Lisa Coleman’s Bird Weekly photo challenge this week has the topic of birds perched up.
Bird Weekly: Perched
Tarangire NP
Bird Weekly: Egrets in Egypt & Tanzania
Lisa Coleman’s Bird Weekly this week has the topic of birds starting with the letter E.
Egrets in Egypt and Tanzania
Bird Weekly: Long Legs
Lisa Coleman of Our Eyes Open‘s Bird Weekly photo challenge this week asks us to post long-legged birds.
Bird Weekly: Black-Feathered Birds
Lisa Coleman’s Bird Weekly Challenge this week is birds with black feathers.
Kinda Square Day 4
Top o’ the Morning!
I don’t usually get up early. Especially now – what’s the point? I can’t go anywhere anyway! I have a routine of getting up, getting a cup of tea (I can’t tolerate coffee anymore, although I love it), a banana and a piece of Babybel cheese, and then going to a comfortable spot to read and enjoy my morning snack. In warm weather, I like to sit on the porch and breathe the morning air. So it’s usually 10 a.m. or later before I get going with my day.
But when we travel with tour groups, we often have to get up very early, and on those occasions I do have the opportunity to appreciate the early morning, or Top o’ the morning, as the Irish say, (and in order to fit into Becky’s April Square Tops!)
So for Lens-Artists photo challenge#93 with the topic morning, I am posting some photos I took early in the morning while traveling, mostly with tours, in 2018-2019.
ON SAFARI
On safari, it’s a given to get up really early, so you can have breakfast and go on a game drive in the early morning when the animals tend to be more active. So every day, our alarm was set for 6 a.m. – when I hear that alarm tune on my husband’s tablet, I still think I’m in Tanzania!
On the patio of our lodge at Tarangire – 6:48 a.m.
Same exact time the next morning – what a view overlooking Tarangire National Park!
After this beautiful sunrise in Serengeti National Park…
…we had a picnic breakfast in the park!
DES MOINES, IOWA
My husband tends to wake up really early whenever we’re sleeping somewhere away from home. Sometimes he wakes me up too. Here we got a great photo overlooking the river toward downtown Des Moines. You can see the capitol building in the distance!
From Best Western hotel room window, 7:12 a.m. in late September
EGYPT
We were in Egypt in the winter, so I often captured the rising sun between 8 and 9 a.m.!
The Great Pyramid of Giza, at 9:46 a.m.
View from our hotel room at the Sofitel Winter Palace in Luxor, 6:53 a.m.
We took a 5-day cruise up the Nile, in an Egyptian style dahabeya. This type of boat doesn’t have a motor – it’s towed by tug or unfurls its sails, but because of this, we couldn’t travel at night. We docked at Besaw Island one night, and in the morning, the trees were golden in the light of the rising sun, at 6:58 a.m.
At the end of the five-day cruise, we had arrived at Aswan, where we had to disembark. We had a long day ahead, so I took this shot at 6:24 a.m. at the breakfast table on board.
The next morning, we were at a rustic lodge in Abu Simbel, where I took this photo from the patio, with a view of several islands on this part of the Nile. Since the Aswan High Dam was built, this part of the Nile is now a lake. 6:57 a.m.
This was part of our view from Old Cataract Hotel in Aswan (where Agatha Christie wrote her famous mystery, Death on the Nile) at 7:20 a.m.
At 6:22 a.m. the next morning, we were already on a bus which would take us to the Aswan airport, to fly back to Cairo.
ISRAEL
In order to cram as many sites as possible into one day, our tour company in Israel required us to be on the bus no later than 7:30. So we got up at 6 a.m. every morning, and went downstairs to breakfast between 6:30 and 7:00.
We were on the road already when I took this photo of the Sea of Galilee receiving rays from the early morning sun, at 7:52 a.m. in early January 2019.
The next day, I took this photo at 6:57 a.m. from our hotel room overlooking Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee, before we went down to breakfast.
We traveled south toward the Dead Sea, seen here between 7 and 8 a.m.
We were in Jerusalem for the last few days of the tour. This is at the Church of All Nations, at 7:50 a.m. We explored the outside first, and were allowed inside at 8:00.
Only a few of the faithful are at the Western Wall in Jerusalem to say their prayers at 8:05 a.m. The women’s section is more crowded because it is a lot smaller.
EUROPE
On our European cruise last summer, we only had to get up very early a couple of days. Usually, we’d wake up and go out on the balcony of our stateroom.
I must have had insomnia, because I took this photo as we were cruising into Vienna at 3:56 a.m. in early July!
The sun was full up on this cloudy day when I took this photo. It was 8:55 a.m. and I was getting my first look at Budapest just before our ship docked!
Although when I’m home, I stay up late (I’m writing this after midnight! – I’m late, sorry, Becky!) and get up late the next morning, when we travel, even on days we don’t have to get up early, we usually do because we are excited! I cherish these last trips we took before the quarantine put a stop to my planning for the next trip, scheduled for this month! But we won’t be stuck at home forever, and I look forward to more adventures soon!
