Monarch on Ironweed

Today's image is from a visit I had to Brookgreen Gardens in Murrell's Inlet, South Carolina. This ever familiar monarch had landed on this small flower that captured my attention. I had never seen a flower quite like this before. I was particularly taken by the tubular stamens that the butterfly was exploiting for nectar. In addition, the purple and yellow coloration was such a pleasing contrast to my eye. I certainly hope this unusual contrast bring pleasure to you as well.

Monarch on Ironweed

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For more CAMERA CRITTERS click HERE
Enjoy the beauty of MACRO FLOWER SATURDAY HERE
To enjoy more of SCENIC SUNDAY click HERE
For MACRO MONDAY fun click HERE

Solitary Sea

Today's WORDLESS WEDNESDAY. WATERY WEDNESDAY & SKYWATCH Post

Solitary Sea

Truman Beach

West Coast of the South Island, New Zealand

 

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7 Years on Mars! Happy Anniversary to "Opportunity".

I just became aware today that the Mars Rover "Opportunity" just celebrated its 7th anniversary on the Martian surface! I'm embedding NASA's video marking the anniversary. I assume most folks have forgotten about these amazing vehicles that were only scheduled to last 90 days on the surface. As a child of the space generation who attended the Apollo 11 ticker tape parade in NYC ( I was 2 years old! lol) I have a fascination about space exploration. Enjoy!

Artist Point - Yellowstone National Park

Today's Scenic Sunday post is of the iconic view of the 308 foot plunge of the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River from Artist Point. The spot has been a photographic pilgrimage of sorts since Ansel Adams made the Lower Falls famous with his 1941 image. These are my two favorite views taken from Artist Point.

Lower Falls of The Yellowstone River

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Lower Falls of The Yellowstone River

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All Mine!

This photograph was taken near Daisy Geyser in the Upper Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park.  My family and I were hiking throughout the geyser basin and we stopped to talk to two young women who were unpacking their lunches as they awaited a geyser eruption. In the midst of getting their lunch ready this golden mantled ground squirrel snuck up and laid claim to both their apples!

ALL MINE

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Click here to see other entries in the Camera Critters Meme

Skywatch Friday (January 21,2011)

Here my first contribution to Skywatch Friday. These are 3 moon images. The first two were taken during the Lunar Eclipse of  December 21,2010. The third was the full moon on my birthday January 18,2011. All three were taken in Allen, Texas.

Click HERE soo see other Skywatch Friday entries.

Click to see this image in the original gallery.

Click to see this image in the original gallery.

Click to see this image in the original gallery.

Wordless Wednesday (January 19,2011)

I'm interested to see who can figure out what this is....... post guesses in the comments :)

(I'll reveal the answer on Sunday 1/23 - patience my friends)

Thanks for your patience! The correct answer for what you see here is an American Alligator tail!  The original uncropped version of the image is on my website HERE

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Other WORDLESS WEDNESDAY entries

Watchful Ladies........

Today's post is a photograph I took on my visit to the Impodimo Lodge in Madikwe Game Reserve in South Africa.

Watchful Ladies

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Madikwe is a great example of local conservation ideas that really work. Previously, this area of northwest South Africa had fallen into a situation where the farming & ranching had become less and less productive and the region fell into dire poverty. The South African government purchased more than 75,000 hectares and restocked it with indigenous animals that has been rendered locally extinct due to the  agricultural nature of the region.

The government allowed local groups to set up a series of game lodges in the park with the stipulation that the vast majority of their employees would be local residents. There was also the establishment of a fund that takes a small fee from every nightly visitor to one of the lodges. This fund goes to support the local population who now have a real reason to support wildlife rather than poach it to make ends meet!

As a result Madikwe is a great place to go on safari where you can see the "Big Five" (lion, rhino, leopard, Cape buffalo, and elephants). The area is also known as one of the places you can have a chance to see highly endangered and elusive African Wild Dogs.

