Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I was promised a recession.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

This blog will pay for itself.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

“woke” is the new caravan.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

You are here: Home / Photo Blogging / On The Road / Albatrossity / On the Road and In Your Backyard

On the Road and In Your Backyard

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On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.

From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.

Submit Your Photos

Good Morning All,

This weekday feature is for Juicers who are are on the road, traveling, or just want to share a little bit of their world via stories and pictures. So many of us rise each morning, eager for something beautiful, inspiring, amazing, subtle, of note, and our community delivers – a view into their world, whether they’re far away or close to home – pictures with a story, with context, with meaning, sometimes just beauty. By concentrating travel updates and tips here, it’s easier for all of us to keep up or find them later.

So please, speak up and share some of your adventures and travel news here, and submit your pictures using our speedy, secure form. You can submit up to 7 pictures at a time, with an overall description and one for each picture.

You can, of course, send an email with pictures if the form gives you trouble, or if you are trying to submit something special, like a zipped archive or a movie. If your pictures are already hosted online, then please email the links with your descriptions.

For each picture, it’s best to provide your commenter screenname, description, where it was taken, and date. It’s tough to keep everyone’s email address and screenname straight, so don’t assume that I remember it “from last time”. More and more, the first photo before the fold will be from a commenter, so making it easy to locate the screenname when I’ve found a compelling photo is crucial.

Have a wonderful day, and enjoy the pictures!

 

I had to punt eclipse pictures to Friday; my apologies.

Ever had one of those days? I’ve had a growing realization since I woke up that my email address is being spammed (it began yesterday evening). Not like “I get spam”, but like a constantly-increasing hourly rate that’s now close to 200 per hour. All in Chinese. Without knowing any Chinese, nor clicking or doing any real research, it appears that I’ve been added to one or more spam mail systems targeting Chinese-language users with all kinds of offers and non-graphical content. Joy joy.

Thus today’s lesson: enjoy the glory of the natural world around us.  It changes, as do we.

Today, pictures from valued commenter Albatrossity.

In 2013 our Study Abroad class included two regions of Brazil. One was Amazonia, the other was the Pantanal, a vast wetland in the southwest part of the country. This latter region is mostly agricultural and ranching nowadays, but lots of the ranches have discovered that ecotourism is a way to make money as well. So they have on-site accommodations, guides, and transportation (double-decker buses) to allow folks to see the incredible wildlife in this part of the globe. We stayed at the Fazenda San Francisco (https://www.tribes.co.uk/Brazil/fazenda-san-francisco), and here are some pics from that place. If you have a chance to visit the Pantanal (or the Amazon), don’t pass it up!

Southern Crested Caracara (Caracara plancus)

Taken on 2013-05-25

Mato Grosso do Sul in the Pantanal of Brazil

This raptor looks a lot like the Northern Crested Caracara that one can see in Texas and Mexico, but DNA evidence says it is a different species. These guys were abundant and conspicuous in the grassy areas of the ranch

Plush-crested Jay (Cyanocorax chrysops)

Taken on 2013-05-24

Mato Grosso do Sul in the Pantanal of Brazil

A striking resident of wooded areas in the Pantanal

Southern Tamandua, aka Giant Anteater (Tamandua tetradactyla)

Taken on 2013-05-25

Mato Grosso do Sul in the Pantanal of Brazil

Seeing these critters was on my bucket list when we were planning the trip, and they are amazing. Primarily nocturnal, this one was foraging near the ranch HQ near dusk.

Turquoise-fronted Amazon (Amazona aestiva)

Taken on 2013-05-25

Mato Grosso do Sul in the Pantanal of Brazil

The region has many species of parrots, including the endangered Hyacinth Macaw. They have feeding stations for the parrot, and this was one of the more common birds at one of those stations

Black-collared Hawk (Busarellus nigricollis)

Taken on 2013-05-25

Mato Grosso do Sul in the Pantanal of Brazil

This is a fish-eating hawk, and very common along waterways in both the Pantanal and the Amazon.

