herd immunity works (or so I've heard)

While busilly deploying to the swarm a good friend the Professor Von Explaino remarked 

"I have no plan to fix these bugs. I’m just going to keep deploying them until the end users develop a herd immunity to them."

I expect he'd heard it worked somewhere ... herd immunity that is ... but they could also be pretty bugs

“He remarked to me then,” said that mildest of men,
          “‘If your Snark be a Snark, that is right:
     Fetch it home by all means—you may serve it with greens,
          And it’s handy for striking a light.

Merry Christmas (and a Happy New Year too)

To everyone who reads my blog, here is wishing you a Merry Christmas

and my fervent hope for a Happy New Year

Evening Visitors

Had this Cicada attempt to fly into the house last night (the screen on the back door stopped it). A quick turn off of the lights (ceasing the attraction) and a quick tap on the screen (from my side) and she flew into the stuff on the top of the back steps. A quick check this morning revealed she was still there, but sluggish. Looks to have laid its eggs (lifecycle briefly described here).

end to end its about 5cm long

I understand in this "phase" of their life cycle they don't feed, so they're just in the mate and lay eggs phase of life. Meaning that they're living on stored energy reserves (fats) at this point.

you can see the ovipositor here (at least it looks that way to me, clarifications sought from any better entemologists than I)

I assume that big mouthpiece is actually just for detecting pheromones.

Hope you enjoyed looking as much as I did ... Nature is fantastic stuff isn't it

I've warned you before...

Hey, you!

I've told you before, if I see you here again I'm going to give you a thrashing

Right!

Now to make it clear, I'm going to shit all over this motorbike so you know who's place this is...

I can hear (him) for miles and miles and miles ....

The bird that's probably my most recognizable sound for my sub tropical area is the Koel (or Stormbird, or Cooee bird...)

He's got a distinctive two part call which can be heard for miles ... its something like the common name of "Koo Eeee"

Like any good singer he really knows how to put his entire body into it ... and projects that sound well

 

He's really grown fond of that Lilli Pilli right beside my place. Now that summer is on the way he's arrived to find a mate, and together lay eggs in someone elses nest (yes, he's a cuckoo). He likes to start calling with first light ... guess I won't need my alarm for a while now, now that I have this new Cuckoo Alarm Clock.

I wonder where the chainsaw is...

tiny beauty

Its easy for us to appreciate what is essentially shoved in our faces for us to see in daily life, however the minuscule and insignificant (to the eye) often conceals a beauty.

My Mum loved "Spanish Moss" ... I grew up knowing it only as "Father Christmases Whiskers", she had it hanging off trees in the back yard (with the orchids). This is it in the picture below.

It is an epiphyte which seems to do well enough out in the backyard without any care or attention from me.

I thought it might be nice to hang some off a hook in the bathroom, where it may do "better" given the daily "air moisture" from having a shower. So I put a bit of it on the hook by the window and went about my business (admiring it occasionally). I noticed a few days ago that it had something I've never seen before growing on it ...

and to my eyes it looked like a flower of some sort. Its quite tiny and putting on my glasses (God I hate getting old, well God, while we're talking I hate a number of the other things you've done too) saw that it was indeed flower like.

So I whacked on my 50mm lens onto my extension tubes and took some shots.

Its quite beautiful when you get in closer isn't it

the Blood Moon

Hi

downunder we (in theory) got to witness the lunar eclipse tonight. Well, the clouds made it difficult (read impossible) to do a sequence of the moons phases with any sort of regularity, so with that excuse made, here are some shots from tonight.

for reference, the full moon is by definition in full sunlight, so its a daylight exposure, or about 250th f4 @ ISO100 ... then

then

hmmm getting darker

and the redness starts to appear (and man does the shutter speed lengthen)

totality, where its really dark

and something nice to show off the colours

sorry its a bit blurry, but you know, it is moving at about 3600Km/H right ... and at this point it was a 1 second exposure f4 @ ISO 1600

So a quick and dirty sequence

:-)

the Rabbit Proof Fence

In the early days of the settlement of Australia some idiot released rabbits into the landscape. There was great damage to the environment and indeed great financial losses to the pastoralists and graziers of the day. In an effort to stop the spread (before eventually technology allowed biological methods were employed) a rabbit proof fence was built in many parts of Australia. This one is just near me and passes through the rain forest in the mountains near Killarney

Its a lovely region to go exploring (with the camera too). The mosses which appear on the rocks and branches are actually a lichen.

and grow on everything which they can get onto ... its extraordinarily beautiful in the mists that are common there.

Its right on the edge of the plateau there, and quite rugged terrain. Walking around the edge of the plateau is tough going as is getting up there ... for years there were only a few places up onto the range from the eastern side.

