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Monday, January 3, 2011

Those Crazy Humans

He's back, the man behind the mask! If I remember correctly, I promised a few pictures from my latest hike. Well, here they are! The only problem is that I think things have changed quite a bit since then. Everything got warm and all the snow melted. I would have been out there, but it rained almost the whole time.

But I had a different reason for these pictures I have here today. Look closely at the two animals out there on the ice. Yup, they're people. Some of you long time readers know I don't really like taking pictures of people, but I have a reason for it this time. Perspective.

You might have to click the pictures to really understand, but this man and boy show how big this forest out here really is. I've shown pictures of this spot many times before, but none have ever shown the huge size of this place like these do. Go ahead and compare all three and you might see what I mean.

Before I continue, I want to mention to any of you who are interested that part two of my Demon Hunter horror fiction series is up at Rat Tales. It's titled "In The Mirror". This series will be a long one, and it's just beginning. I wasn't joking a couple of posts ago when I said writing this was literally giving me nightmares. I actually had to pause in the middle to take my mind off of it. Keep in mind that I know the full story. I'm really hoping that other people will eventually think this story is as good as I hope it will be.

Anyway, back to my little nature story. Humans prove to be even more skittish than most animals when they see a camera. Even though I was really kind of far away from them, these two must have detected the attention I was giving to them, because they decided to climb back up that hill behind them soon after I began taking pictures. The squirrels aren't usually any faster than they were.

And here's a more usual picture of the lake. I've shown you this view many times from all seasons. If you click on this one you can see the two wild humans far in the background. I never zoomed in too close because I wanted to make sure their privacy was protected. Other animals don't usually seem to care so much about that. They just don't want to be eaten.

We're so different from other animals in so many ways, and so similar in others. But do you know which ways are which. We do things like drive cars. No other animal does that. We wear clothing. I don't think any other animals do that. We keep other animals as pets and livestock. No other animal does... uh, wait a minute. Amazingly enough, there are other animals that do that! Go over to Nature Center Magazine to find out about it!


Nature Center Magazine - Ants love nothing better than to protect, groom and even raise aphids, scale bugs and bark lice. And why? They want the "milk" that they excrete which is called honeydew. Ants will also protect their new found friends, carrying them around in their jaws similar to a mother cat and her kittens.

15 comments:

  1. What a good tale to follow through. That made my day :)

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  2. Dropping by, Ratty.
    Just watched the ant farmers video. I've never expected ant colony could do that. It's kinda spooky, isn't it?

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  3. I like seeing how large the place is with the people added. And I'm really glad that you are able to go back out and wander around a bit more.

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  4. The people reminded me of the Red Green quote, "Don't forget to keep your stick on the ice.'I love playing hockey, we played on a creek and moved up to a few ponds before we hit a rink and were amazed at the clear ice.No snow here, fine with me except it means a big one some time.The ice is good after that melt, just waiting for it to get above 20 to try it out on the pond.

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  5. like you, sometimes I do take beautiful landscape with people in it for comparison and scale, sometimes, to appreciate the hugeness and vastness of a place, we got to compate it with something we are too familiar with.

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  6. By the way, the view of a big icy lake is beautiful. This is the magic of Nature that turns thing differently in different times.

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  7. it looks like a wonderful place to explore. I can see why you like being there

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  8. Looks like a big lake, and a wonderful place to spend time..Glad you're up and about!

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  9. I miss places like this. I uses to go ice skating on the lakes up north every winter.

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  10. I would wonder what those humans were up to if they went scattering away like that. Hmmmmm...

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  11. MOL, my human was yelling, "Ants! Ants do!" at your last statement. For some reason she studied a lot about ants when she was in grade school. She would have been better off studying cats, but oh well. You are right, Ratty, humans are very strange creatures.

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  12. Great comparison shot, have humans in the photo really shows the size of the park. I sometimes get so caught up in macros or just close shots I forget to capture the big picture.

    Ants are totally cool and very smart, good thing they are so small or we would probably be their prey.

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  13. Nothing like a good skate in the winter. Makes me want to dust my skates off!

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  14. amazing.shot, have humans in the photo really shows the size of the park. I sometimes get so caught up in macros or just close shots I forget to capture the big picture.

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