Another photo from yester-year. These Apostle Birds are known by many different names around Australia. Most of these names seem to relate to fast food: Hungry Jacks, MacDonald Ducks, Kentucky Fried Choughs, among others. They are a very socialble bird with gatherings of up to 100 birds during the winter although they stay in much smaller groups of around 10 during the breeding season.
Photographing Kookaburras is one of my favourite photography exercises. Always photogenic, these icons of the Australian bush are a pleasure to capture on film. Whether sitting, as this one is, on a branch or capturing prey on the ground, Kookaburras will generally guarantee a nice photo.
Taken on a Canon 450D, with a simple kit lens at 1/250 sec – f/5.6. The photo has had minimal development other than a 1 to 1 crop. After sorting through some old photos I found this one. It takes out this weeks photo.
It has been two months since my last post and this is my confession. Hopefully these words absolve me from the wrath of blogdom, however several projects have taken my focus away from actually putting finger tip to keyboard. (Doesn’t have the same ring to it as “Pen to paper” does it?)
There has been something in the wind these last few weeks that has brought me back to the keyboard. It worries me that, as arguably, one of this worlds most intelligent species, (note that I didn’t say smartest) we are so ostrich-like (read head in the sand) when it comes to climate change.
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The temperatures here in Southeast Queensland are unseasonably hot, as it is over much of the country. One hopes that this doesn’t become a trend or I fear that we may well have been underestimating the time that it takes to raise the earths temperature to crisis levels. It is worrisome that the scientists are becoming a touch too regular in admissions that they may have missed some of the actuators causing this warming.
It still amazes me how many people are finding ways to deny man’s influence in this cycle. I believe that there is no doubt that the earth temperatures cycle over the years. I also believe that without question there are drivers that cause these cycles…. The driver for this current cycle is, without a doubt, man’s invention.
In this past week, a bunch of school children took time out from school to protest the lack of action on climate change by this government. Unfortunately the point has been by-passed as nay-sayers have turned the focus to the fact that children are protesting.
The conversation that these kids are having must reverberate through that entire generation. It is their world that will be the most impacted by the greed of this generation of politicians. It is a conversation they must have and it must be encouraged. By protesting, they will make it a leading debate in our society today.
Not since the world woke up to the era of flower power and the threat of nuclear war has there been an issue so demanding of action as climate change is today. The Australian Prime Minister, today, chastised these kids for protesting. The Prime Minister is wrong. He needs to listen to them… It is their world with which he plays a dangerous game.
People like Abbott and his minions will be remembered by generations to come as the “War Criminals” of the climate war that needs be waged. They had it in their grasp to push for new technology to combat rising temperatures but they chose, instead, to continue to mine the very carbon from the carbon sinks beneath the earths crust for the few last remaining dollars that they can glean.
In my humble opinion, it is coal and oil that are pretty much the prime cause of warming as most other forms of carbon were always a part of the chemical/mineral balance that nature intended. You simply cannot keep adding to the carbon load with out something going wrong. Add to that, the deforestation that has occurred where the very mechanism that removes carbon from the atmosphere has been systematically removed without replacement…. the trees, and you have a recipe for rising temperatures. Commonsense is rarely rocket science.
If each man woman and child did one thing every day to change our reliance on coal and oil, we, the average person, can make a difference.
I have not used this blog as a political platform before, however I hope that this message might touch some minds out there and, like the wings of a butterfly, cause a hurricane of action that in some way makes a difference.
If this resonates with you at some level, please share it in as many ways as you can.
The worst case is that if we all get on board and clean up our act we will have a much nicer world to pass on to our children’s children. That can’t be too bad a thing.
If you don’t agree with me, I respect your view.. I only ask this one question…
If you don’t believe that Climate Change is manmade and that it is nothing more than a conspiracy theory that requires no further action, can you please tell me this…
As evening draws in and a cool breeze ruffles the surface of the lake, the birds that make this lake their home make their way to safe havens for the night. I spent a few hours emersed in nature in the hinterland behind the Sunshine Coast and ended up here on the edge of the Baroon Pocket Dam as the night began to close in.
