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💛 Arrozales de la Albufera de Valencia.
El cultivo del arroz es uno de los cultivos de regadío más característicos y de mayor tradición del Parque Natural de la Albufera. Es, de hecho, el más importante para la agricultura de la zona. [El Cultivo del Arroz en Valencia]
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Tree white butterfly (Aporia crataegi) The little bee behaved so aggressively towards the butterfly as if it was taking away its food! :)
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IMPORTANT: for non-pro users who read the info on a computer, just enlarge your screen to 120% (or more), then the full text will appear below the photo with a white background - which makes reading so much easier.
My best photos (mostly not on Flickr) are here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/western-green-lizard-lacerta-bi...
THE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTO:
The fella above looks like he's about to devour me any second, but I'm happy to report that I survived the unusual encounter with him without any injuries and remain completely undigested 😄 - in fact, he didn't even threaten me.
It's a juvenile green whip snake (Hierophis viridiflavus), a non-venomous colubrid species which I photographed in my garden in Ticino (Switzerland), but as with all my pictures on Flickr, I'll try to give you a bit more context.
First of all, you have to know that I adore snakes - even though they have the nasty habit of preying on my beloved green lizards - but if you now wonder why I so far only uploaded a single snake photo here before today, the answer is that until relatively recently, I hardly had any.
The reasons for this are simple: our snakes are very shy, plus they're far from abundant. If you're lucky, you might be able to spot one, but if it also becomes aware of you, it will inevitably be gone long before you have your camera ready.
The history of human-snake interaction in Switzerland (and particularly in Ticino) has sadly not been a happy one for the reptiles, and every snake knows this. Out of ignorance, superstition and the fear they might be venomous - which most snakes in Switzerland aren't - people beat them to death wherever they found them for centuries, so you can't blame our serpentine friends for hissing "Hell, no!" and slithering to safety as fast as they can whenever they see or sense a human approaching.
There are exceptions of course; our vipers and adders sometimes rely on their camouflage and keep still rather than fleeing when you get near them - which still doesn't mean that they're inclined to pose for a selfie with you, mind - but around my village I sadly haven't come across one of those in over two decades.
So I've rarely been lucky in the snake department, but, as the famous saying goes, "luck is when preparation meets opportunity", and I took that to heart. Two years ago, I built piles of rocks and heaps of dry grass and twigs and branches all over the garden to provide basking spots and hiding places - not just for snakes but for reptiles in general - and this worked better than I could ever have hoped.
First the western green lizards came back (they had previously been driven out of my garden by my neighbors' cats), and then the snakes started showing up. Particularly the species H. viridiflavus now seems to feel very much at home on my premises, and so the opportunities to photograph my serpentine friends have increased dramatically.
They still flee as soon as they become aware of me, so a good shot is rarely a given, but since I made my my garden more reptile-friendly, the odds of getting a usable photo have gotten much, much better. Which finally brings me to the fella above.
I spotted the youngster one morning in early summer, and because I (almost) always have my camera at the ready when I enter my garden, I was able to photograph him from afar before he saw me and disappeared.
As I went back into the house to check the photos, I noticed something interesting. As expected, they were pretty bad, because I hadn't been able to get close enough, but when I enlarged them, it seemed there was something in the snake's mouth.
It looked like a small rib cage, but I couldn't be sure, so I went back into the garden to investigate, hoping the snake might have left behind whatever it had been eating when I scared it away.
And indeed, when I inspected the woodpile beneath my palm tree where I had photographed the young snake, I saw a lizard carcass. It was nothing but a rib cage with some skin and hardly any meat left - plus the two quite intact seeming hind legs.
This was very strange; as far as I was aware, green whip snakes didn't eat carrion. On the contrary: they are known to be very agile hunters - they're actually the fastest European snake species - and only eat live prey. That lizard carcass was anything but that: by the look (and smell!) of it, it was at least a couple of days old, if not more, and other animals had already done a pretty good job gnawing off the meat.
As I was still contemplating the meaning of all this, I suddenly realized something even more unusual: the snake was still there! Only a foot length away from the the dead lizard it was lurking in the shadows, motionless, observing me.
Now this was really exceptional; as already mentioned, our snake species are generally very shy, but the shiest among them are definitely the green whip snakes. In my experience, they never return to the exact same spot once you've scared them away, at least not within such a short time frame.
I slowly backed away, hoping not to spook it, cursing myself for leaving the camera attached to the computer as I went back into the house to get it. When I returned, the snake thankfully hadn't disappeared, and so I very carefully set up the tripod with the camera in front of the woodpile and waited.
