November 2020 Favourite uploads

[gvallee]

Going for variety.

 

Fancy bras hanging on a fence outside the Country Women's Association in Quilpie, Queensland, during the Breast Cancer Awareness month

 

The fun and very remote Betoota Hotel, Queensland

 

The Dreamtime Serpent at Betoota, Queensland

[gvallee]

And a second batch just now. Trying to catch up with the backlog, phew, phew!!

 

Daddy Emu and its chicks

 

The mighty Cooper River at Windorah, Queensland

 

[cbimages]

The jacaranda tree in the yard behind us has finally flowered, and the Blue Faced Honeyeaters love the nectar. It's a challenge to get a shot from almost underneath as most of the time the birds hang totally upsidedown so you can only see the back of their heads. I did get lucky a couple of times though. This is my favourite.

[meanderingemu]

On 03/11/2020 at 01:05, gvallee said:

And a second batch just now. Trying to catch up with the backlog, phew, phew!!

 

Daddy Emu and its chicks

 

 

 

 

 

 

love it!  😉🐧 (no emu emoticon, so picked other flightless bird)

[The Blinking Eye]

[Betty LaRue]

On 03/11/2020 at 16:23, cbimages said:

The jacaranda tree in the yard behind us has finally flowered, and the Blue Faced Honeyeaters love the nectar. It's a challenge to get a shot from almost underneath as most of the time the birds hang totally upsidedown so you can only see the back of their heads. I did get lucky a couple of times though. This is my favourite.

Wow, this should hang on your wall. The colors are fantastic, something a painter would chose. And I’m a sucker for the bird, of course.

[meanderingemu]

Break with Oscar.  (still not sure about using Peterson in KW, mentally debating)

 

Anyone know if that pink suit is a famous character?

 

note as someone who is looking at first real winter in 7 years, I find that green pole extremely scary (this is for the snow removal equipment to tell them to go around.  Seriously 1.5m high!)

 

[meanderingemu]

9 hours ago, The Blinking Eye said:

 

 

nice. Note i would probably try and find way to get some KW to get people who are looking for the "Defund the Police" angle part advertising to this image.  I think that part is also extremely strong (linking that to a virus)  

 

[Allan Bell]

On 03/11/2020 at 01:25, gvallee said:

Going for variety.

 

Fancy bras hanging on a fence outside the Country Women's Association in Quilpie, Queensland, during the Breast Cancer Awareness month

 

 

 

Big ladies?

 

Allan

 

[Betty LaRue]

Large milkweed bugs breeding on a milkweed plant.

 

[AlbertSnapper]

21 minutes ago, Betty LaRue said:

Large milkweed bugs breeding on a milkweed plant.

 

 

That's what's great about these threads.....you see so many new things that you haven't seen before !

[MizBrown]

Now I have some favorite (so far) November uploads that I've just finished captioning and keywording:

 

 

Cochineal Nopal Cactus (Opuntia cochenillifera) with pads covered with scratched in graffiti in Nicaragua, outside the original Mexican range.  Some of the graffiti are a bit rude.  These are scratched into the nopal pads and heal as beige scars.

 

 

Near the ruins of the first Leon destroyed by an eruption of Volcan Momotombo.  This is in the community of Puerto Momotombo.  I took pictures of that and also this, but needed some experience with Photoshop to get the photo edited.   The using horses here are generally small, probably from Spanish ambler stock as I heard the single footed gait in the street from time to time.

 

 

It took some work to get it to where I felt I could risk it with QC.   I really want a sharper telephoto zoom.  This was taken with the a6000 and my 55-210 variable aperture zoom at 210mm, f/6.3 at 1/50 second, so PhotoShop's sharpening filter for camera shake was useful.

[Betty LaRue]

I made an attempt to gather Monarch eggs and/or small caterpillars off the milkweed I planted this spring. I bought a butterfly cage with furnishings to hold milkweed cuttings for the caterpillars to feed on, and kept them safe indoors. Only about 1% of caterpillars in the wild make it to become a butterfly due to predators. That’s why I fostered them.

 This particular one was a small caterpillar when I spotted it and brought it in, about twice the size of a large grain of rice. Caterpillars go through about 5 instars, which is just a word that means they shed their skin so they can grow bigger. After the 5th instar, they rest briefly, then climb higher and attach their body to something, and take the shape of a J. Within a few hours, they construct a chrysalis, green with gold dots. In about 2 weeks, the fully-grown butterfly emerges.

This one, unknown to me, had been implanted with a fly egg before I gathered it. The egg grew into a maggot that burst out of the caterpillar, killing it. 
This picture was taken a few hours before it was killed. I took it hard. I had invested a lot of time and love taking care of this tiny creature.

