Picture-A-Week-2015 - Week 24

Pictures taken between Monday June 8 and Sunday June 14.

You never know what you can find ii your back yard, lol

Tom :cool:

You never know what you can find ii your back yard, lol

 

Tom :cool:

Adorable

Love the squirrel!

I was pleased with this sunset I picked up on the way home from the ice rink yesterday

2015-06-09 (Day 160) Campsie Sunset by Alan Potter, on Flickr

Coming home from the copper mines this afternoon

A varied week, weather has been sunny but a cold wind. Then on Thursday it warmed up to 26c.

Out in the back garden, and disturbed by this character practicing vertical climbs out over the sea and dropping.:eek:

It did not disturb this visitor though a Chaffinch

and the roses are coming out now.

Cracking photo's people.

Dickie

Taken today at the Calgary Zoo

Majestic Amur Tiger by Bill Church, on Flickr

https://www.********************/SDZooFocus/1075116399169695

It was a slow photo week and it came down to hot dogs on a grill or a photo from shopping for drought-tolerant palnts. Hot dogs are not photogenic by nature and exposing them to fire doesn't help.

Yet Another Flower

The photo above helps explain why I haven't been in a rush to replace my pocket camera. I hope Microsoft doesn't drop the ball when it comes to maintaining Nokia's focus (no pun intended) on their phone's photo capabilities.

Dave

We are reading quite a lot here about the drought in California just now. I used to visit San Diego from time to time and saw how many of the office buildings had signs saying that they were using recycled water, but it seems as if it's even worse than that now.

How bad is it in reality - is it affecting normal day-to-day life?

Wow - birds, flowers, zoo animals, and squirrels - this is my kind of thread this week! ;)

Here are a few birds from the wetlands this past week:

Tricolored heron:

Closeup with a purple swamphen:

Juvenile grackle - when adult it will be all glossy black, but as a juvie he has some nice transitional colors and patterns between brown and black:

This silly dis-proportioned fuzzball is a baby purple gallinule:

And this is one of the strangest, most unlikely sightings in S Florida in June that you could possibly imagine - like seeing a tropical flower blooming in February in N. Minnesota. This is a northern shoveler - a duck that only comes down to Florida in January or February for the coldest winters, and one we haven't even seen in the winter down here for 2 years because it's been so warm down here. Yet in June, 100 degrees out, finding a northern shoveler is unbelievably strange and rare in a Florida swamp:

We are reading quite a lot here about the drought in California just now. I used to visit San Diego from time to time and saw how many of the office buildings had signs saying that they were using recycled water, but it seems as if it's even worse than that now.

 

How bad is it in reality - is it affecting normal day-to-day life?

The drought is real and has been exacerbated by phenomenally poor planning and politics. Misguided policies have restricted the building of new reservoirs for decades despite a population that has grown larger than Canada. New dams have been built but not at a rate consistent with increased demand. Add the chronic mismanagement of agricultural water supplies and we are well and truly living in a problem of our own creation. The biggest joke is that the state is still diverting enough water to fully provide for a third of the state's residential population to the Sacramento Delta to protect the environment of the "endangered" Delta Smelt, a minnow-sized fish that has become the poster child for environmentalism gone wild.

Non-agricultural users are now mandated to reduce water use by 24% which means, among other things, replacing lawns with arid environment plants and drip watering (actually a good idea in semi-arid areas like where I live). This would reduce an estimated 2%-4% of the total consumption but offers a huge potential source of revenue from fines! ($500/day for landscape water runoff into the street, washing your car without a flow-control nozzle on the hose, etc.).

California is a beautiful place to live but has a growing number of natural disasters threatening it. The sad part is that we keep voting the biggest disasters back in, term after term. ;)

Forgive the info-rant. :)

Dave

Please don't apologise - I found it very interesting to read.

