Sharing Early Literacy Learning Journeys

Archive for the ‘Photographs’ Category

Weekly Photo Challenge: One

‘One travels more usefully when alone because he reflects more,’
said Thomas Jefferson.

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What is this hitch-hiker thinking
as he heads towards Missoula, Montana?

Is he feeling loneliness or solitude in light of Paul Tillich’s words:
‘Loneliness expresses the pain of being alone
and solitude expresses the glory of being alone.’

And, is he a solitary person as in Paul Theroux’s statement:
‘Solitary people make the best travellers’

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And, as we all know…
‘The one thing that matters is the effort,’
(Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
as we ‘…climb every mountain!’

For more interpretations of ‘One’ see here.

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Photo story, Photographs, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge

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A Free Lunch at the Beach…

Leisurely Saturday. Revisit  Palm Cove.

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Walk along the jetty. Look over the sea to Double Island. Look back at the shoreline at the sand, sea and rocks.

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What’s that? A white bird stands out against the dark rocks. Zoom in with my camera lens. See the white bird more clearly. A white heron?

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A white bird with a fish in its beak. A largish fish but a long, thin beak on the bird. How did these two come together? Was the fish in the water? Did the white bird pierce the fish with its long sharp beak?

Was the fish dead in the water or on the sand and the white bird found it?

Did the fish drop from an osprey or hawk flying overhead?

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Take more photos and watch … it looks like a big fish. Sometimes the bird has the fish in its beak. A free lunch. And a solitary lunch, except for us watching from the jetty…

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Sometimes the bird stabs at the fish and tries to pick it up again.

I haven’t seen this bird before. Exciting…  New… Interesting… What is happening now?

What bird is it? Not an ibis – they have black on them and a different shaped beak. A white heron? An egret?

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Later. Look up online and find out the bird is an Eastern Reef Egret (Egretta Sacre)  Also called a Pacific Reef-Heron.

Wonder how much fish the Egret ate…

Was it enough for lunch?

And…  how did the Egret get the fish?

Comments welcome…

Category:

Language Experience, Nature, Photo story, Photographs, Travel, Writing

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Grand

‘The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere….’
John Muir reminds us…???????????????????????????????

 and what better way
to start the day
than with a grand sunrise…
this one, over Beaver Lake,  Ontario

Meanwhile, Ansel Adams points out that,
‘Both the grand and the intimate aspects of nature
can be revealed in the expressive photograph.’

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Grand rock formations
in the North Dakota Badlands …

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…and this grand rock 
at a highway pull out,
in North Queensland,
invites us to touch the iron-red rock face,
and the fine, intimate grasses.

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Then there’s the grand view…
from grandstand seats
on cliffs,
in Victoria.

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and a grand vista…
of the horizon
where big sky
meets open spaces
of vast American prairies,
making us feel small and insignificent.

Or, as Jill Ker Conway says of an outback Australian horizon, ‘On the plains, the earth meets the sky in a sharp black line so regular that is seems as though drawn by a creator interested more in geometry…’ and where, ‘Human purposes are dwarfed by such a blank horizon.’

See here for more grand pictures…

Ker Conway, J. (1989). The Road from Coorain. William Heinemann Australia

Category:

Nature, Photographs, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge, Writing

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Let there be light – and literacy…

‘Every moment of light and dark is a miracle’
 says Walt Whitman…

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and the spectacular transition
from dark to light never ceases to amaze…

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Meanwhile, Dylan’s ‘big, fat moon’ is up there…

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and like the owl and the pussy cat
in Edward Lear’s rollicking rhyme,
we can dance ‘by the light of the moon,
the moon, the moon…’

‘Light…’ also reminds me of Ezra Pound’s words:
Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one’s hands.

But that’s another story….

For more ‘Let there be light’ entries, click here

Books and music:
Berg, R. (1984). Edward Lear’s The Owl and the Pussy Cat. Richmond Hill, Ontario: Scholastic.

