signora P - a kind, elderly Italian lady - putting something on the low garden wall in front of my house. At first I thought she was just putting some treat there for her cat Romeo; the young tom patrols that wall constantly (it's his favorite spot in the garden, and during the warmer months he usually lurks in the thick foliage next to it to prey on lizards).
But once I detected a lot of movement on that wall through my window, I understood she had put a little pile of bread crumbs there; she was feeding the birds who soon arrived in flocks. This was certainly well-intended on my neighbor's part, but her noble action came with a catch, and I'm afraid quite literally.
When I took a stroll through my garden the next day I discovered a suspicious amount of feathers on the ground next to the wall. Romeo had apparently switched from his low-calorie summer diet (lizard) to more energy-rich meals consisting of "fowl" (it was winter after all, so from a nutritionist's point of view this made sense).
I would find fresh traces of Romeo's victims (mostly feathers, but also the odd wing) in my garden over the following days; so my first intuition that my neighbor was feeding her cat hadn't been that far off after all, as Romeo was now clearly being "served" fresh birds on a daily basis. And although the hungry visitors seemed to be aware of the danger and became slightly more prudent, they just couldn't resist the tasty snacks Signora P put on that wall - and neither could Romeo.
It was obvious that I had to act, but talking to my neighbor - who is as stubborn as she is kind - would have been futile, I knew that much. I pondered the matter long and hard - until a light bulb went off in my head. The idea was genius. If successful, what I had in mind would not only increase the birds' chances of surviving Romeo's appetite, but also greatly benefit my own photographic endeavors.
I started to enact my master plan the very next day by buying a giant bag of bird feed (consisting mainly of sunflower seeds) from the store. Then I dragged a huge piece of a tree trunk (approx. 120 cm in height) that we normally chop firewood on from the shed out into the garden and emptied almost half of the bag's content on top of it. Signora P's buffet for birds (and cats) was about to get some serious competition 😊.
My reasoning was as follows: not only would the birds be lured away from the fatally low garden wall to a place where they were safe from the cat - there was nothing around that tree trunk that provided cover for a predator, and the birds had a nice 360° view around it at all times - but I was also able to photograph them while hiding in the shed.
However, in order for my plan to work there was one little extra measure I had to take, and it was one that risked lowering my own life expectancy considerably once the owner of the property - my mom - discovered it. You see, our shed is completely windowless, so if I wanted to use it as a blind, I had no choice but to cut a hole into one of its wooden walls... which I promptly did (I figured all's fair in love - and photography 😉).
Granted, I have absolutely zero carpentering skills, and it showed. That hole was an ugly mess: the shed's wall seemed to have had an encounter with Jack Nicholson's ax-wielding lunatic character from the film 'The Shining'. Needless to say, I was incredibly proud of my work (I mean, come on: there now was a hole where before there wasn't a hole, and it was big enough for the lens of my camera to peek through, so it was mission accomplished as far as I was concerned).
Now all I had to do was wait for the birds to discover the tree trunk. In the meantime I started to mentally prepare myself for the inevitable confrontation with my mom and go through possible explanations for that splintering hole in the wall (it was either gonna be a rabid woodpecker attack or an emergency rescue mission with a feeding tube for a little kid that had accidentally locked himself inside the shed - both seemed valid options, though I slightly preferred the locked-in kid due to the involved drama and heroism 😉).
A whole day went by, and not a single bird visited the sunflower seeds. I had expected that it might take a few hours until the first of the ever curious great tits or blue tits would show up, but given how tiny my garden is, an entire day seemed excessive. Then another day came and went: the birds kept flocking to the bread crumbs on the wall, and my tree trunk kept collecting dust. To add injury to insult, a few fresh feathers on the ground were proof that Romeo was still feasting.
It was incredibly frustrating: I provided my winged guests with a much better view - plus a higher chance of surviving the cuisine - than Signora P's place; I risked (almost) certain death at the hands of my own mother (OK, the act of vandalism on the shed I had committed for my own benefit, but still), yet the birds kept ignoring me.
Then, after three days, just before sunset, I spotted a single blue tit on the tree trunk picking away at the sunflower seeds.
When I got up the next morning I immediately realized that the loud noise that accompanies each and every tit activity had shifted from the wall to the shed. At last the dam had broken: there was a flurry of movement around the tree trunk, and I counted at least 5 different species of birds feasting on the sunflower seeds.
From day 4 onward my plan worked beautifully: the birds now indeed mostly ignored Romeo's "snack wall" and kept to the tree trunk. And yes, I was able to play peeping tom from behind the shed's wall and photograph them!! 😊
Thus, dear readers, I finally managed to produce some acceptable bird photos, and I had even saved my feathered friends from a deadly foe in the process. All through winter and spring I took advantage of my new bird hide, and in late May I started mixing some cherries with the sunflower seeds. The idea was to attract a Eurasian jay (Garrulus glandarius), and as you can see, it worked!
It took me almost three weeks and more than a few tricks to capture that clever fella, but given how long I've been rambling here already, that's a story for another day. As for my mom, she still doesn't know about the hole in the wall, so please don't snitch! 😉.
I hope you like the photo and wish you all a wonderful weekend! Many greetings from Switzerland, and as always: let me know what you think in the comments 🙏 😊 ❤!
