Tag: Nature Photography

Protecting Nature

Some stuff about nature, with a sidelight on public transport. Links to several nature/ transport themed posts and many appropriately themed photos.

INTRODUCTION

This is the first of several posts I will be putting up today. Two of the links I shall be sharing are to posts that have already appeared on this site as reblogs, but which I consider so important, that I am going to link to them again. There is also among my links a piece relating to public transport for which I make no apology, as transport policy can have a big impact on nature, whether positively or negatively depending on the nature of the policy. As usual plenty of my own pictures will feature as well.

TAKING THE LOCAL AUTHORITY TO TASK

Two pieces in this section:

  1. Anna’s searching questions of her local authority as part of the ongoing campaign to save Trosa nature. For those who have not already seen the piece, please click on the magnificent infographic/ meme that Anna created based on a comment I made on one of her previous posts.
    Nature Meme
  2. A cabal of Tories seeking to force through the building of an expensive and environmentally damaging incinerator is all too familiar to a West Norfolk resident. This time the dodgy dealing is going on in Gloucestershire and again it is a Tory controlled County Council that seeks to force through the building of the incinerator. The Skwawkbox have picked up on the story, for which I am very grateful, and I urge everyone who reads this to visit this post by clicking on the image below.

    javelin park.png
    Illustration of GCC’s planned Javelin Park incinerator

     

     

BADGER CULLS AND BIOSECURITY

This one appears on Chris Packham’s website, and consists of a brief introduction to a person by the name of Anna Dale, and then an essay by this same Anna Dale titled “Below-par biosecurity should mean no badger cull licence”. To read this detailed essay please click on the graphic below.

Badger

BUSES IN CRISIS

This comes to you courtesy of the Campaign for Better Transport. Contained within this worrying piece is a bit of good news – an infographic relating to the achievements of 2016. To read the full detail on the crisis with Britain’s buses please click on the shocking graph below.

Graph showing decreasing funding for buses since 2010
These figures do not speak so much as shout for themselves about Tory attitudes to public transport.

PHOTOGRAPHS 1: WORK

In this, the first of two sections of this post devoted to my photographs, I share some nature and transport related pictures from yesterday and Thursday at work. The first of these is of an item in the March auction, which I therefore use as a link to our online catalogue, while all the rest are from lots in our April auction.

1255945-a947-a

948-a
Part of lot 948 in our April auction
950-a
Part of lot 950
951-a
Part of lot 951
953-a
Part of lot 953
956-a
Part of lot 956
961-a
Part if lot 961
962-a
Part of lot 962
963-a
Part of lot 963
964-a
Part of lot 964
GT1
This image and the next relate to lot 948

GT2

GLTW
Likewise this image and the next relate to lot 934

VRR

PHOTOGRAPHS 2: LEISURE

To end the post here some photos from in and around King’s Lynn…

CP
Several other species besides Cormorants enjoying “Cormorant Platform”

CP2MoorhenBB

Shares and Sharing

A (very brief) case study on inspiration, some autism related stuff and stuff about sharing, and some of my own photographs – read, enjoy and feel free to share so long as you do so in the right kind of way!

INTRODUCTION

I have a number of things to share today (although today’s blogging won’t quite be on the epic scale of Saturday’s), and with one significant exception for this post I am concentrating on autism related stuff.

A CASE STUDY ON INSPIRATION

One of the treats awaiting me in my inbox this morning was a post on estersblog about Greenwich. Seeing her pictures of Greenwich inspired to me to created a post on my London transport themed website about Greenwich. The picture below is one of Ester’s, and links to her post about Greenwich:

img_0308

As well as the picture that I am using as to link to the post I was inspired to create, I have a screenshot from that post below it:

1001-b
This is part of the image gallery I created for lot 1,001 in James and Sons’ April auction.
Greenwich
The screenshot

SHARING AND COMMENTING

I came across an excellent post about sharing and commenting on thesilentwaveblog. Please read this post in full by clicking on thesilentwave graphic below:

A NEW FIND – THE AUTISTIC ACADEMIC

I came across this blog yesterday. The post that caught my attention was titled “Ten Things Autistic Kids Pick Up Faster, Better, and With Less Trauma If They Aren’t Bullied Into Learning Them” and can be read in full by clicking the screenshot below. The PDF of the article to which this piece was responding can still be viewed, although the original article has been taken down (nb – once you have posted something anywhere on the net it is exceedingly hard to remove it, so best to think before you post so you have no need to worry aboiut trying to remove it!).

