Zoos aren’t just for “exotic” animals. They are often the favourite spot for the local wildlife as well.
Your friendly neighbourhood corvid
©Giliell, all rights reserved
Wednesday Wings
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
Zoos aren’t just for “exotic” animals. They are often the favourite spot for the local wildlife as well.
Your friendly neighbourhood corvid
©Giliell, all rights reserved
Autumn is bringing back all the birds that seemed to have vanished during summer, including Florence the Woodpecker.
Did you miss me?
The Barcelona Zoo is home top a colony of herons who happily steal fish from the penguins and whoever isn’t fast enough.
Ready for take off
© Giliell
It’s another chapter of Ice Swimmer’s Harakka an Island. We’ve climbed down from the top and we’re ready to go. Lead the way Ice Swimmer.
1. A Birch and Särkkä, ©Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved
A bit to the south of the crossroads, there’s birch and we can see the island Särkkä in the southeast. Särkkä is next to the Suomenlinna Sea Fortress and the fortfications in Särkkä were built to support the main sea fortress. Nowadays Särkkä is used by a yacht club as a base and there are two restaurants there.
2. Footprints or Whose Island Part 3, ©Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved
Also on the eastern shore, webbed feet are quite numerous.
3. Strawberries ©Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved
Wild strawberry plants were plentiful, but there were very few berries.
4. Stone Ruin and Vellamo Cottage, ©Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved
The Vellamo House/Cottage is a nature fairy tale house for kids featuring books and educational play facilities.
5. Entry, Ice Swimmer, ©all rights reserved
This mystery path through the bush starts next to Vellamo.
6. Duckboards or Pitkospuut, ©all rights reserved
The mystery path features duckboards, in Finnish pitkospuut (free translation: lengthwise planks of wood), to walk on. We don’t (or more like, I didn’t) want to get ticks so, we leave the mystery be a mystery.
Next, we’ll go to the front yard of Vellamo to take a look east.
(link to previous post, Harakka an Island: Chapter 7)
More juvenile barn swallows from Nightjar
Feeeeeed meeeeeee
©Nightjar
©Nightjar
This little fellow at the Barcelona Zoo was obviously torn between wanting a swim and actually doing it.
©Giliell, all rights reserved, click for full size.
Open to see the photo story.
It’s time for the next chapter of Ice Swimmer’s series, Harraka – An island. Thanks again, Ice Swimmer. I’ll let you take it from here
1. Main Door, Former FDF Building, ©Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved
The building is from 1928 and it used to belong to Finnish Defence Forces and nowadays it is used by artists who can hire studio space for five years at a time there. This is the main entrance.
2. The building and the Birch, © all rights reserved
There is a big birch next to the building.
3. Rusty Ring, ©Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved
A ring fixed into bedrock next to the building. As for the picture, Caine was definitely an influence for me in this kind of photography.
4. Corner, ©Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved
We’re going around the building. This is the northwestern back corner.
5. Backyard and Fireweed, ©Ice Swimmer all rights reserved
There was a lot of fireweed in bloom on the island. Now we’re in the backyard of the Artists’ Building, looking at earthworks built when Harakka was partially fortified.
6. Tractor, ©Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved
The little tractor is probably used for hauling various things.
7. Chemistry Equipment, ©Ice Swimmer, all rights re
The building was used by the FDF as a chemical laboratory. For that reason, while there were plenty of wild raspberries, strawberries and other berries growing on the island, tasting them didn’t feel too attractive. The building is actually the third site for the FDF Chemical Laboratory. At first, the laboratory was in downtown Helsinki, in the same building that housed the University of Helsinki Chemistry Department and after that in one of the garrisons in Helsinki before it was moved to the island.
8. Whose Island part II, ©Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved
The ratio of shoes / webbed feet is fairly small.
9. Birch stump, ©Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved
At the southwestern corner of the building, there used to be a birch.
Now we have seen the building used by military chemists and subsequently artists and some of its surroundings. Next, we’ll go a back, a bit south in the backyard of the building.
(link to previous post, Harakka an Island: Chapter 2)
A young blackbird in my front yard, which completely didn’t care about me “intruding” in its territory.
©Giliell, all rights reserved
Today we’re back with Ice Swimmer for the next chapter in his series Harakka, an Island. Thanks, Ice Swimmer. I’ll let you take it from here…
1. Crossroads, ©Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved
In picture 1 we’re looking south. The low wooden building is the brackish water aquarium building. We’re going to go uphill, to our right.
2. Geese Uphill, ©Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved
A barnacle goose family is blocking our way. They’ve got little ones so the parents may get aggressive.
3. Geese Uphill in More Detail, ©Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved
A closer look at the geese.
4. Uphill, © all rights reserved
After a bit of an undocumented detour, the goose family is elsewhere so we can try going up the hill. It seems there’s a dead tree at the end of the road.
5. Dead Tree and a Windmill, ©Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved
Indeed, a dead tree, a lamp post and a windmill/wind turbine. And there are a few gulls.
6. Footprints, ©Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved
Going up the hill and looking at the gravel, one begins to wonder: “To whom does this island belong?”
7. Building, ©Ice Swimmer, all rights reserved
The gulls are observing their surroundings and we can see a vaguely neoclassical building.
Another one from Barcelona. Parakeets are neozoons in many parts of Europe, including the Mediterranean, though interestingly, their number their is relatively low (3000 in Spain, 800 in Portugal) when compared to colder countries like the UK (35.000) and Germany (10.000). The Barcelona population makes one wonder about the accuracy of that count.
©Giliell, all rights reserved
Today’s Friday Feathers are some of my holiday pics.
i need tore4start the Barcelona series, but for now there’s a young Mediterranean seagull. I love how the juveniles look completely different from the adults
©Giliell
This week’s Wednesday Wings come from avalus, who writes:
Usually I can not take pictures of birds with my cellphone cam due to the lack of good zoom. But last week a friend and I helped this little fellow to escape the architectural nightmare and birdkiller, that is the our chemistry departent building. It is made of lots of glass and with windows in odd places and every so often we find birds that have flown in but could not escape again and died. This one was already pretty exhausted, as I doubt we could have caught it with the box otherwise. It did not put up any resistance.
This story had a happy end, we released the little one a minute or so after taking this picture: We took away the cardboardpane we used to cover the box, the little one looked at us puzzeled, left droppings in the box and flew away.
I do have no idea what kind of bird this is.
©avalus
I think it’s a juvenile Redstart that got caught in the lab.
The second bird instalment during the week comes right before the weekend.
Today’s Friday Feathers come from Nightjar who managed to capture barn swallows. The one with the feeding is my absolute favourite. As usually, click for full size.
“Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuum!”
© Nightjar, all rights reserved
“This is so unfair, I never get first dips” © Nightjar, all rights reserved
“Was that all????????”
© Nightjar, all rights reserved