Mother Nature Can Be Unpredictable

Everybody knows beaches look this.


Except when they look like this.

See my photo gallery of Hawaii's Punaluu black sand beach HERE.

In Hawaii, beaches are brown, black, red, and green. Sometimes, things aren't as straightforward as we think.

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I'm working on a book about the global warming debate. I blog about that HERE, if you care to take a peek. Right now, it's where I spend a lot of my time :-)

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Blue Turaco - iPhone Wallpaper

This clear-eyed beauty makes an impression when one powers up one's iPhone/iPod Touch.

(Click the image for a larger view. Copy that version to your computer, then sync the photo folder in which you've saved it to your Apple device. See here for more info and here.)

PC wallpapers versions of this image are available here.

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Happy Twenty-Ten!

I call this photo Yakkety-Yak. Computer wallpaper versions are available here. Yesterday I re-cropped it so that it can now be used as wallpaper on the iPhone or iPod Touch.

(Click the image for a larger view. Copy that version to your computer, then sync the photo folder in which you've saved it to your Apple device. See here for more info and here.)

The above image format is challenging for a few reasons. Because personal computer wallpaper is traditionally horizontal in orientation, not all images shot from that perspective do well when cropped vertically. Moreover, when one powers-up one's iPhone, much of the screen at the top and bottom are obscured by the time/date info and the "unlock" slider.

There are currently more than 1,000 photos available on TripodGirl.com. It's not yet clear how many of them will translate successfully to this new format.

Starting this month, though, I'll try to offer an iPhone-friendly version of all newly-released TripodGirl images.

New Year's is a time for taking stock of where we've been and where we're going. It seems to me, with the recent proliferation of iPhones and netbooks, the formats in which I make my images available (first chosen in August of 2007) are due for a rethink.

All the best to you, dear reader, in 2010.

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Places To Be, Babies To Kiss...

Feral poultry is commonplace in Hawaii. One sees hens, roosters and chicks stepping gingerly through downtown parking lots and pecking apart garbage alongside highways.

On Kauai, one of the islands, loud and aggressive roosters have become so numerous they're considered a public nuisance. Our guidebook recommends bringing along earplugs if visiting this island, since the cock-a-doodle-doo-ing is not confined to daylight hours.

Watch a Wall Street Journal newsreel about this here.

Click the photo for a larger view. Wallpaper-sized versions may be downloaded here:
http://www.TripodGirl.com/downloads/places_to_be.php

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Coqui Frogs

Pronounced "coke - ee", these little noisemakers are both adored and despised in Hawaii (they have no natural predators and large numbers of them in any given locale can, apparently, be outrageously loud).

Their song reminds me a whip-poor-will bird



which I associate fondly with warm summer evenings from my childhood.

I had the pleasure of hearing coquis in Hilo, on the Big Island. The climate there is pretty much that of a rainforest, so I fell asleep on those two nights listening to the sound of the rain intermingled with the coquis.

Now that I'm back in Canada, I'm grateful that other similarly-entranced Hawaii tourists have posted recordings on YouTube.



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Lush Plush

A pink flamingo at the Toronto Zoo.

Their intense color make flamingos irresistable to me. I can't be around them and not snap photos. Shades and layers. Lush textures. Soft body feathers and neck down that looks as plush as a child's stuffed toy.

Wallpaper versions of this image may be downloaded here:
http://www.TripodGirl.com/downloads/lush_plush.php

See more of my flamingo photos here:
http://www.TripodGirl.com/flamingos.php

Peacock Fan

Peeking through a peacock's tail feathers.

I took this at the Toronto Zoo, in June 2006. Soon after my arrival, a peacock began serenading - fanning out his tail feathers, prancing about, squawking pompously.

His performance made the annual membership fee I'd just purchased seem like a good idea :-)

Wallpaper versions of this image are available at: http://www.TripodGirl.com/downloads/peacock_fan.php

See some of my other bird photos here:
http://www.TripodGirl.com/birds.php

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