 

Edited November 5, 2020 by Betty LaRue

[John Mitchell]

4 hours ago, MizBrown said:

 

 

Quote

 

 

 

 

Near the ruins of the first Leon destroyed by an eruption of Volcan Momotombo.  This is in the community of Puerto Momotombo.  I took pictures of that and also this, but needed some experience with Photoshop to get the photo edited.   The using horses here are generally small, probably from Spanish ambler stock as I heard the single footed gait in the street from time to time.

 

 

 

That's a very Nicaraguan scene. I first tried to visit the ruins near Leon (Leon Viejo) in 1998. I was on my own in a rental car, and I got hopelessly lost on the back roads. Never got there. The second time, about ten years later, I was lucky enough to be taken to the ruins by Nicaraguan tourism people with a small group of other travel journalists. However, it rained so hard that I didn't get one usable photo. It's an interesting place, though, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There are so many horses in rural Nicaragua. It's like the Wild West. I came across this "caballero" in the mountains near Matagalpa.

 

Edited November 5, 2020 by John Mitchell

[gvallee]

22 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

 

 

That's a very Nicaraguan scene. I first tried to visit the ruins near Leon (Leon Viejo) in 1998. I was on my own in a rental car, and I got hopelessly lost on the back roads. Never got there. The second time, about ten years later, I was lucky enough to be taken to the ruins by Nicaraguan tourism people with a small group of other travel journalists. However, it rained so hard that I didn't get one usable photo. It's an interesting place, though, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There are so many horses in rural Nicaragua. It's like the Wild West. I came across this "caballero" in the mountains near Matagalpa.

 

 

Not as good but I got this one in Panama, Veraguas province

 

[MizBrown]

14 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

There are so many horses in rural Nicaragua.

They show up in town, too.  Almost all of them are ridden in hackamores, not bitted bridles.   If they can be fed on pasture or roadside grass beside the pavement, they're cheaper than cars. 

[John Mitchell]

40 minutes ago, MizBrown said:

They show up in town, too.  Almost all of them are ridden in hackamores, not bitted bridles.   If they can be fed on pasture or roadside grass beside the pavement, they're cheaper than cars. 

 

Hackamores? Bitted bridles? I barely know one end of a horse from the other. 🐎

 

Urban and rural often overlap in Nicaragua. Last time I was in Managua, I was sitting in the main plaza and a cow ambled by.

[Bryan]

21 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

 

Hackamores? Bitted bridles? I barely know one end of a horse from the other. 🐎

 

Urban and rural often overlap in Nicaragua. Last time I was in Managua, I was sitting in the main plaza and a cow ambled by.

 

Many years ago I was waiting at the bus stop to get to school when a goat wandered by, not happened before or since.

[John Mitchell]

I walked by this Sugar Maple tree again today, and it was totally bare. Guess I made it just in time.

 

 

Sony a6000 w/12mm Samyang f/2

Edited November 8, 2020 by John Mitchell

[The Blinking Eye]

On 05/11/2020 at 04:39, meanderingemu said:

nice. Note i would probably try and find way to get some KW to get people who are looking for the "Defund the Police" angle part advertising to this image.  I think that part is also extremely strong (linking that to a virus) 

 

Thank you! I really appreciate the tips. I am adding tags. Yes, I find the double message so interesting. Black Lives Matter messaging that catches your eye and says, "Remember to take care of your own, the virus kills as much as police do." While people are generally mask-compliant here, there has also been disregard for the virus in the black community, with people gathering to party around the lake.

[The Blinking Eye]

I'm finally getting the hang of not squashing my pictures!!! (took long enough)

 

[Regis]

Because the oldish inner child still like the dino ...

😉

 

[gvallee]

The Big Red and Little red sand dunes, Simpson Desert, Queensland, Australia

 

 

 

 

[Betty LaRue]

On 05/11/2020 at 16:16, MizBrown said:

They show up in town, too.  Almost all of them are ridden in hackamores, not bitted bridles.   If they can be fed on pasture or roadside grass beside the pavement, they're cheaper than cars. 

We owned horses, and my first, Torchy, I started with a hackamore until well-after I broke her. She was very responsive. I take that back after blowing the cobwebs from my brain. I started her on a snaffle, then a hackamore until I had her neck reining, then a bit. She was a doll, one of the loves of my life.

Edited November 9, 2020 by Betty LaRue

[MizBrown]

8 minutes ago, Betty LaRue said:

We owned horses, and my first, Torchy, I started with a hackamore until well-after I broke her. She was very responsive. I take that back after blowing the cobwebs from my brain. I started her on a snaffle, then a hackamore until I had her neck reining, then a bit. She was a doll, one of the loves of my life.

 

Horse here come in using horses and hipico horses.  The hipicos are horse parades that are mobile horse shows and generally are bigger horses with fancy gaits -- Paso Finos, some big Arabs, some Andalusian looking horses, with fancy price tags and wealthy owners.  The horses look rather like Roman statues of horses.  The using horses can be ridden or can pull carts (and those don't appear to wear blinders to keep then from seeing behind them.