What It Feels Like

I don't usually add filters to pictures but today is going to be different.

So I decided to take a picture of a place that people don't really like. I won't tell you which place it is but suffice it to say that it feels dark and gloomy every single day.

This was processed entirely in Snapseed which is an awesome app.

The Rising Clouds

Remember the picture of the fly that I uploaded recently? A lot of you wanted a picture of the clouds since they looked really interesting.

Unfortunately I couldn't find a picture of that exact scene but I did manage to find a picture of the clouds that very afternoon just as they were ascending as the temperature rose.

It is a really amazing sight to see these clouds rise. It would make for an amazing timelapse. Anyway you could actually spend hours just watching this scene unfold and I think that particular fly shared my sentiments :D

Calling Out

In the past we'd get a lot of birds everyday in our garden. On most days we would see rare and really beautiful birds that we didn't even know existed.

Sadly over the past few years the number of birds has come down as has the variety of birds that we see. The loss of habitat is the main problem but I guess that isn't something you can stop. The Jungle Babbler is a bird that we don't see much of nowadays.

This bird NEVER moves about alone. It is always with a group and boy are they noisy! The way they move about is quite interesting. I've never seen one of these birds walk in a straight line. They'll always hop about.

The best thing I like about these birds is their eyes. Those eyes remind me of eagle's eyes. They have this piercing feel to them. It looks like they haven't slept in a very long time. Almost like zombies (if zombies exist, that is).

One With Its Surroundings

Here is another picture of a dragonfly.

I never really got down to taking a lot of pictures of dragonflies in the past and now that I try to take pictures of these beautiful creatures, I realise that I should have started a long time ago.

This beautiful dragonfly is quite common in this area. It's the red and the orange ones that are really rare but nowadays you'd be lucky if you spotted one of these because there aren't very many.

There are too many houses coming up and so they've lost their habitat.

The Temple On The Hill

Thanks to the massive zoom on the SX50 HS I was able to get a good shot of this temple.

You can actually see it in the distance in the last panorama that I uploaded. It was really far off but with the SX50 HS that wasn't really a problem.

I'm guessing it's a Buddhist temple. I can only imagine how much work must have gone into that since it was built quite high. Other than the temple there weren't other buildings on that hill so I don't even know how people visit that place since there didn't seem to be a direct approach road that was obvious to me.

Time To Sleep

I went out to release the dog one night and I noticed something weird about one leaf on a branch.

It seemed to have an extra long pointy end. It kinda just tapered off like a tail. So I went close and sure enough there was this little juvenile Oriental Garden lizard there fast asleep. It was actually quite cute.

So obviously a picture was a necessity. The flash kinda woke it up for a moment but it soon went back to sleep. The next morning it was gone.

I did see another lizard a few days after this incident and I'm guessing it's the same one although I can't be sure.

Fellow Admirer

So I was up on the terrace during a recent vacation shooting the awesome hills and I noticed this fly there on this leaf.

It was right at the edge of the leaf. It wasn't moving or anything. It just stood there. So I bent down and it just seemed to be watching the scene along with me.

Looks like we aren't the only ones who enjoy the beauty of nature. It stayed there for a really long time and didn't move a single muscle. I just had to take a picture of this. Now maybe it was just enjoying the heat from the sun or whatever but it could have been doing it from anywhere.Why on the edge of this particular leaf?

It was great - the scene, that is.