Water

Fran used to be a hobby farmer and

she soooo gets this!!

Gone for a week to visit daughters and leaving her computer at home!

Diamonds on the soles of her shoes

Look at Down Under in whole new ways!

Mosstralia Brian Olewnick suggested the work of artist Nina Katchadourian, who in the early 1990s made a series of accidental maps based on moss formations. More information here on the artist’s website.  “There is a type of lichen which is very common in the Finnish archipelago and my family’s summer house sits on a large granite hill covered with it. I have always seen certain shapes as islands or continents, and decided to affix rub-on letters directly to the lichens to identify themas the places I recognized. When I had finished, the whole hill had become a kind of scrambled atlas.”

Rustralia Alan Dow took this photo of a bit of rust on a steel smoking shelter at work. “I was just testing the macro function on my new camera and didn’t notice the remarkable similarity to Australia at the time! 

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Drown Under “I always thought this one looked roughly like Australia”, writes kwigibo. “What with tides and erosion being what they are in this particular body of water I’m sure it looked a lot more like Australia at one point.”

Urinalia For some strange reason, the shape of Australia is a popular subject of cartocacoethes. This one was taken by Christian Rothholz in the men’s room of a cinema in Hamburg, Germany. The peculiar shape of this piece of chewing gum had been noticed by other patrons, who had added the words Australia and Down Under to it for

Monday Morning Happy Clothes!!

Cop with a heart

Taxi's waiting to gas up

first the shape of the image caught me ... then I thought about greenhouse gases

Express yourself on the back of your car!

and the original

Like "Um Mum"?

Underneath a Star!

such a happy picture!

Life Lesson: Don't mess with hippos

Their bone-crushing jaws, 24 razor-sharp teeth and armour-plated skin are enough to ensure most animals keep their distance.

This young reptilian predator paid the price for swimming too close to a mother and her calves while they bathed.

As 50 hippos gathered into a defensive circle around them, the crocodile panicked and raced over their backs in a bid to escape.

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Bold move: The crocodile races across the backs of the hippos in a bid to escape after trying to snare a mother and her calves

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Making a splash: The crocodile writhes and wriggles but cannot escape the clutches of his angry opponents

It was the last mistake he ever made. The beast's defences were no match for the maze of angry mammals, who proved their bite is every bit as lethal as his.

The spectacularly rare battle of the beasts was captured by Czech wildlife photographer Vaclav Silha.

He had set up his camera on the banks of the River Mara in the Serengeti national park, Tanzania, when the unbelievable scene unfolded before him.

But the 45-year-old got more than he bargained for when a colossal fight broke out between the group and a sneaky crocodile he had spotted earlier.

‘Mutual respect between these animals means fights occur very rarely,’ he said.

‘One of the only reasons you might see a conflict is if the hippos have young and they think the little ones are under threat. That’s exactly what happened here.

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In the jaws of death: The crocodile is defeated by a maze of angry hippos after trying to kill one of their young

Make it snappy: The raging hippos take revenge by biting back while feeding at the River Mara in Tanzania

‘The incautious croc got too close to a female who had calves and the whole group gathered into a defensive circle around them. It was a strong message for the crook to clear off.

‘I have absolutely no idea why but the crocodile suddenly raced across the backs of the hippos. I think it might have panicked and thought it was a possible escape route. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

‘It was the worst choice the reptile could ever have made and it was definitely its last.

‘The island of hippos suddenly erupted with teeth and all I could see was the crocodile being repeatedly crushed in their huge mouths.’

Described as one of the most aggressive creatures in the animal kingdom, an adult hippo can apply several tons of pressure in a single bite.

‘Even the toughest crocodile could not have withstood being repeatedly bitten like that,’ said Mr Silha, from Prague.

‘There was no way for him to escape. I few seconds later his lifeless body slipped below the water and I didn’t see him again.’

One of these pictures was originally published in the November issue of BBC Wildlife Magazine.

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Finish him, boys: The crocodile writhes in its final movements before being finished off by his mammal opponents

Deep Breath and Duck!

Lest we Forget

Fran's thinking about some multi-tasking .....

Barcode-isms

How to read - click here

  

'shrooms - with a difference

Alarmed

"November 9 is thus considered the date the Wall fell. ..."

the wall fell.

During a revolutionary wave sweeping across the Eastern Bloc, the East German government announced on November 9, 1989, after several weeks of civil unrest, that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans climbed onto and crossed the wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, parts of the wall were chipped away by a euphoric public and by souvenir hunters; industrial equipment was later used to remove almost all of the rest. The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification, which was formally concluded on October 3, 1990.

Fran's "digit-al" sports-talk

Vertigo

Fran's homage to the flu(s)

First came avian flu:

and now swine flu is thinning our ranks:

Teamwork!

As one pigeon sucks up water, another stands on the lever and the third keeps watch

Fran Down Under

And now after Hallowe'ens mahem, your Awwwww for the week .... maybe the month!

and the perfect puppy