After a few minutes, the snake started moving. It had a length of maybe 60-70 cm, and I would have guessed its age at around 2 to 3 years (the species can grow to a length of 150 cm, in rare cases even to almost 2 meters, which makes it one of the biggest European snake species).
The little guy was clearly aware of me, but those putrid lizard ribs were just too enticing to resist. Once he had reached the smelly object of his desire, he started to swallow it while at the same time trying to drag it away from the nasty human, back into the shadows.
Both tasks proved very difficult, however, which was very comical to watch. The carcass - the remains of a pretty sizable common wall lizard - kept getting stuck between the twigs and branches of the woodpile, but it was also simply too big for the snake's tiny mouth (while a body length of around 70 cm might seem respectable, juveniles of this species still have a rather small head by comparison).
The young snake kept trying; several times it let go of its stinky treat only to attempt to swallow it again, from pretty much every angle, but it just wouldn't work. This was exhausting business, and so in between attempts the snake understandably took some breaks, basking on the woodpile for a few minutes, before it went back to work with new vigor. It also had to clear its throat from time to time and readjust its jaws, and during one such moment I took the photo above.
In the end, it managed to drag the dead lizard out of my sight into the woodpile, at which point I left the little fella (I had been photographing and filming the scene for over an hour, and by now I felt nearly as exhausted as the snake just from watching the whole ordeal; btw, the film clip is here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8x0tBpRTck ).
When I returned to the woodpile almost two hours later, the snake had come out again, still fiercely trying to devour the dead lizard. I was impressed; this time I didn't stay, because I didn't want to disturb the little guy again with my presence, but as I left I thought admiringly: "That's what I call dedication!"
As always, many thanks for reading and commenting: have a great start into the new week everyone! ❤🙏😊
P.S. @ willjatkins Did you ever encounter this species feasting on carrion or hear of such behavior, Will?
IMPORTANT: for non-pro users who read the info on a computer, just enlarge your screen to 120% (or more), then the full text will appear below the photo with a white background - which makes reading so much easier.
The color version of the photo above is here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/ticino-best-photos-of-southern-...
THE STORY BEHIND THE PHOTO:
So far there's only been one photo in my gallery that hasn't been taken in my garden ('The Flame Rider', captured in the Maggia Valley: www.flickr.com/photos/191055893@N07/53563448847/in/datepo... ) - which makes the image above the second time I've "strayed from the path" (although not very far, since the photo was taken only approximately 500 meters from my house).
Overall, I'll stick to my "only-garden rule", but every once in a while I'll show you a little bit of the landscape around my village, because I think it will give you a better sense of just how fascinating this region is, and also of its history.
The title I chose for the photo may seem cheesy, and it's certainly not very original, but I couldn't think of another one, because it's an honest reflection of what I felt when I took it: a profound sense of peace - although if you make it to the end of this text you'll realize my relationship with that word is a bit more complicated.
I got up early that day; it was a beautiful spring morning, and there was still a bit of mist in the valley below my village which I hoped would make for a few nice mood shots, so I quickly grabbed my camera and went down there before the rising sun could dissolve the magical layer on the scenery.
Most human activity hadn't started yet, and I was engulfed in the sounds of the forest as I was walking the narrow trail along the horse pasture; it seemed every little creature around me wanted to make its presence known to potential mates (or rivals) in a myriad of sounds and voices and noises (in case you're interested, here's a taste of what I usually wake up to in spring, but you best use headphones: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfoCTqdAVCE )
Strolling through such an idyllic landscape next to grazing horses and surrounded by birdsong and beautiful trees, I guess it's kind of obvious one would feel the way I described above and choose the title I did, but as I looked at the old stone buildings - the cattle shelter you can see in the foreground and the stable further up ahead on the right - I also realized how fortunate I was.
It's hard to imagine now, because Switzerland is one of the wealthiest countries in the world today, but the men and women who had carried these stones and constructed the walls of these buildings were among the poorest in Europe. The hardships the people in some of the remote and little developed valleys in Ticino endured only a few generations ago are unimaginable to most folks living in my country today.
It wasn't uncommon that people had to sell their own kids as child slaves - the girls had to work in factories or in rice fields, the boys as "living chimney brushes" in northern Italy - just because there wasn't enough food to support the whole family through the harsh Ticino winters.
If you wonder why contemporary Swiss historians speak of "slaves" as opposed to child laborers, it's because that's what many of them actually were: auctioned off for a negotiable prize at the local market, once sold, these kids were not payed and in many cases not even fed by their masters (they had to beg for food in the streets or steal it).