AA

ANOTHER NEW FIND –
THE UNABASHED AUTIST

As a sample of this blogger I offer you a piece title “This Is Your Solution – To Ruin The Bike?”, which can be accessed by clicking the Unabashed Autist graphic below:

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here are some photographs from yesterday to end this post:

station
We start with some public transport themed pictures (five in total)
displayboards
This display is not as prominent within the station building as it should be.
History
Close ups of each poster.

WWN

Bus Station
From the train station to the bus station (while this is not quite a true transport interchange, the distance is only about 200 metres)
Blackbird in branches
Some of these pictures were taken yesterday morning, the others yesterday afternoon after my mother had dropped me back in King’s Lynn (near the cemetery, which made the best walking route home obvious – note for those new to this site best in this context does not necessarily mean shortest).

flowerscrocusesBirdsSquirrelBlackbirdMoorhen

 

 

 

 

 

Mainly Science

Links to a selection of interesting and/ or important pieces I have found in the last day or so and some of today’s photographs.

INTRODUCTION

I will be sharing various links I have found in the last day or so in this post. I also have some photographs from this afternoon.

THE GREAT BUS RIP OFF

This is my most recent find, courtesy of campaign group We Own It. They have a piece in The Mirror today which you can access here. Below is an infographic map showing the amount of money from British bus services that goes directly into the pockets of shareholders:

As a postscript to the above, the only reason the figure for East Anglia (my region) is so low is because being largely rural and hence fairly sparsely populated it does not have many bus services.

POLITICAL IDIOCY  – TORIES GO AFTER SCHOOLS WITH SOLAR PANELS

Instead of sensibly rewarding those who try do their bit by using solar panels to generate some of their energy this government is hitting some of them with extra bills. Private Schools (i.e. fee-paying schools, and the sort of school to which MPs, especially Tory MPs, send their children) will not feel the effects of this because in a spectacular misuse of the English language they are classed as “charities”. State schools (those that ordinary folk attend, as a few eons ago, I did) pay business rates which means that those state schools with solar panels will be paying a combined £1.8 million in extra rates for having them.

To charge anywhere more money because they have solar panels seems utterly boneheaded to me, but to charge schools, who should be setting positive examples to their students, for having solar panels takes the stupidity to level unanticipated even by Einstein when he said “only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I am not sure about the universe”. 

To read the full article that inspired this section, courtesy of The Guardian, please click on the image below:

Business rate changes are a big setback for solar projects in state schools, critics say.

TWO STORIES OF STELLAR DEATH

The first of these stories is a commemoration of…

SUPERNOVA 1987-A

As the second part of its name suggests it is now 30 years since the explosion of this star was witnessed on Earth, and to commemorate that anniversary some new observations have been made of the stellar remnant by the Hubble Space Telescope. To read the story in full, which comes from ibtimes.com, please click on the image below:

Supernova 1987a

My second piece in this section comes from NASA’s official website and concerns…

THE DISCOVERY OF THE
UNIVERSE’S BRIGHTEST PULSARS

When a supernova collapses, if the remnant weighs more than 1.4 solar masses it continues to contract beyond the white dwarf stage to form a neutron star, which is stable between 1.4 and 3 solar masses (beyond 3 solar masses the crushing continues until all that is left is a black hole). A spinning neutron star is known as a pulsar. To read about the discovery of the new record holding pulsar please click on the image below.

NGC 5907 ULX is the brightest pulsar ever observed

DOWNLOAD A FREE POSTER
FROM THE NEW SCIENTIST

New Scientist are at the moment offering everyone who creates an account on their site (it is free, and very easy, to so) a free download of a You Are Here poster showing us our place in the Milky Way. If interested, click on the edited version of my poster below, which I have reduced for this specific purpose, while making sure I still have the original.

NS_MILKY_WAY_POSTER - Edited

ROCK SOLID EVIDENCE THAT WE ARE NOW LIVING IN THE ANTHROPOCENE

This is the first fruit of my creating an account for myself on New Scientist. The article, which I have linked to by way of the image below (I have also included the explanation of the image from the site) is about the 208 minerals that humans have created during their tenure on the planet (yes, the primary evidence on which the article is based is quite literally rock solid).

Simonkolleite found in a copper mine in Arizona

Mines are a good place to find minerals like this Simonkolleite – evidence of the impact humans are having on the planet

PHOTOGRAPHS

To finish this post here are some photographs I took while out walking this afternoon:

gate in old wallOld wallBlackbird4LBBBlackbird3Blackbird2Blackbird 1Red MountGuanock gateMinsterMoorhens

Norfolk Pictures and Some Shares

Some local photographs from earlier today and some interesting links.