There "Watchful Ladies" were on one of the jeep tracks in the reserve overlooking a water hole. They were particularly alert this day as there was a running territorial dispute between the pride these two belong to and a small herd of elephants that wanted access to the water. The reclining lion is a young female ( you can still see her juvenile spots) who was very interested in hunting the younger elephants which only added to the tensions around the water hole.

As the other images show, her inexperience and the alertness of the adult elephants prevented her from having a chance! I do love how she was in the middle of the road and still acted as if she was invisible in the tall grass as she "crawled"  her way toward her "prey". 

Stalking (in plain sight!)

After the Hunt

After giving up  on the elephants, the mother lioness and her two yearlings spent the better part of an hour lounging around the water hole until some potential prey (zebras, wildebeests, and warthogs) came into view on the far side of the water hole. Here's a video I shot of mama lioness tying to get a wildebeest. I will not give away the ending .... :-)  (FYI - the sound was removed  from the video as all you'd be able to hear would be the "whoosh" of the wind!)

Wordless Wednesday

Shrimper's Solitude

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Click here to see other Wordless Wednesday Entries!

Scenic Sunday - Subsiding Storm

As I have expanded my forays into the blogosphere, I have discovered a couple of Blog Memes that have weekly posting along certain themes. I'll be sharing these through Blue Lion Blog and I encourage my visitors to visit other sites in the memes as well. As such, here is my first "Scenic Sunday" post. The rest of the Scenic Sunday posts for this week can be found HERE .

Today's image is inspired by the snowstorm that is unfolding outside my office window right now. This image is "Subsiding Storm" and was taken during the winter of 2009 from a helicopter over the Southern Alps of New Zealand's South Island. We had rented the chopper to get views of the highest peaks of the Southern Alps at sunset and managed to catch this view before the light really warmed up. The clouds rolled off these peaks and revealed a perfectly pristine blanket of snow. The image looks to be black and white, but it is really in color.... there are just not colors that were present to suggest anything other than a Black --> Grey --> white spectrum.

ENJOY & STAY WARM!

John

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A Bad Hair Day ;-)

Some days you get out of bed and it seems nothing can possibly go right! On those days we often can feel like no one else in the world has it as bad as we do. Of course a bad day is usually just that, and things get better the next day. So when you're feeling like it's one of THOSE days.... just think back on this Emu and understand that you could look like this EVERY SINGLE DAY OF YOUR LIFE! 

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Hope you enjoy & get a chuckle from this!
Cheers,
John

Photo of the Year 2010 (Part 3 - The Winner!)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Greetings to all of you This New Year's Day! Here on 1/1/11 I am announcing the Photo of the Year for 2010 at Bluelionphotos.com. This year's Photo of the Year took me by surprise as it received a lot of attention early in the year before my blog and Facebook fan page were up and running. As such, most of you may not have seen this image though the channels I have developed over the course of 2010.

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This photograph is titled "Morning in Middle Earth". I took this photograph when I was visiting Milford Sound, New Zealand on July 17, 2009. We had a lousy morning for shooting as it was lightly raining (look for raindrops on the surface of the water). The whole scene had a very grey look in the predawn and we thought it was going to be a total bust. Unfortunately, we only had this one morning to "get the shot" as we were headed back out to Queenstown later that day. As is often the case in photography, our patience paid off with a momentary breaking up of the clouds and the "pinking up" of the cloud that has settled over the top of Mitre Peak.


While I missed out getting the iconic shot of this New Zealand landmark, I have an image that I like much more than a simple "postcard" shot that a thousand others have captured. As for the title, the more I looked at this image, I could not help but feel like Frodo, Sam and the Lord of the Rings gang could have been traveling along these shores during their extended adventures in Middle Earth.


Thanks to all of you who have followed Blue Lion Photos through this past year and offered your thoughts, ideas, and support. I am looking forward to an exciting 2011 as we continue this photographic odyssey together!

Cheers & wishes for a great 2011!

John