This is what our game camera caught last Friday during a hail storm:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkqidTkg ... e=youtu.be

So much stuff falling from the sky it set off the motion detector.

This is how quickly the tide comes back into to Bar Harbor. This is a sandbar that is exposed at low tide. People can walk across the sandbar to the island. People (and cars) can also get stranded because the tide turns incredibly fast!

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10 ... 9211430247


And here's our whale! He was a small humpback, and they didn't have him in their database. So he must be new! I like to think that we were his first people, just like he was my first whale. And this made being seasick totally worth it!

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10 ... 9803781426

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Spectacular four-minute video of a brilliant aurora over northern Canada last December:

http://vimeo.com/85070976

The motion is in real time, not time-lapse. Staggering.

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“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

wooooooooooooooooooow

It makes me wonder what early humans thought when seeing something like that. wow

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I wanna love somebody but I don't know how
I wanna throw my body in the river and drown
-The Decemberists

Absolutely incredible!

So beautiful and awe-inspiring; a huge ribbon or river or serpent of shimmering light!

Watching the clip of the aurora made my thoughts leap to the rainbow serpent, which features in the indigenous stories of Australia. The rainbow serpent created the landscape and gave birth to many of the indigenous animals of the continent, and I wondered whether sometime in the dim past (these stories are ancient), there may be have been similar light shows the skies over Australia to inspire such a beautiful mythology.

I don't know. I am merely allowing free rein to my leaping thoughts.

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Mornings wouldn't suck so badly if they came later in the day.

Just lovely (and warmed me a just a little towards the concept of drones)

http://vimeo.com/89059231

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Mornings wouldn't suck so badly if they came later in the day.

I have a friend with a "drone" (although his is more of an actual miniature airplane). He uses it to help out environmental groups, such as flying over local Nature Conservancy land that's hard to access safely in order to assess invasion by nonnative plant species. Drones have a lot of legitimate applications. They let us see things we just can't see safely (or at all, if we go in with big noisy machines that can carry us, instead of a little flitting machine that can carry only a camera).

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“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

What a lovely idea.....I'd say undoubtedly, Impy, after all, you have the Aurora Australis, don't you?

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There is magic in long-distance friendships. They let you relate to other human beings in a way that goes beyond being physically together and is often more profound.
~Diana Cortes

Drones have also been used to save lives in disaster response scenarios, helping to locate stranded people in difficult-to-access areas. They are also excellent tools for assessing the effects of extreme weather events.

On the military side, I must also say that weaponized drones are far preferable to other forms of targeted killing. They are much more precise than other kinds of aircraft, include weapons systems that are more precise than other weapons systems, and on average, are more precise even than the human soldier on the ground.

Though civilians have been killed by drones, it can be argued that lots of civilians have been spared because of their discriminate nature...

Nature on a small scale, but quite mesmerising and beautiful to watch:

https://vimeo.com/122575482

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Mornings wouldn't suck so badly if they came later in the day.

Neat! Who knew they had such pretty flowers?

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I didn't, until Mr. Prim took me camping in the Anza-Borrego Wilderness near L.A. during the blooming season, the first year we were married. The desert was brilliant with color. I'll never forget it. Ocotillo plants that look like tall gangling bundles of sticks for most of the year were covered with tiny green leaves and brilliant magenta blooms. In the distance the bare dirt was hidden by clouds of yellow and orange flowers.

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“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

https://www.facebook.com/142468583842/p ... 646253843/

Sent from a tiny phone keyboard via Tapatalk - typos inevitable.

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Mornings wouldn't suck so badly if they came later in the day.

That was fascinating! I love how some of them have their wings all folded up.

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This needs to be watched full-screen.



Who needs CGI when you have this?

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Murmuration of Starlings

https://www.facebook.com/rtenews/videos ... =2&theater

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The Vinyamars on Stage! This time at Bag End

Kayakers capture dramatic moment as glacier collapses off Alaska - article with picture and video

They were lucky to escape uninjured!

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A little different from the dedicated 'nature' videos, but seems to be the best place to share this/these:

Approximately 25 hours of continuous footage in three parts of a drive around Iceland on Route 1. It starts at the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service in Rekjavick, takes about 20 minutes to drive out of the city, then it's some of the most breathtaking scenery with a 'continuous' musical track by Sigur Ros.

Because it is continuous footage, you watch the approximately 2 hour night pass by on the longest day of the year, and so get the best views, especially on the north half of the Island where the route goes inland a bit through some valleys and farmlands. I've already spotted where I want to build my house! LOL

As it goes through cities it notes the name and where it is on the map. Made it pretty cool to follow along here and there on google maps with satellite view on, or even follow right along in street view!

It ends in Rekjavick again but it also takes you on a very cool tour of some of the beautiful downtown areas and parks of the city at the very end.

I mean, sure, you have to have a spare 25 hours lying around to watch it all at once but it still makes for some amazing background viewing.

Part I
Part II
Part III

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The dumbest thing I've ever bought
was a 2020 planner.

"Does anyone ever think about Denethor, the guy driven to madness by staying up late into the night alone in the dark staring at a flickering device he believed revealed unvarnished truth about the outside word, but which in fact showed mostly manipulated media created by a hostile power committed to portraying nothing but bad news framed in the worst possible way in order to sap hope, courage, and the will to go on? Seems like he's someone we should think about." - Dave_LF

The great argus. Extraordinary bird - looks mythical.

https://youtu.be/BiSuBSJA_sE

Sent from my SM-G965U1 using Tapatalk

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Mornings wouldn't suck so badly if they came later in the day.