INTRODUCTION

I had expected to be blogging about the first ever NAS West Norfolk curry night at The Globe today, but the event had to be postponed due to the severe weather that affected King’s Lynn yesterday. In addition to the decision to postpone the curry night made because those who would have had to travel (as opposed to me strolling down the road) to get there did not feel safe doing so I have a couple of other little pieces of evidence to back my claim that the wind yesterday was the strongest I have experienced while living in King’s Lynn, which is a fairly windy town anyway. Firstly I had to retrieve one of the legs of my outside table from the roof of Artertons (this roof adjoins my balcony but is one storey lower, so to access it I have to descend to street level, ascend a fixed steel ladder to the Artertons roof, retrieve the item, descend the ladder and ascend the stairs to my own flat). For this to happen, the table top, which when the table is not in use I position covering the legs, had to be blown clear of the legs and then one of those legs had to be blown across the width of my outside space and down on to Artertons roof, and it has never happened before. Secondly, the 813th King’s Lynn Mart made what was in truth the only sensible decision they could have done, not to open yesterday evening on safety grounds, again a first in my time living in this part of the world. Therefore with a couple of links at the end as a bonus I am falling back on a staple of this blog, some local pictures taken today.

THE PICTURES

Weatherwise today has been the calm after yesterday’s storm, so after lunch I went out for a walk with only my trusty Nikon Coolpix P530 for company. Below are the highlights of this walk in picture form…

dscn3948
Daffodils just emerging in The Walks
dscn3949
Signs of life in what I call the “Trivial Pursuit Beds” in The Walks

dscn3950dscn3951

dscn3952
A cormorant showing its wingspan on the west bank of the Great Ouse
dscn3953
Cormorant just in the western edge of the Great Ouse

dscn3954

dscn3955
A view of the town from Harding’s Pits
dscn3957
The Nar was so calm that these modern houses were clearly reflected in its water.
dscn3958
A tern (probably in origin an Arctic Tern.
dscn3959
A Moorhen

SOME LINKS

My first link is to a new petition on change.org calling on the UK government to treat hate crimes against autistic people as seriously as race hate crimes. Here is the body text of a suggested message provided by change.org:

I just signed the petition, “UK Parliament: Make autistic hate crime as punishable as racism.” I think this is important. Will you sign it too?

Here’s the link:

https://www.change.org/p/uk-parliament-make-autistic-hate-crime-as-punishable-as-racism?utm_medium=email&utm_source=notification&utm_campaign=petition_signer_receipt&share_context=signature_receipt&recruiter=181177831 

On a completely different note, courtesy of www.independent.co.uk here is a fascinating account of a new solar system in which no fewer than seven earth-like planets wouyld appear to be in the habitable zone around their star. Click on the picture below to read in full.

pia21425.jpg

Finally to end this post, a highly amusing video. Clearly based on the classic sketch “What did the Romans ever do for us?”, this is a sketch called “What did the European Court of Human Rights ever do for us?”

https://embed.theguardian.com/embed/video/culture/video/2016/apr/25/patrick-stewart-sketch-what-has-the-echr-ever-done-for-us-video

Monday Mixed Bag

A note on comments,some science related links, some photographs and links to the Autism Awareness Cup facebook page and a full catalogue for James and Sons’ next auction.

INTRODUCTION

This is a post of my own, although featuring material from elsewhere. The text other than links is all mine, and there are of course come of my own photographs. Before getting on to the main meat of the post I start with…

THE COMMENTS SECTION

If a post is all my own, or like this post has a framework created by me even if some of the stuff contained within it is not mine then the comments section is open and all comments will be accepted and responded to. If however I have either reblogged a wordpress post or used a ‘press this’ button to share a piece created elsewhere I will close the comments section for that post as it is my intention that people should read the original, and the original is the appropriate place for comments to be posted. Here are a couple of screenshots to help clarify…

screenshot-2017-01-30-at-8-46-30-am
I did these screenshots while ‘pressing’ an excellent post from Heather Hastie. Here you can see two small boxes labelled “allow comments” and “allow pingbacks and trackbacks”, which are both checked (the default setting).
screenshot-2017-01-30-at-8-46-38-am
Now I have, as my final piece of editing unchecked the box that says “allow comments”. For those who have not already done so, Heather’s piece can be accessed by clicking this picture.