Translated from German Wikipedia: ...The Piazza grande in Locarno, where the Locarno Film Festival is held today, was one of the places where orphans, foundlings and children from poor families were auctioned off. The boys were sold as chimney sweeps, the girls ended up in the textile industry, in tobacco processing in Brissago or in the rice fields of Novara, which was also extremely hard work: the girls had to stand bent over in the water for twelve to fourteen hours in all weathers. The last verse of the Italian folk song 'Amore mio non piangere' reads: “Mamma, papà, non piangere, se sono consumata, è stata la risaia che mi ha rovinata” (Mom, dad, don't cry when I'm used up, it was the rice field that destroyed me.)... de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaminfegerkinder
The conditions for the chimney sweeps - usually boys between the age of 8 and 12 (or younger, because they had to be small enough to be able to crawl into the chimneys) - were so catastrophic that many of them didn't survive; they died of starvation, cold or soot in their lungs - as well as of work-related accidents like breaking their necks when they fell, or suffocatig if they got stuck in inside a chimney. This practice of "child slavery" went on as late as the 1950s (there's a very short article in English on the topic here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spazzacamini and a more in depth account for German speakers in this brief clip: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gda8vZp_zsc ).
Now I don't know if the people who built the old stone houses along my path had to sell any of their kids, but looking at the remnants of their (not so distant) era I felt an immense sense of gratitude that I was born at a time of prosperity - and peace - in my region, my country and my home. Because none of it was my doing: it was simple luck that decided when and where I came into this world.
It also made me think of my own family. Both of my grandparents on my father's side grew up in Ticino (they were both born in 1900), but while they eventually left Switzerland's poorest region to live in its richest, the Kanton of Zurich, my grandfather's parents relocated to northern Italy in the 1920s and unfortunately were still there when WWII broke out.
They lost everything during the war, and it was their youngest daughter - whom I only knew as "Zia" which means "aunt" in Italian - who earned a little money to support herself and my great-grandparents by giving piano lessons to high-ranking Nazi officers and their kids (this was towards the end of the war when German forces had occupied Italy).
I never knew that about her; Zia only very rarely spoke of the war, but one time when I visited her when she was already over a 100 years old (she died at close to 104), I asked her how they had managed to survive, and she told me that she went to the local prefecture nearly every day to teach piano. "And on the way there would be the dangling ones" she said, with a shudder.
I didn't get what she meant, so she explained. Visiting the city center where the high ranking military resided meant she had to walk underneath the executed men and women who were hanging from the lantern posts along the road (these executions - often of civilians - were the Germans' retaliations for attacks by the Italian partisans).
I never forgot her words - nor could I shake the look on her face as she re-lived this memory. And I still can't grasp it; my house in Ticino is only 60 meters from the Italian border, and the idea that there was a brutal war going on three houses down the road from where I live now in Zia's lifetime strikes me as completely surreal.
So, back to my title for the photo above. "Peace". It's such a simple, short word, isn't it? And we use it - or its cousin "peaceful" - quite often when we mean nice and quiet or stress-free. But if I'm honest I don't think I know what it means. My grandaunt Zia did, but I can't know. And I honestly hope I never will.
I'm sorry I led you down such a dark road; I usually intend to make people smile with the anecdotes that go with my photos, but this one demanded a different approach (I guess with this latest image I've strayed from the path in more than one sense, and I hope you'll forgive me).
Ticino today is the region with the second highest average life expectancy in Europe (85.2 years), and "The Human Development Index" of 0.961 in 2021 was one of the highest found anywhere in the world, and northern Italy isn't far behind. But my neighbors, many of whom are now in their 90s, remember well it wasn't always so.
That a region so poor it must have felt like purgatory to many of its inhabitants could turn into something as close to paradise on Earth as I can imagine in a person's lifetime should make us all very hopeful. But, and this is the sad part, it also works the other way 'round. And I believe we'd do well to remember that, too.
To all of you - with my usual tardiness but from the bottom of my heart - a happy, healthy, hopeful 2025 and beyond.
People who complain that software engineers build unwieldy, unfriendly and outright mindboggling user interfaces need to look back in history to realize that hardware engineers have not always been much better in that respect. A good place to do that is the Railway Museum in Utrecht, the Netherlands.
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May 6, 2023 - Kearney Nebraska US
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Overnight System... Outflow Dominate with a Nice Shelf. Lots of cloud of cloud lightning but this was a fast moving storm. Just a few snaps as this rolled in from the northwest that evening.
