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Amsterdam Russ

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Swifty Swallow... where do we reckon he is now?  I have a story I made up about a small bird that migrates every year that I used to tell the kids, he stops at the same tree every year, bu the first time he comes up against some owls!!  now Ive got my hero...Swifty Swallow...

 

there he goes...

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Edited by Mal C
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Here's one for the record books. Apparently bee eaters have bred in the UK for the first time in years. A pair of them succeeding in raising three chicks. They are truly stunnning birds.

Steve

I've seen lots of them this summer, still hoping to see a blue roller though

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No obvious hints of the changing season in your part of the world, Dave? None of those classic red, brown and golden hues, or is it all a near-permanent state of summer?

 

Looking out the window, the horse chestnut trees flanking the canal in front of us are a lovely coppery gold colour now. Although the leaves are rapidly dwindling, some foliage will remain for a few weeks yet. 

 

Thinking autumnal thoughts yesterday, and admiring the colours of an almost dead bouquet of flowers we have indoors, I took some time out to set up a still life of them on the dinner table. The last remaining spotlight I had in a softbox set died as soon as I turned it on, so that wasn't a good start. The only option was to use a couple of floor/reading lamps for lighting. 

 

I wanted to try and get a subdued, autumny feel and at the same time portray that even though the flowers are faded and almost dead, they still have a beauty about them. Here's one of the results...

 

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There are bits of autumn colour here and there in the mountains, but nothing major, there's still lots of buds on plants, so more flowers to come.  The sun is now shining after some rain and thunder, and the loquat trees are in flower just outside the kitchen window, beautifully scented.  I used to enjoy the fall colour when I lived in the US, but didn't enjoy the Minnesota winters, I'm looking forward to the winter here, and strawberries next February and March. 

Give me the warmth of southern Spain any day, I'm hoping to be on the beach Christmas Day.

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This chap was resting on the rocks at Riviera last night, probably a juvenile, but I don't know, he looked lonely.

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Anybody know what he could be?  I'm a bit puzzled

Dave .I'm only looking on a kindle at the moment and the picture quality is rubbish when you expand it, but it looks like a juvenile cormorant with the pale underbelly

Steve

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Dave .I'm only looking on a kindle at the moment and the picture quality is rubbish when you expand it, but it looks like a juvenile cormorant with the pale underbelly

Steve

I thought that too Steve, but have never seen much of juvenile cormorants so was unsure, he was very white and some distance off, I enlarged it before I posted it, hence the poor quality

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Looks a bit like Cormorant Dave ?

I pretty much knew it was a cormorant Swifty, but what was puzzling me was his underbelly, I looked at lots of pictures of cormorants and the juveniles never looked as white as he did, they do get birds blown in from the US on the gulf stream so I wondered if it was just misplaced.  Sadly he was too far away to get a decent shot, but his belly was very white.

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I pretty much knew it was a cormorant Swifty, but what was puzzling me was his underbelly, I looked at lots of pictures of cormorants and the juveniles never looked as white as he did, they do get birds blown in from the US on the gulf stream so I wondered if it was just misplaced.  Sadly he was too far away to get a decent shot, but his belly was very white.

Looks fairly standard for a juvenile to me. To confirm I had a quick look online and basically that's all you see - white bellies. Here's an example I 'nabbed' from Mr Google.

 

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maybe you're right Russell, though he was very white even under his chin, I've not seen a juvenile with such clean white markings

Plumage patterns do vary in young birds, of course, so that could explain it. More exotically, could it have been one of these?

 

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A white-breasted cormorant.

 

It would have been well out of it's usual geographical zone, but then that's not really so unusual among our feathered friends, is it? And what with all that 'climate change' taking place...

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Plumage patterns do vary in young birds, of course, so that could explain it. More exotically, could it have been one of these?

 

attachicon.gifWhite-breasted-cormorant.jpg

 

A white-breasted cormorant.

 

It would have been well out of it's usual geographical zone, but then that's not really so unusual among our feathered friends, is it? And what with all that 'climate change' taking place...

Who can tell, it looked like an adult bird to me, and was the only one around that had any white markings, I knew it was a cormorant, and knew juveniles had a white belly, but had never seen one so white and up to the chin.  Wasn't there tonight, but then after the weather we had earlier I wouldn't blame it

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Looks like some fantastic pics the - except I can't see them properly. Click on them and they're huge - much bigger than the computer screen I'm using anyway. Any chance you can resize them so they're a bit smaller?

Russel, I've right clicked and opened in new tab and they are normal size on my laptop?

I don't know how to change the size of the images, help, anybody?

Edited by billb
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Russel, I've right clicked and opened in new tab and they are normal size on my laptop?

I don't know how to change the size of the images, help, anybody?

Right-click does load individual images into a new browser window, but you shouldn't need to do that. Just clicking on them normally ought to be enough. Downloading the first image shows it to be 4000 x 3000 pixels - onscreen that's pretty big! 

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Russel, I've right clicked and opened in new tab and they are normal size on my laptop?

I don't know how to change the size of the images, help, anybody?

I resize mine with Photoshop Elements when I am processing them, usually 1000 pixels on the longest edge, saves swamping the page and makes them load a bit quicker for people with slower connection speeds.

 

When I was using Windows there were a few free image resizing programs on the web, just do a Google search loads come up here is one  :thumbsup:

 

https://imageresizer.codeplex.com/releases/view/30247

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They breed in the Artic, then spend the winter's In relative warmer climates of England, Scotland, Wales etc etc fattening up on the stubble crops that the farmers have left.

Steve

I red this as "They breed in the attic"............blind barsteward!

 

 

Just caught the last day of one of the Acers before the leaves fell.

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A great looking Mushroom out walking the dogs, no idea what it is but it`s about a foot tall and there were a few of them.

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And then I let them watch Countdown before dinner.

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