SCIENCE AND NATURE CORNER

Welcome to what is becoming a regular feature of this blog. Today the posts are in order of the historical period they deal with, so we start with one set 450 million years ago, which details a find of…

TRILOBITE EGGS

This piece was posted on the website sci-news.com and can be read in full by clicking the screenshot below:

screenshot-2017-01-30-at-11-20-18-am

Moving forwards a few hundred million years we find…

BUGS IN AMBER

This concerns a new order of insects who have been discovered trapped in Burmese amber. I offer you two versions – click the screenshot on the left as you look to get the sci-news.com version and the one on the right to get the whyevolutionistrue version.

screenshot-2017-01-30-at-11-30-19-amscreenshot-2017-01-30-at-11-27-40-am

Finally for this edition of Science and Nature corner we come…

BACK TO THE PRESENT

With two videos from “Its Okay to be Smart”, the first of which details the discovery of a probable new species deep in the Amazon rainforest and the second of which asks “how many species are there?” (the answer is that no one has the foggiest).


PHOTOGRAPHS

Here are some of my photographs…

dscn9412dscn9413dscn9414dscn9418dscn9421dscn9422dscn9423dscn9424dscn9425dscn9426dscn9427

AUTISM AWARENESS CUP 2017

Below is a list of the confirmed details about this tournament, and if you click on it, it will take you to a facebook page which you can like and share.

screenshot-2017-01-30-at-11-53-17-am

JAMES AND SONS NEXT AUCTION

It will be a three-day auction, on the 20th, 21st and 22nd February (a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday). The first two days will be at James and Sons premises in Fakenham, and the Wednesday will be at The Maid’s Head Hotel, Norwich. A full catalogue can be viewed by clicking on the image below:

1040
Lot 1040, a medallion rather than a coin.

Musical Keys

An illustrated account of yesterdays Musical Keys session at the Scout Hut, Beulah Street.

INTRODUCTION

Yesterday was a Musical Keys day for me and others associated with the NAS West Norfolk branch. Attendances were somewhat affected by the fact that an autism friendly event was also taking place at Norwich Castle. This post briefly covers the session I attended, from 4PM to 5PM (as usual there had been an earlier session for the younger ones).

GETTING THERE

I left my flat a little earlier than usual, opting for the Bawsey Drain route. I was carrying a guitar with me to donate to the group always assuming that it could be restored to usable condition (it was a long time since it had last been used). I picked up a few pictures along the way…

dscn9258dscn9261dscn9262dscn9263dscn9264

THE SESSION ITSELF

John who runs the sessions confirmed that he could make the guitar usable again (it would need new strings but was still capable of generating good sound). Once the session started I found myself using a computer program called Scratch to generate notes. Each note is assigned a numerical value by the program, and you the operator then assign each of these numerical values to a button on the keyboard…

dscn9265
My screen once I had assigned one octave worth of notes to various keys – this works on the ‘click and drag’ principle – the orange tabs at the top describe events, and the purple tabs describe sounds.
dscn9266
The full list of numerical note values.

The default instrument is a piano, but there is a range of some 25 instruments available – I eventually settled on clarinet as my instrument of choice. There are then a whole range of other options available, such as programming the cat to move while you are playing notes and even it draw lines as it moves. Here are a few more pictures.

dscn9272dscn9270dscn9268dscn9267

I very much enjoyed this session, and I think this makes an excellent addition to real instruments. Although it was dark by the time I walked back, just before leaving I spotted an eight-legged friend…

dscn9273
I got three images of this spider…

dscn9275dscn9274

A Walk and Some Links

A walk in and around King’s Lynn and a number of interesting and important links.

INTRODUCTION

I am making the walk the centrepiece of this post, with some links either side of it, starting with some general links, and then following the walk with some science and nature themed links.

SOME GENERAL LINKS

First up, Heather Hastie has produced this post titled “Betsy Devos Doesn’t Inspire Confidence in the Future of US Education”

From The Mighty comes this piece, titled “17 Things Not to Say to People on the Autism Spectrum” 

Steve Rotheram has put out a call for Jeremy Hunt to end the NHS crisis. The link is here.

Courtesy of Disability News Service, here is an article about how one of  Britain’s biggest bus companies is attempting to weasel out of a supreme court discrimination ruling.

THE WALK

Yesterday was bright and sunny, so I went out for a walk. The sun was shining on to the Lower Purfleet, revealing that the surface still had a thin covering of ice…

lower-purfleet

When posting about a walk in King’s Lynn I always like to showcase at least one of our historic buildings, and today I have this picture showing Hanse House and the Rathskeller with the towers of King’s Lynn Minster in the background:

hanse-house-and-rathskeller

There was nothing else of note until I reached the Nar outfall, where I have often observed cormorants. This time there were no cormorants, but there was a small wading bird which I had not seen before and which consultation of my bird book suggested was a Common Sandpiper…

small-wadersmall-wader4small-wader2small-wader3small-wader5small-wader6

I left the river by way of Hardings Pits, taking a couple of shots (one each way) at that moment.

