Månad: april 2021

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #145: Getting to Know You

/ Leya / 69 kommentarer

Priscilla of Scillagrace is our lovely guest host this week: ”The artist’s gaze, the photographer’s eye, when cast on a subject begins a relationship.” And from then on, the road leads to Getting to Know You.

When I was young and just had met my husband to be, I did not know much about the part of Sweden he originally came from, Blekinge. All I knew was the great number of oaks living there – and as I always was a tree lover, I was looking forward to seeing them. The Oak Tree was later voted the Province Tree of Blekinge.

Of course I fell in love with the landscape – forests, farmland, water and a renowned and prize winning park.
Many walks and many beautiful views – I never get tired of the Park in Ronneby Brunn with its numerous grand Rhododendrons.
Our summer house is an old fisherman’s cottage.
I have come to love it very much, and Midsummer is spent with the family here every year.
Ronneby is an old (700 BC) summer town – called the town of roses. The cobbled streets are steep and every house is adorned with roses in one way or the other.
We have got to know many lovely friends in Blekinge – some surprises as well…
To my great joy, our garden is filled with wild flowers, just like home, but different species from where we ordinary live. The soil is more sandy here as it is close to the sea.
The warm evenings are filled with walks and late evening swims. The swims mostly for the children and the youngsters nowadays…
I have also learned to love the sunsets in Blekinge. As we have no sea close to where we ordinary live, this is a special treat.

I know, I have learned much about Blekinge, and I have come to love it very much.

Thank you Tina, and all of you interesting participants, for last week’s Taking Flight. A great variety and so much fun! We hope you will join us this week for Priscilla’s inspiring “Getting to Know You Challenge.” Please visit her site for the details of the challenge and see her expressive and beautiful photos.

Next week, it’s Patti’s turn to lead the challenge. Next Saturday at noon, welcome to the “Focusing on the Details” challenge. Until then, have a wonderful creative week and please stay safe.

Thursday’s Special: Pick a Word – April 2021

/ Leya / 34 kommentarer

Pick a Word!

Paula is here again – ”Here is the newest Pick a Word with five words for you to interpret in photos. As usual, you can post a photo for one word or more or all five. I am glad to be here and will be happy to see you entries.”

Here we go – of course I had to have both of my furry friends!

FURRY (header: Totti, below: Milo 9 weeks old)


PICTURESQUE


RAPID 


SUBTERRANEAN


APOCALYPTIC

Thank you Paula, for giving us interesting words to work with as ususal!

Thursday Thoughts – Earth Day

/ Leya / 31 kommentarer

”EARTHDAY.ORG’s theme for Earth Day 2021 is Restore Our Earth™, which focuses on natural processes, emerging green technologies, and innovative thinking that can restore the world’s ecosystems. In this way, the theme rejects the notion that mitigation or adaptation are the only ways to address climate change. It is up to each and every one of us to Restore Our Earth not just because we care about the natural world, but because we live on it. We all need a healthy Earth to support our jobs, livelihoods, health & survival, and happiness. A healthy planet is not an option — it is a necessity.”

Earth Day is every day. Every day is Earth Day. What will you do extra for Mother Earth today? What do you do to help saving our only home?

I believe in doing positive things every day, small improvements will grow bigger when we do them together! One of my ongoing projects is making my garden an insect’s paradise. Food, space, home. I grow insect friendly plants and I provide food all year around from Spring to Winter. I let old fallen trees lie, I never use toxics in my garden and I see to it that plants are in flower all possible seasons.

Bee hotels are rather effective to use – I have four of them in my garden. Without bees in the world – we will not survive. Your every third bite is only there with the help of pollinators, bees.

Wishing you all a wonderful day from me and my garden – soon to be filled with flowers and happy creatures again!

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #144 – Taking Flight

/ Leya / 89 kommentarer

Birds, butterflies, bees and other insects, airplanes, balloons, bubbles, kites….well, this week, Tina invites us to be creative and choose whichever flying objects that catches our imagination and our lens. Go to her amazingly beautiful post to visit Kiawah!

I don’t have a perfect long lens, so I will stick with the Galapagos Islands, where you have no need for a long lens, but get to see and love all wildlife close-up, just by your side. And, they do have one of the funniest birds for taking flight…

Also called the waved albatross, the Galapagos albatross (Phoebastria irrorata) is the largest bird in the Galapagos, with a wingspan of up to 250 centimetres (8.2 feet). They breed exclusively on Española Island.

The Galapagos albatross engages in a rather elaborate courtship dance, and as our timing was right, we were lucky enough to see this on our trip to the Galapagos Islands in 2016.
The dance involves a good deal of bill circling and bill clacking. There is also head nodding, and waddling. The waved albatross makes a strange sound during the dance, not dissimilar to the moo of a cow.
Once an albatross has selected a partner, they mate for life.
Albatrosses live much longer than other birds; they delay breeding for longer and invest more effort into fewer young. Most species survive upwards of 50 years, and the oldest recorded was ringed in 1956 as a mature adult and hatched another chick in February 2021, making her at least 70 years old. In fact she is the oldest confirmed wild bird and the oldest banded bird in the world.
These birds weigh between 2.7 and 4 kilograms (6 – 8.8 pounds) and males are typically quite a lot heavier than females. When taking off, albatrosses need to take a run up to allow enough air to move under the wing to provide a lift. We saw them run up to the edge of the cliff and jump off to propel themselves into the air. I was sitting 5-10 meters from the action.

However, landing is also quite tricky for this large bird. Because the albatross has a high stalling speed, the landing can seem rather clumsy. (Who doesn’t remember that Disney movie with Orville the Albatross…?)
Seeing a waved albatross fly is quite the sight, they are amazing flyers, soaring dynamically. They stay in the air for many hours and they rarely stall. That’s why sailors used to believe these birds were supernatural.
Due to their great wingspan the bird glides gracefully while up in the skies. In fact the wingspans of the largest great albatrosses (genus Diomedea) are the largest of any bird, exceeding 340 cm (11.2 ft),

In nautical lore, albatrosses are a sign of good fortune, and killing one is meant to bring bad luck. As in Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Thank you for your responses to last week’s Colorful April challenge – you shared some amazing examples of April’s incredible beauty. We look forward to seeing your interpretation of this week’s Taking Flight challenge – please remember to link to Tina’s original post and to include the Lens-Artists Tag. We hope you’ll join us again next week when we welcome our Guest Host, Priscilla of Scillagrace . Be sure to check out her ever-thoughtful and interesting blog.

Stay safe and well.