Dylan, B. ‘I’ll be your baby tonight’, in Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 2

Category:

Literacy, Photographs, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge

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A bird on a wire…

A bird on a wire: a colourful bird, on an ordinary electrical wire, on an ordinary suburban street – unlike Leonard Cohen’s ‘Bird on the wire” song of 1968.

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Internet searches come up with ‘No result found’. I can’t insert information like ‘bird type’ or ‘common name ’ because I don’t know them. After viewing dozens of bird pictures, I cannot find this bird.

Fortunately, it stays on the wire for several minutes enabling me to keep clicking. Two more birds, just like this one, visit on nearby wires, but don’t stay long.

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Aahh – nothing like a good wing and tail stretch…

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and now, a head scratch.

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“I missed that yellow butterfly,”
I whisper to my friend.

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“Hey! Who are you?”
I shout to that intruder over there!

Any help in recognising this bird happily accepted!

And one more thing…. why does it have two feathers? strands? below the main tail?

Category:

Language Experience, Nature, Photographs, Travel

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Unexpected

This entry is later than expected because I had an unexpected computer glitch!

The marvels of daily life are exciting; no movie director can arrange the unexpected that you find in your street (Robert Doisneau).

So, with camera in hand, we attempt to capture the unexpected – if the unexpected happens like…

??????????????????????a snapping turtle trundling across our lawn one sunny Saturday afternoon
– fortunately, photos were possible because it was slow as a …

Turtle on dock

and a midland painted turtle clambering on the dock
– with the bonus of an unexpectedly clear reflection.

??????????????????????After leaving the gym, we never expected to see
a giant stick insect resting on the car.

Joy and bliss can come from the little and most unexpected thing if only we program our mind to enjoy these little things (Unknown), like….

Tulips at old fence

these pink-orange tulips unexpectedly bright against
green grass and an old grey fence of a farmer’s field.

Life is full of surprises… or expect the unexpected …
Tilted lifeguard hut 2

but a tilting lifeguard hut, devoid of a solid base,
was an unexpected sight on a morning beach walk…

Lifeguard hutand even more unexpected, was the same lifeguard
hut swinging from a crane as it was gingerly placed
on the back of a big truck late in the afternoon.

Category:

Nature, Photographs, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge, Writing

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Layers

These ‘layers’ are opposites in so many ways…
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The badlands of North Dakota

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A flower in a tropical garden…
but I couldn’t find its name – can you help?

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Nature, Photographs, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge

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Revisiting the tropics… no. 3: Birds

Poor indeed is the garden in which birds find no homes (Abram Urban) and being surrounded by trees, gardens and birds is a joy for me.

Amazingly, as I write these words, a yellow breasted hummingbird whirrs to my window. Suddenly s/he flies through the open door and hovers and hums in front of me. It’s only a few seconds. I smile happily and stare. As suddenly as s/he enters, s/he exits. Flits out, over the balcony, into the palms and paper barks… and then to who knows where?

Smiling again, I think of the variety of birds I see and hear each day.
Like colours and the tropics, birds and the tropics also belong together.

Wake early to the shrill, eerie, wailing of stone birds (or curlews) as they stroll through gardens and warily cross streets looking for quiet, shady hiding places to spend the day.

??????????????????????????????? Stone bird
Bush Stone-curlew

Walk to the beach to shrieking, squawking sulpher-crested cockatoos as they fly from tree to tree, calling and squabbling with their mates over breakfast.

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Pass a wary, silent, snow-white Torres Strait pigeon diligently pecking in the grass on a vacant block.

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Hear, but cannot see, doves cooing quietly in the paperbark leaves.

Walk along the beach and admire striking black, white and orange terns as they dig for pipis in the sand.

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Suddenly the confident, raucous ‘laugh’ of a kookaburra rings out. A distinctive sound. A happy sound. A chuckle… that is a warning to other birds to steer clear. Reminds me of Ibsen’s words, “Each bird must sing with his own throat.”

Category:

Nature, Photographs, Travel

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