river1
The view towards town
river2
The view away from town

Crossing the Nar on my towards the parkland I took a picture from the bridge…

nar-bank

Passing through the Vancouver Garden I spied a squirrel. It eluded my first attempt to photograph it, but…

squirrel

I then decided to make it a long walk and headed for Lynn Sport, to then go back into town by way of Bawsey Drain. Along the way I got a shot of the railway station as seen from Tennyson Road level crossing…

station

At Lynnsport I stopped to photograph a decorated signpost…

sign

The Bawsey Drain segment of the walk provided a number of pictures, including a raven and some moorhens…

moorhen2ravenmoorhensbawsey-drain

bawsey-drain-2
Unfortunately Bawsey Drain is used as a dumping ground by people who cannot be bothered to dispose of their rubbish properly.

miaow

While walking a,long John Kennedy Road I took this picture of the back of St Nicholas’ Chapel…

st-nicholas

Right at the end of the walk I spotted a pied wagtail..

long-tailed-tit-2long-tailed-tit

NATURE THEMED LINKS

The first link in this section is to a piece that appeared as part of WEIT’s Hili Dialogue series. The star of the series is a cat, the eponymous Hili, also known as the Princess of Poland. Hili has a staff of two, Andrej and Malgorzata and graciously permits a dog named Cyrus to share in this. The pieces always feature something about that particular date, and apparently yesterday was Penguin Awareness Day. While I do not object to a day being designated Penguin Awareness Day, surely we should be aware of them and the rest of the natural world every day. To read the piece in full, click on the graphic below which is extracted from it:

image002

This leads neatly on to two recent pieces from Anna, the first of which is titled “This can never be wrong”, the ‘this’  being taking care of our planet. The other piece from Anna that I am sharing here is about the Save Trosa Nature campaign.

Rationalising the Universe’s latest offering is about Newton’s Laws of Motion.

WEIT get another mention, for this piece about a new species of moth which has been named after Donald Trump.

I started the ‘general links’ section of this post with a piece by Heather Hastie. I now finish the piece with another piece, the title of which, “Huge Crack in Larsen C Ice Shelf in Antarctica Grows” is sufficient introduction. I ‘pressed’ a link to this yesterday, but it is so important that I choose to share it again.

 

 

 

Pictures and Petitions

A couple of important petitions, a couple of interesting links and some photographs taken in and around King’s Lynn – enjoy!

INTRODUCTION

I have two important petitions to share with you, a couple of other links and some new photos to share.

RENATIONALISE THE RAILWAYS!

For my first offering I turn to the campaign group We Own It, and their petition calling for Britain’s railways to be publicly owned and controlled. Click on the screenshot below to visit and sign this petition.

screenshot-2017-01-11-at-2-22-33-pm

AN ANTI-FRACKING PETITION

The latest area to be targeted by fracking companies is Derbyshire. Click on the image below to visit and sign the petition against this:

PHOTOGRAPHS 1:

dscn8937dscn8943dscn8944dscn8945dscn8946dscn8948dscn8949dscn8950dscn8951dscn8952dscn8953dscn8954dscn8955dscn8956dscn8957dscn8958dscn8961dscn8962

A COUPLE OF LINKS

Autism Mom’s most recent post is entitled “Words My Son Can Use” and is a  very interesting read.

Welfare Weekly have produced a list of the 10 worst excuses produced by employers caught failing to pay the minimum wage which you can read here.

PHOTOGRAPHS 2

We finish with a few more pictures, these ones taken this morning:

dscn8966dscn8967dscn8968dscn8969dscn8970dscn8971dscn8972

Winter Pictures

A few links and some pictures – enjoy.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to my first post of 2017. I have some pictures to share with you of course, and one or two other things.

SOME LINKS

My first link is a quiz from the British Humanist Association entitled “How Humanist Are You?” 

My remaining two links are to petitions:

  1. 38 Degrees are running a petition to stop filibustering in the House of Commons.
  2. petitionsite.com have a petition calling for the renationalisation of our railways.

Mention of the railways leads me to the following from twitter:

This is part of a nationwide protest against the continuing increase of fares for increasingly poor services on British trains.

PHOTOGRAPHS

These pictures comprise my last from 2016 and my first from 2017…

dscn8569dscn8570dscn8571dscn8572dscn8573dscn8575dscn8576dscn8577dscn8578dscn8579

dscn8581
This picture is the last of the 2106 vintage…
dscn8582
…and this is the first of the 2017 vintage.

dscn8583dscn8584dscn8585dscn8586dscn8587dscn8588dscn8589dscn8590dscn8591