Tag: flickr

Gannet

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This isn’t the first time we’ve featured a photo by Chris Wormwell on 6000 miles... That’s because this was the first time we featured a photo by Chris Wormwell on 6000 miles...

But this is beautiful:

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This is a fine example of a Northern Gannet (Morus bassanus), off the coast of the Isle of Man. Chris describes this as “pretty much just a bread and butter shot”, so I look forward to seeing some of his “fine dining” work at some point.

You may see close relatives of this fellow (the bird, not Chris) off the Cape coast too. But those, like just every other bird found around here, take the title ‘Cape’ – Cape Gannet (Morus capensis). And whereas there are loads of Northern Gannets to go around, our local species is classed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, so don’t go poaching them, ok?

There are some pretty cool facts about gannets. They are cleverly adapted (Evolution FTW!) to be able to dive from a great height to catch fish. Because they can hit the water at up to 100kph, special air-sacs within their skull protect them from the massive impact, like biological bubble wrap. Additionally, their nostrils are inside their mouths, preventing that awkward unintentional nasal lavage that can all too often ruin a good dive.
It must make things pretty nasty when they get a cold though. Eww.

Photo credit: Many thanks to Chris for his permission to use his photo.

Last Of The Summer Braaiin’?

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That is a legendary title for a post. And yes, I recognise that I announced the onset of winter a couple of weeks ago, but after that dreadful day, apparently summer sobered up, had a bit of a sit down,  realised it missed us all and popped back to prolong itself a bit.
That’s why last week we had this:

While today we were treated to an absolute cracker, with cloudless blue skies, not a breath of wind and temperatures of 30°C.

Perfection.

Mindful that these meteorological conditions have other places to be and can’t stick around forever, we used the time wisely to get in a nice early evening braai:

And while, to the untrained observer, it may appear that there is some sort of breeze blowing, this is Cape Town: our smoke is so used to being moved rapidly in a northwesterly direction that even in flat calm conditions it just comes out of the stack and heads that way automatically.
It is Pavlovian smoke, but you don’t even have to ring a bell to influence its behaviour. This is good because I don’t actually own a bell.

With dwindling supplies of braai wood, now comes a tricky seasonal decision. One must balance the amount of wood one owns, because while on the one hand, you don’t want stacks of wood getting wet and being useless during the winter month, on the other, there will be days when you just need to braai and you just need to have the requisite materials to hand.

It’s a fine line, generally best trodden, I find, by sticking two bags of rooikrans in your garage and having some briquettes on standby.

I shall arrange this tomorrow.

Done ’em

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I promised photos upon my return to Cape Town and I’ve stuck some up on Flickr – my first set in ages thanks to this.

Following on from yesterday’s striped theme:

In fact, there are a lot of animals and birds in the set, because we saw a lot of animals and birds over the last week or so. They’re not the best photos ever, because I’m not the best photographer ever.

They do serve to document our activities for those elsewhere though, which is primarily their aim.
So I win at that.

Flickr: Three Months Free

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If, like me, you enjoy a bit of Flickr every now and again (here’s mine, now show me yours), you’ll be delighted with the news that Pro members will get three months free.

Normally a Pro subscription to Flickr will run you $25 for a year, but until January 4th, you can get your start for free. Existing pro-users won’t get left out in the cold either; their next payment date will be pushed back three months automatically. How nice.

This excellent deal is widely believed to be an effort to mop up the Instagram users who have defected from their natural hipster home because of the much publicised (and much over-exaggerated) new T&C’s. Those new terms don’t bother me, but I’ll happily take the extra three months free, thank you very much.

The Flickr app for Android is rather similar to the Instagram one, which makes this a good deal for those who are a little disgruntled with the latter. However, for me, the photo filters and options available on either of those apps are dwarfed by Vignette, which I have been enjoying for a few years now and which gets better and better. Give it a go by clicking here (QR code) – although you’ll still need a photo sharing program (like Flickr, maybe?), you’ll have better photos to share.

Wire Wool

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You know I like long exposure photographs. Well, I am going to try this.
I am going to try this. I am going to try this. I am going to try this.

Seriously, I am going to try this. That’s because I’ve been meaning to try this for ages (like I did with the ginger beer and that worked out ok) and now that summer is on the way, I am going to try this. Really.

I can only hope that my results are even half as good as CJ Wormwell‘s though.

Nice on white, maybe, but MUCH, MUCH BETTER ON BLACK (and then click fullscreen for the full effect).

I’m pretty sure that’s the beach in Ramsey in the Isle of Man, not that it really matters. You can see his other wire wool photos here.

And should you feel the need to have a go too, here’s a decent tutorial on how to go about it.

Photo credit: Many thanks to Chris for his permission to use his photo.