So, a couple of years ago the raven gang that spends part of the winter alternating between Selfoss and Hveragerði was around for the holiday season. So one of my neighbours left out their holiday roast leftovers for the ravens, which meant they were hanging around the house for a while There’s an old saying here in Iceland: “Guð launar fyrir hrafninn”, which could be translated as “God pays the raven’s way”. Basically that feeding ravens will bring fortune.

Nipponites mirabilis photo by Masahiro MiyasakaOf all the unlikely body plans, Nipponites take the cake! Just look at the twists and turns in these great photos captured by Masahiro Misaka. Imagine slipping beneath the surface of a Cretaceous sea. Above you, sunlight breaks into shifting ribbons. Tiny particles drift through the water, catching the light before disappearing into

The Full Moon is Monday October 26. Occultation of Beta Tauri 29th. Saturn is past opposition, but still magnificent in telescopes. The waxing Moon is close to Saturn on the 24th. Mars is not far from Jupiter low in the morning sky and the pair come closer over the week. In the evening, Venus is lost in the twilight as Mercury sinks towards the horizon. The Orionid meteor shower is best on the mornings of the 22nd and 23rd. The Full Moon is Monday October 26. The Moon at perigee, when it is…

Source Researchers studying a forest predator known for killing porcupines discovered that nearly half its summer diet was mushrooms. The fisher, an animal famous for dismantling porcupines face-first and pulling muskrats from beaver lodges, was spending its Sierra Nevada summers eating fungi. The paper that documented it called the fisher an unexpected mycophagist. In plain language: nobody expected the porcupine killer to be a mushroom enthusiast. G. Bradley Smith, Jody Tucker, and Jonathan…

Bare-throated bellbird, calling (photo from Wikimedia) 14 October 2026 Which birds are the loudest on Earth? For many years the white bellbird (Procnias albus) of South America held that title as the only bird louder than 120 decibels. At close range his voice is beyond the human pain threshold (110 decibels) and is as loud as jackhammers and chainsaws. Take off your headphones! and see what you think. video embedded from Guardian News on YouTube Last month two other South American birds joined…

Wandering along The Wye chucking a lure about - for 11 hours! And perhaps the gentlest takes I've experienced pike fishing - but they fought like stink when they realised they were hooked. A Bulldog accounting for the 14lb 1oz pike (top) and a SG 4Play tempting the 18lb 14oz fish (above). That SG is one smashed up lure! And back to my (tail cropping) self-take photos.

As promised in my last post, I’m here to talk about the 1790 Keonehelelei eruption of Kilauea. “The falling sands.” This is an article that has been developing for quite some time now. The 1790 eruption is, after all, a lot of things at the same time. The most obvious and no less important is…

Mt Tate (立山, tate-yama) is one of the most-visited peaks in the Northern Alps of Japan, popular with hikers and sightseeing tourists alike. It's known as one of Japan's Three Holy Mountains (along with Mt Fuji and Mt Haku) and was a place where pilgrims would come to pay their respects by climbing up to its 3015m peak. These days, the hike up Mt Tate is made much easier thanks to the Kurobe Alpine Route, with a combination of buses, ropeways and cable cars taking hikers straight up to the…

I accidentally hit 'back' on a post about growing cloud forest orchids through a heat wave and can't be bothered to re-write it. So instead - have a freaky little cloud forest orchid that is making it through. Pleurothallis tribuloides Native to Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba and other parts of the Caribbean. Grows in wet forests at elevations of 300 to 1300 meters. Described as a cool to hot grower which I suppose means its not fussy.…

Sunlight diffuses through the canopy and light fog at Northern California’s Avenue of the Giants. The post Redwood Glow appeared first on 75CentralPhotography.

An elephant can dream.