I wish you rain! :-)

The drought is real and has been exacerbated by phenomenally poor planning and politics. Misguided policies have restricted the building of new reservoirs for decades despite a population that has grown larger than Canada. New dams have been built but not at a rate consistent with increased demand. Add the chronic mismanagement of agricultural water supplies and we are well and truly living in a problem of our own creation. The biggest joke is that the state is still diverting enough water to fully provide for a third of the state's residential population to the Sacramento Delta to protect the environment of the "endangered" Delta Smelt, a minnow-sized fish that has become the poster child for environmentalism gone wild.

 

Non-agricultural users are now mandated to reduce water use by 24% which means, among other things, replacing lawns with arid environment plants and drip watering (actually a good idea in semi-arid areas like where I live). This would reduce an estimated 2%-4% of the total consumption but offers a huge potential source of revenue from fines! ($500/day for landscape water runoff into the street, washing your car without a flow-control nozzle on the hose, etc.).

 

California is a beautiful place to live but has a growing number of natural disasters threatening it. The sad part is that we keep voting the biggest disasters back in, term after term. ;)

 

Forgive the info-rant. :)

 

Dave

As fellow California resident, I totally agree!

Lovely colourful flowers!

It is such a shame to hear of the problems California is facing. I know that of the various places I have travelled, San Diego / La Jolla was about the only place I would ever actually have been willing to move to. But it sounds a distinctly more dicey proposition now...

Wonderful bird, flower, etc. visual samples. Nice update on the California water challenges. Great, wise points by Dave on "Misguided policies have restricted the building of new reservoirs for decades despite a population that has grown larger than Canada. New dams have been built but not at a rate consistent with increased demand. Add the chronic mismanagement of agricultural water supplies and we are well and truly living in a problem of our own creation. The biggest joke is that the state is still diverting enough water to fully provide for a third of the state's residential population to the Sacramento Delta to protect the environment of the "endangered" Delta Smelt, a minnow-sized fish that has become the poster child for environmentalism gone wild." Should not people be more important for protection than Delta Smelts?

QUESTION??: For dileep, what lens and/or camera did you use for the excellent Hibiscus at the zoo pictures?

Below are some flower "eye candy" samples from our visit this past weekend in Charlottesville, Va. Great, fun time with our grandsons, etc. Hot and humid down in Virginia during this summer period.

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

From our Jan. 25-Feb. 20, 2015, Amazon River-Caribbean combo sailing over 26 days that started in Barbados, here is the link below to that live/blog. Lots of great visuals from this amazing Brazil river and these various Caribbean Islands (Dutch ABC's, St. Barts, Dominica, Grenada, etc.) that we experienced. Check it out at:

http://www.boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2157696

Now at 24,180 views for these postings.

From visiting Virginia this past weekend, her are four flower examples. In the fourth picture is a "bonus" with a butterfly hard at work doing its "duties". Plus, a bee being busy, too, in the third picture!!:

[quote name='TLCOhio;46859528

QUESTION??: For dileep' date=' what lens and/or camera did you use for the excellent Hibiscus at the zoo pictures?

 

All my pictures are taken with my trusty Panasonic Lumix FZ200!

So many wonderful pictures.

Some flower pictures from our yard taken on June 10 before I had an accident.

Some flower pictures from our yard taken on June 10 before I had an accident.

 

I hope all is well now.

"I don't always tailgate when at the mine, but when I do I want it to be exciting..."

All my pictures are taken with my trusty Panasonic Lumix FZ200!

Appreciate this added camera information. What lens was used? Was it a macro lens? Or, what lens length was used to get things so BIG and clear?

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

Enjoyed a 14-day, Jan. 20-Feb. 3, 2014, Sydney to Auckland adventure, getting a big sampling for the wonders of "down under” before and after this cruise. Go to:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1974139

for more info and many pictures of these amazing sights in this great part of the world. Now at 109,731 views for this posting.

Appreciate this added camera information. What lens was used? Was it a macro lens? Or, what lens length was used to get things so BIG and clear?

 

THANKS! Enjoy! Terry in Ohio

 

QUOTE]

 

It is a point and shoot camera with a fixed Leica lens. There is a whole thread on that camera on this board.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1694983

 

I shot those using Intelligent Auto mode!

 

The camera chose f/3.5, focal length 16 mm, exposure 1/100 sec, ISO-160.