Beautiful Sunsets
Dutch Goes the Photo has a Tuesday photo challenge and the topic is sunsets.
Beautiful sunsets are everywhere, but the most beautiful I have seen are when I am traveling – which I guess is logical, because although I do have photos of pretty clouds and sunsets at home, my view is usually obstructed by buildings, trees, and other suburban fixtures. Being in wide open spaces is where I have watched the sun set in awe.
I can never forget the sunsets I’ve seen from Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio de Janeiro – every time I go to Rio, it is a must to go up in the cable car in late afternoon and watch the sunset from up there. On my most recent trip, in Nov. 2016, here was the view as the sun set around 7:00 pm. I am only including one, although I took several beautiful sunset photos that afternoon.
OK, just one more!
Another wide open space where I have witnessed many awesome sunsets is at sea, while on cruises. In Oct. 2017, we were on a cruise from Boston to Montreal, so this sunset was over the North Atlantic, off the coast of eastern Canada. I like the different patterns of the clouds in this photo.
Often when people think of sunsets, they think of Africa, which is famous for amazing sunsets on the open savanna. When we went on safari in Tanzania, I saw this for myself.
This one was taken at Tarangire National Park.
Here’s another one I took at the southern Serengeti:
The sunrises in Tanzania were amazing too (we saw many, as we were up very early each day to go on game drives), but this is a post about sunsets!
In France, we drove to Mont-St.-Michel and got there in the late afternoon, so we admired the sunsets and saved our visit to the island for the next day. I like this photo because of the fence, but the sun set to the west, not over the island of Mont-St.-Michel, which is reached via a long causeway when the tide is low.
Finally, sunset over Jerusalem – we arrived late on a January afternoon, and enjoyed the view of the old city from Mt. Scopus. (This is not the best photo of the city, but it is a pretty sunset.)
Finally, closer to home, sunset reflected on the Mississippi River north of St. Louis, MO
CFFC: Circles Everywhere
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week is Circles, Curves and Arches, and for this post I am focusing only on circles, which are abundant!
Circles are everywhere – in nature, in art, in architecture, in daily life. I find circles in modern sculpture,
Sculpture in front of Northlight Theater, Skokie, IL
art museums,
Glass sculpture, Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA
Glass sculpture, Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA
Dale Chihuly, glass sculpture, Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA
light fixtures,
Bamberg Cathedral, Bamberg, Germany
Wedding venue, Woodbury, MN
in decorative displays,
Wedding venue, Woodbury, MN
floor patterns,
Cologne Cathedral, Cologne, Germany
and buildings.
Downtown Tacoma, WA
Circles are also common in nature, such as the sphere of the setting sun,
Tarangire National Park, Tanzania
or a flower,
Dahlia, Point Defiance Park gardens, Tacoma, WA
Sunflower, The Moorings, Arlington Heights, IL
and even on animals.
Hyena, southern Serengeti, Tanzania
Cheetahs, southern Serengeti, Tanzania
In nature and human-made structures, circles, both 3D and two-dimensional, are everywhere, in all sizes, patterns and colors.
Copious Gatherings
Many bird species gather in large numbers. I often hear a chorus of sparrows when I pass by their favorite trees or hedges.
Copious gathering of cattle egrets (Tarangire National Park, Tanzania): along the lakeshore and even in the trees!
Copious gathering of flamingos (Amsterdam zoo):
Posted for photo challenges RDP 9/17/18: Copious and Becky’s Month of Squares: In the Pink.
RDP: Birds of Tanzania
The Ragtag Daily Prompt today is bird. We saw and photographed a variety of colorful and unusual birds while on safari in Tanzania last February. Here is a sample.
Lilac breasted roller takes flight in Tarangire National Park.
White-browed coucal – Arusha National Park
Lesser flamingos on Momella Lakes, Arusha National Park. The only adult in this group is the taller, pinker bird on the left. The others are young – their feathers do not turn pink until they reach adulthood.
Silvery-cheeked hornbill, Arusha National Park
Red-billed hornbill, Tarangire National Park
Go-away birds, Tarangire National Park
Vultures and storks fight over prey, Tarangire National Park
Superb starling looking down on me from its perch, Serengeti National Park
Red and yellow barbet, Tarangire National Park
Egyptian geese, Tarangire National Park
Crowned plover, Tarangire National Park
Ground hornbill, Tarangire National Park
Lilac-breasted roller, Tarangire National Park
A male kori bustard displays his fancy tail feathers for a potential mate, Ngorongoro Crater.
Yellow-billed stork, Ngorongoro Crater
Baglafecht weavers followed us around at this spot where we had lunch. Some even got into the vehicle to peck the food right out of my hand! Ngorongoro Crater
Sacred ibis, Ngorongoro Crater
Marabou stork, Ngorongoro Crater
Sandgrouse, Serengeti National Park
Wanderlust & Wonderment 