The view to the east (and the Pacific ocean) is spectacular ... and even though the elevation here is about 1000 meters the ocean is still behind a few more mountains yet.

Anyway, this has been my first trip out with my 20mm on my GF, and I must say that I find this focal length (of ever so slightly wider than normal) to be quite attractive. Better than I'd expected. Perhaps my time with SLR's spoiled me from the once more common 44mm and got me into a slightly tighter view.

I like it :-)

curlews

These guys (curlew) are nocturnal, but seem to "get ready" to come out in the early evening.

where they just "chill" and pretend that if they don't move you can't see them

but of course we can't tell them they're wrong ;-)

a walk on the lake

yesterday was a lovely day out on the lake ... as an Australian I never quite loose the magic feeling (and slight apprehension) of walking straight off the shore and over to an island.

This was taken with my FD200 which was a wee bit too telephoto, so to get the angle I wanted I stitched 2 images together and voilla ... higher res version of what I'd get with a 100mm lens.

Oh, and the ice was thick and movement (combined with lack of snow) is showing the cracks too.

:-)

In pursuit of riches

Lately my life has been about enriching myself. Trying to find my spirit again and perhaps seeing if I can grasp hers.

My monthly migration takes me past this creek. I spent a little time down there today on the way back to the train, just reflecting and admiring the beauty of the spring transformation.

For sure you don't get this sitting in an office. Makes me wish I'd brought my sound recorder, as the bird sounds were nice too.

enjoy

breaking the winter ice

There has been a little creek frozen over not far from my home. With the rising temperatures (and the draining of water too it seems) the ice cover collapsed the other day and showed me what was beneath.

the entire underside was filled with hanging curtains of ice ribbons. Up close they were quite beautiful.

I could theorize about how it formed (probably grew from when the water was closer to the ice) but that doesn't make it any less beautiful.

sticking my camera under the ice to look around shows it to be quite a delicate exquisite palace for a mouse.

Just thought I'd share some of the beauty which normally goes unseen.

a thump

The snow is receding around here and so while the lake is still carrying weight (and not too wet) I thought I'd go for a walk out to one of the islands in the middle.

There was just enough icy snow left in places where you could have skied but it was windy and sleeting, and most of all the tracks to the lake are not skiable at the moment, so like others I walked.

Out on the island there is a small cabin which seems like the sort of place where people go for small conferences or some sorts of meetings or workshops. I'd never been out there before and so thought I'd make the time to have a gander myself.

As I approached the building I could see that there was a  broken window. Initially I thought "ouh bugger, someone has come all the way out here just to break a window".

But as I got closer I could see that it wasn't vandalism but just a small tragedy of nature.

I think its a Grouse. Not wanting to cut myself I thought I'd just leave it all for the people who'll have to fix the window.

different forms of water

I was out skiing around the lake today and at one of the islands I found this beautiful example of the snow and ice.

There was a rocky island out in the lake covered in a bank of snow. Yet between the gaps in the rocks there was still something of the unfrozen (thus warmer) waters beneath the rocks. As the water gasses out from between the rocks, these ice crystals were growing.

getting in a little closer you can see the wonderful crystalline structure.

Of course the lake is frozen into a big sheet of ice (supporting my weight) and covered in snow (making skiing easier). But despite the well below freezing conditions there is still water as a gaseous molecule in the air coming out from the rocks making these wonderful crystals.

All these different forms of water and so much beauty in all of them

ice crystals like ferns

Sometimes here in Finland we get to see ice crystals forming on the lakes, mostly we don't get to see it because the lakes are covered in enough snow to prevent it. The last time I saw it was back in December 2009 when we had some deep cold but no snow. Then we had a whole lake covered in it in our area

This is how it looked on that day.



a beautiful "ice cover" of plant like ice structures.

Walking on them you could hear the smashing of the ice (as it was still -17°C). I felt quite guilty destroying such beauty.

Today I was out skiing (it was about -19°C or so) and came across a small area where someone had cleared away the snow and they'd started to grow again (given a patch of bare ice).

From where I was standing they looked like tiny replica ferns or perhaps herring bones. With a macro shot (sorry, just my Nokia) you can clearly see the crystalline structure of water. A 100% view of the little ferns to the left

Totally wonderful structures from just water. They even start growing on your face if you're out for long.

BTW, my flash lookin orange coat is a plain old Norwegian Military winter coat that I've tie-dyed orange ... I like orange.

I like it because unlike the modern 'membrane' GoreTex stuff it allows my sweat out when I'm skiing and therefore keeps me warmer. That its cotton is not a problem when its really cold because (simply) its not going to get wet.

The key to staying warm is to stay dry. So I have a multi layer approach.

• thin technical synthetic layer close to the skin
• thin merino wool layer (long johns) over that
• light fleece over that
• the canvas over that

and as a bonus its actually really cheap too.

win win