Happy International Zebra Day!
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🦓Zebra (Equus quagga)
📸 Canon R5 & Canon RF100-500mm F4.5-7.1 L IS USM
đź“ŤLapalala Wilderness Reserve, South Africa
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O magical the winter night! Illusory this stretch
Of unimaginable grays; so shadowy a sketch
Only the fading inks of spirit artistry can etch.
Here is nor dawn nor eventide nor any light we know,
This ghostly incandescence and unearthly afterglow,
This far-spread conflagration of the fields of snow
That pales the clouds, snow-laden, and blanches all the night,
As though in place of moon and stars some spectral satellite
Cast glamor on the earth and floods of violet light.
The wraith-like landscape glimmers, valley, lake and hill,
Unutterably patient! Intolerably still!
No inclination of a leaf nor songster’s trill.
. . . So could one stand an hour, a day, a century,
Breathless . . . What frozen silence! What immobility!
As of some gray unfinished world in age-long reverie.
O whither have you vanished, treading the leaves of fall,
Bright spirit of the summer, leaving the scene in thrall
To silence? To what springtime, far, far beyond recall?
What far retreat of being, what ebbing of the flood
Of life to bless far landscapes anew with leaf and bud
Has left prospect passionless and charmed this stricken wood?
. . . And yet from depths how distant, that tide of green shall rise,
And that bright spirit come again with April in her eyes,
And winter’s pale prostrations be but phantom memories.
Amos Wilder (1895 – May 1993) was an American poet, minister, and theology professor.Â
To read more poems, click here.
January 21st is Squirrel Appreciation Day! What better excuse do you need to throw a party, especially if you live in the Northern hemisphere and long for summer and green pastures?Â
Interesting Facts About Squirrels
How to Celebrate Squirrel Awareness Month
Bonus: NASA engineer designed a squirrel-proof birdfeeder. Or so he thought.
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Cold is the winter day, misty and dark:
The sunless sky with faded gleams is rent:
And patches of thin snow outlying, mark
The landscape with a drear disfigurement.
The trees their mournful branches lift aloft:
The oak with knotty twigs is full of trust,
With bud-thronged bough the cherry in the croft;
The chestnut holds her gluey knops upthrust.
No birds sing, but the starling chaps his bill
And chatters mockingly; the newborn lambs
Within their strawbuilt fold beneath the hill
Answer with plaintive cry their bleating dams.
Their voices melt in welcome dreams of spring,
Green grass and leafy trees and sunny skies:
My fancy decks the woods, the thrushes sing,
Meadows are gay, bees hum and scents arise.
And God the Maker doth my heart grow bold
To praise wintry works not understood,
Who all the worlds and ages doth behold,
Evil and good as one, and all as good.
Robert Bridges (1844 – 1930) was a British poet who was Poet Laureate from 1913 to 1930.
To read more poems, click here.
December was a whirlwind as I traveled to Australia for the second time this year, and more photos from this trip are coming soon! I returned just in time for the festive season and have hardly processed any photos since.
I took this photo at Stokes Bay, one of my favorite spots on Kangaroo Island for bird photography, and processed it quickly as I loved the pose.
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Australian pelican (Pelecanus conspicillatus)
📸 Canon R5M2 & Canon RF100-500mm F4.5-7.1 L IS USM
đź“ŤStokes Bay, Kangaroo Island, South Australia
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Underneath the stars the houses are awake;Â
Upward comes no sound my silent watch to break.Â
Night has hid the street, with all its motley sights;
Miles around, afar, shine out the city lights:
Stars that softly glimmer in a lower sky,Â
Dearer than, the glories unexplored on high;
Home-stars, that, like eyes, are glistening through the dark,Â
With a human tremor wavers every spark.Â
Glittering lamps above and twinkling lamps below;
The remote, strange splendor, the familiar glow:
One Eye, looking downward from creation’s dome,
Sees in both, his children’s window-lights of home.Â
Who have dwellings there, in avenues of space?Â
Whose clear torches kindle through the vague sky-place?Â
Are they holding tapers, us, astray, to guide,Â
spirit-pioneers, who lately left our side?Â
Never drops an answer from those worlds unknown:
Yet no ray is shining for itself alone.Â
Hints of heaven gleam upward, through our earthly nights;
Tremulous with pathos are the city lights:—
Tremulous with pathos of a half-told tale:
Through therein hope flickers, burning low and pale,Â
It shall win completeness perfect as the sun:
Broken rays shall mingle, earth and heaven be one.
Â
Lucy Larcom (1824 – 1893) was an American teacher, poet, and author.
To read more poems, click here.