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Dale Kaminski @ NebraskaSC Photography
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2J74 Southport to Manchester Oxford Road, formed of 150138 trailing 156428, has deposited a solitary passenger at Hoscar station. In the 2016/17 period the station was the least used station in Lancashire with just 1024 recorded passengers although this was up from 900 in the previous year. There are just 8 services, 4 in each direction, that call at this lonely outpost Monday to Saturday.
Early morning light cuts across the base of Factory Butte in Utah.
During my last outing we made a stop here to grab some early morning light on the Butte.
Thanks for taking the time to take a look at my photos, If you like them please share them with your friends or add it to your gallery, and as always your views, comments, faves, and support are greatly appreciated!!
Happy Holidays to one and all🎄!!!!. :)
If you have any questions about this photo or about photography in general, I will do my best to help, just post a comment or send me a Flickr mail and I will respond as quickly as possible.
For those of you new to photography, I would like to provide you with some very helpful videos, they should help you get more from your photography. They where very useful to me while I was learning and I hope that they will help you out as well. Just click the link below and there are pre-made playlists on everything you could ever want to know about photography. I hope you enjoy them and as always my friends "Happy Shooting"
www.youtube.com/user/EricGaildot21Studios/playlists?sort=...
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Finally :"O !
i'm Canon User !
Thanx Dad 7bibi ! , j3lneee Man7rm Mnk y el.'3aly :* !
Trd Le B el.Salma <33 !
Twinzy : Fdeet 3mrch ! To Manwrt Q6r Brj3tCh !
Miss yeew Mn el.5a6r :| ! Mtaaaaaaa Ashof Facech el.jmeeeeeeeel <33 !
LOVEu (L) !
Spicalle Thanx For Shlon b9br 3 Kl Shy Sweeth 4 Me , :* LUVyew Mn el.5a6r Walla (A) !
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I spotted this beaten-up old timer on Well Street, Hackney.
Thanks to comments from better informed Flickr users I now know it to be a rat rod style Austin 7, a model of car from the mid-1930s.
all canon users say HOOORRAAAAAAAAAAAY =P
and yea Nikon - sony - Fuji users =P
too bad u can't say hoooray
out of picture
out of ideas =P
and btw. that colorful thing is eatable =P LOOOL i jst did it to take this shot =P
Created for dA Users Gallery Challenge 144 – 181
With thanks to....
Background • Nathies-Stock
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© Copyright Parée Erica. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this image in any form without express and written permission from me is illegal
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My favorite tool for weeding is that little folding saw.
It allows me to get under the surface and pull out weeds and grasses with the serrations. It's sure easier than grasping weeds with fingers and pulling.
It was cold today, down to the low 20ºsF/3ºC. Even in the early afternoon I had to wear a sweatshirt and thick vest. The hat and balaclava sleeve are to keep the UV rays off.
So why did I shoot this?
The Photo Forum challenge this week is "Tools Paradise." We are to try to show them in context.
I was out there weeding and wondered if I could get the shot by propping the phone against one of those rocks.
Created for dA Users Gallery Challenge #57 – Queen of the Night 38
Model with thanks to Valentine-FOV-Stock
Model: valentine-fov-stock.deviantart.com/art/Queen-of-the-Night...
Forest: northstar76.deviantart.com/art/Nice-and-quiet-341162110
Roses: yvaineglarestock.deviantart.com/art/4-Roses-stock-pack-19...
and inadesign-stock.deviantart.com/art/Rose-and-Petals-Pack-1...
Buddha: www.everystockphoto.com/photo.php?imageId=4851258
Paranaguá means "big round sea" in the Tupi-Guarani language, a reference to the wide bay that affords the city optimal conditions to function as an important port. The village was originally founded somewhere around 1550 on the island of Cotinga, and later expanded onto the mainland.
It is Paraná's oldest city.
Paranaguá preserves many of the oldest colonial remnants in Paraná.
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July 6, 2024 - North of Funk Nebraska
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Watch that afternoon's chase (on Flickr) Click Here (Pt 1)
Watch that afternoon's chase (on Flickr) Click Here (Pt 2)
Watch that afternoon's chase (on Flickr) Click Here (Pt 3)
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A vast, dark storm cloud looms over a vibrant, green landscape, creating a dramatic contrast between the sky and the land. The sunlight highlights the edge of the cloud, enhancing the sense of severe weather.
*** Please NOTE and RESPECT the Copyright ***
Copyright 2024
Dale Kaminski @ NebraskaSC Photography
All Rights Reserved
This image may not be copied, reproduced, published or distributed in any medium without the expressed written permission of the copyright holder.
#ForeverChasing
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