Red-legged Seriema (Cariama cristata)

Taken on 2013-05-24

Mato Grosso do Sul in the Pantanal of Brazil

Common and noisy inhabitants of the grasslands here. There are two species of seriema, and they are the closest living relatives of the (thankfully extinct) Terror Birds, aka phorusrhacids, the large flightless carnivorous birds of the Cenozoic. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Phorusrhacidae for some details about those.

Savannah Hawk (Buteogallus meridionalis)

Taken on 2013-05-25

Mato Grosso do Sul in the Pantanal of Brazil

Another abundant Brazilian raptor, common in open areas and marshy edges

Just….wow. These glorious, intelligent, sentient(perhaps sapient) creatures literally bring tears to my eyes. Thank you!

 

Thank you so much Albatrossity, do send us more when you can.

 

Travel safely everybody, and do share some stories in the comments, even if you’re joining the conversation late. Many folks confide that they go back and read old threads, one reason these are available on the Quick Links menu.

 

One again, to submit pictures: Use the Form or Send an Email

Reader Interactions

30Comments

  9. 9.

    Where's my hammer

    Cool birds, and the thing with the magnificent nose.
    Also very nice photos using a long lens, a fast shutter, and I expect a tripod(?). Anyone who has tried to action shots with a long lens knows what that’s like. Well done.

  18. 18.

    JPL

    Amazing photos and thank you for brightening my day. It’s rainy so the birds are roosting here.

  19. 19.

    Amir Khalid

    When I was a kid, a friend told me about a rare species of bird which he said was called the yellow-bellied sapsucker. Since then I have searched the internets in vain for a picture of this species. Can anyone here help me out?
    ETA: Never mind. I have just discovered that the yellow-bellied sapsucker does in fact exist, and was not invented by my friend even if he thought he did.

  26. 26.

    Elizabelle

    Well done, Albatrossity. Hope you have many more study abroad trips in your future. Love the photos.

  27. 27.

    J R in WV

    Hey, Albatrossity, wonderful photos. Thanks so much for sharing your wildlife photos, a really good job of framing, exposing, etc. Selection is prime.

    Alain, sorry to hear about your current spam epidemic. That is really a problem, as Chinese is the stereotype for not being able to understand anything coming at you. Along with Russian… Best of luck queling the potential email invasion!!!

    I have received a couple Chinese emails, which were properly stowed in my spam folder, where they were just deleted. Hoping I didn’t delete the message about my Great Uncle I never knew about who owned a giant shipping company, and of whom I was the sole heir !!

    ETA: Albatrossity, what camera and settings were used for these master work photos? Something for us to aspire to!!

  28. 28.

    J R in WV

    @ Amir Khalid:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    We have yellow-bellied sapsuckers in the forest around here, as we can see their distinctive tree marking where they have drilled to release sap. They go around the tree punching holes, and the tree recovers with a pronounced ring that looks like a rope or chain was used on the tree.

    It seems not to damage the trees too much, they mostly all recover, although perhaps slowed down. But when you see a half dozen trees near one another with one or two rings around them 20 or 30 feet off the ground, that’s almost certainly not human-caused damage, but sap-suckers at work.

    I would love to see them doing their thing, I imagine somewhat like a wood pecker but with a different goal and intent. Will study further!

  29. 29.

    Albatrossity

    @J R in WV: Thanks! Most of them were shot with a Canon EOS5D (Mark II) body and the 100-400mm Canon zoom lens. All were handheld or shot with the aid of a monopod; IMHO tripods are too heavy/unwieldy to lug overseas or into a forest etc. All in natural lighting.

    @OzarkHillbilly and @Amir Khalid: Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers are widespread in winter in North America, but most of the country is not in their range in the summer. And widespread does not always mean “common”; I get them at my feeder and water bath in the winter, but I get a lot more Flickers, Red-bellied, Downy woodpeckers, for sure. It has always been one of my favorite bird names, and there are a lot to choose from. South American hummingbirds have some great monikers (Marvelous Spatuletail, Black-throated Mango, Rufous-crested Coquette, etc.). But the winner, IMHO, is a bird found in India called Tickell’s Flowerpecker!

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