A small job this morning with Glorious Grasslands. We headed over to Pitchcombe to seed a small field squeezed between mill ponds and the Painswick road. The field had Longhorn cattle grazing who were super curious about what we were doing. Jenny and Alison went off to plant plugs while the rest of us spread the seed. We initially used a twisting tool to carve divots from the grass to create concentrated areas of bare earth for seed. However, the cattle decided they would brunch on the contents…

I could watch egrets fishing all day, but I've got stuff to do.61 words · 2 images

adult male I have been visiting the Marche region of Italy for the past two weeks. (I am returning home later this week.) While I don’t normally take my camera with me when I travel–because I prefer to travel light–I decided this time it might be fun to bring my camera and do some birding […]

Detail of lifting mechanisms of the Junction Bridge—a retired railroad lift bridge converted to a park that spans the Arkansas River near Downtown Little Rock, Arkansas. The post Mechanicals appeared first on 75CentralPhotography.

An old friend, knowing my interest in such oddities, has alerted me to a wonderfully outlandish theory that seems to have attracted thousands of believers, many of them already adherents of Flat EarthTheory. It all began ten years ago, when someone in Crimea, whose account has since been deleted, posted a video on YouTube in which he argued that there are no trees on Earth: what we take for trees are mere bushes, shrubs and saplings, remnants of an age when supergigantic trees, with trunks two…

Yellow knight mushrooms, also known as man on horseback, are a controverial edible mushroom. Here's what you need to know before eating them. Jousting with the Yellow Knight is the latest post on Hunter Angler Gardener Cook.

Spent most of yesterday in the mountains just east of Eugene, on a trail run along the McKenzie River Trail and around Clear Lake. I’ve been going to Clear Lake for years now and find it a beautiful place, nestled among the lava flows, a few giant sequoias and many vine maple trees. Yesterday was simply beautiful. Photos below. The trail itself is a trail along a “National Wild and Scenic River,” the McKenzie River and the trail parallels the river for most of it. It starts just north of Clear…

A haiku inspired by Warwick Goble's Hundreds of Peacocks of Gorgeous Plumes Source

I hate seeing the lake like this. 📷 Photographed with a Fujifilm X-T5 + XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR 🎞️ 55 mm focal length – 1/500″ at f/8 – ISO 1250 📍 Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, United States – Newe Sogobia (Eastern Shoshone), Cayuse, Umatilla and Walla Walla, Shoshone-Bannock, and Tsétsėhéstȧhese/Tsitsistas/Só'taeo'o (Cheyenne) land

For some of us, our very first fossil found in the field was a belemnite. Smooth, elongated and rather pleasing to the eye and to hold, these little treasures have a way of turning a casual beach walk into a lifelong fascination.For Dallin Young, that first find started his fossil obsession—and I know exactly how he feels!Imagine picking one up without knowing what it was. A slender stone finger.

Woolly alder aphids (photo by Bob Lepak, Bugwood.org) 19 October 2026 Until the first killing frost woolly alder aphids (Prociphilus tessellatus) actively coat alder branches like fluffy white socks. I found some in late September 2020 but didn’t know what they were. This month a group of birders found them at Yellow Creek State Park and Ed Donley shared the bug’s identity with the group at Buckeye Yard & Garden Online: Woolly Alder Aphid. Named for their host tree, woolly alder aphids…

The garden in front of the Tekisuian tea house at Okochi Sanso, in the hills of Arashiyama. 嵐山の丘に建つ大河内山荘、茶室「適水庵」の前に広がる苔庭。

Cold and clear with heavy frost. A small hawk hurtles over the house as crows call in the distance. The western ridge turns brick-red with sunrise.

Snow-capped mountains tower in the sky at Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park. The post Majesty Beyond the Trees appeared first on 75CentralPhotography.

Across the fieldsThis is one of those buildings I’d seen for years across the fields, but hadn’t got round to a proper visit until comparatively recently. Maybe at the back of my mind was the fact that I’ve featured dovecotes on this blog several times – perhaps another was a dovecote too far. But having a further look at my pictures, I’m inspired to share them, especially as this one is a little different from the others because of its history.As many readers will know, dovecotes in England…

Update Oct 2025 - These biohazard trigger mittens are inexpensive, waterproof, and light at 1 oz a pair. Over time, I found they work surprisingly well for rain. Read More ... Continue reading Rain Mitt #3 – Biohazard mitts UPDATE OCT 2026 at PMags.com.

The evening sun silhouettes sunflowers growing on ridge near Celina, Texas. The post Sunflower Silhouettes appeared first on 75CentralPhotography.

24. Cumberland Lodge Oak, Windsor Great Park