P.S. if anyone has their own funny tale about the obstacles we photographers are prepared to overcome for a desired photo, please write it in the comments: I love such stories 😊
Job 1 has arrived in Jackman behind consecutively numbered 9021 and 9020 and have begun switching the logs at Jackman to be taken back east by Job 2.
Susquehanna C420 2002 drills cars on the former Erie main line in front of some of the most-photographed brick buildings in the east.
CSX 2625 and 5353 intercept traffic on Tarragona Street as they hook up to a pair of boxcars spotted on the spur to W.R. Taylor Company. Since W.R. Taylor only has one unloading spot, the crew will pull both cars from the siding, re-spot the load and take the empty car back to Goulding yard. This unique switching operation takers place as needed but sometimes as often as twice a week, depending on demand, but almost always at night. This day the crew wanted to stay ahead of an approaching storm and had no cars to switch around at the port, and thus they managed to get to W.R. Taylor just as dusk started to set in. While this type of scene might have been commonplace 50 years ago, nowadays this operation is one of only a handful of instances left in the entire country where a carload customer is switched out from street running trackage. Pensacola, FL
Powered by colorful EMD GP18 No. 600, Toledo, Peoria & Western’s Morton Switcher arrives at Morton, Illinois, on a snowy December 16, 1983. Merry Christmas to all!
A switch engine in Nebraska caught on film. Reality So Subtle 6x6 pinhole camera, Ilford film and caffenol developer.
UBHF makes a reverse move to switch the NVR lumber yard in Thurmont, MD. The UBHF typically works Thurmont, allowing us time for a quick mid-chase coffee break at the nearby Sheetz.
CSXT 1203, an MP15T, works Reichhold Inc. in Jacksonville, Fl. I was surprised to see an endcab switcher in town as the vast majority have been sold off and left the roster of almost all Class I railroads.
An image from the archives
After photographing this lion for a few minutes I believe this Lion saw it'self in the lens and was ready to challenge the other lion. The guide noticed the lion switch it's tail movement to an up and down movement. { apparently a sign of readiness}..I was down low in the back of the jeep.and moved to the opposite side of the jeep and we moved on
Week 7. "Ordinary into Extraordinary" for "Compositionally Challenged" group.
I've been lacking in inspiration recently on the photography front, but was determined to get some shots today. I switched to my 100mm Canon L Series macro lens this afternoon, and went on a hunt round the house for everyday objects.
I do love these retro toggle light switches we have in our house. As I focused on them I spotted my reflection and decided to make that the focal point of the shot.
Heritage Unit 'Norfolk & Western' shoving the Palmetto Railways Switcher towards its train where it will head to Cosgrove Yard for its quarterly maintenance. As the trackage belongs to Class 1 Railroads, it is imperative that the Switcher is taken to the yard either by NS or CSX. The lettering 'Port Royal Railroad' was the erstwhile name of Palmetto Railways. Location : N. Charleston, SC.
Busy afternoon around US Steel's Granite City Works as we found 4 switch engines banging around within a 30 minute period. The 1191 was grabbing empties from the interchange yard to distribute around the complex. This yard is also switched by the NS and TRRA.
02-19-2021
I never thought it would happen to me but it has, as amusing as it may sound and as it is often the jest of many a joke by comedians or in comic film making, but the midlife crisis is very real! Arriving at a stage in one’s life where within the mind reflects on what feels like a former life, undecided on new directions, lost in constant reminiscence of the past, suddenly things you could so easily tolerate now annoy the hell out of you, having spent half a life chasing the unseen and unobtainable whilst simultaneously overcoming the multiplicity of challenges life throws at you, in my case, addiction, CPTSD, overcoming the past, etc, etc and I have done so and I am proud of myself.
But here I am, as many others I am sure have arrived at this point, accompanied with the virtue of having been told I am “different” all my life, succumbing to the realisation I now have encountered something as much as anyone else, not sure if that is a good thing or not. But I am living in a modern era where as people no longer even use words, replaced by emoticons, replaced by the postage stamp consensus via a glowing mobile screen too many call reality, so does anyone even read anymore? Text that is? Hence the title, where do I go now?! The curious switch of navigating to a new field of thought, the inundation of possibilities is overwhelming!
I hope everyone is well and so as always, thank you! 😊
After yanking transition gear out of there C628/C630 fleet the SP put them to work in heavy switching service at a number of big yards around the system. Colton seen there share of the big Alco's and a spiffy looking set of 3153 and 3152 are working there in September 74 in this Greg Stadter shot, Chuck Schwesinger collection.
On the former Rock Island main line to Limon, an eastbound Kyle Railroad grain train arrives at Seibert to do some switching at the Seibert Equity Co-Op Association grain elevator on May 6, 2014. Kyle EMD SD45T-2 No. 3099 is the then recently-repainted former Southern Pacific No. 9330, with trailing sister No. 9362 still in remarkably good SP paint.
A Lycoming Valley pup drops of a flatcar loaded with steel plates on the northwest end of Newberry Yard.
Inside Battersea power station.
This huge switch would have turned the power on or off for a large area of London.
The inside of the power station is now a shopping centre, and original features like this can be seen in various places.
Apple have just opened a huge store here on the ground floor of the old Turbine hall.
Mate 20 Pro- Leica lens