Weekend Reflections: Bear Hugs

Some more photos from the zoo, from my visit last week.

The bears are always good fun to watch, especially at snack-and-swim time…

▲ Growl & hug ▼

Friends again!

Kids! Always such a drama…

Weekend Reflections

Good Fences – Lynx

Yesterday I had a kind of weird start to my day: In spite of sunny weather setting in (after weeks of mostly rainy), I slept so late that breakfast became more like brunch! … After which I thought I had better do something more memorable with what remained of the day; so I decided to go to the zoo again (making use of the season pass I bought on my first visit earlier in the summer).

This time, I made a new acquaintance: The lynx. They’re usually hard to catch sight of, even in our zoo, as they have  been allotted rather a large piece of woodland to hide in.

However, this time I happened to arrive at feeding time, when a member of staff was throwing meat over the fence for them.

One rather big piece landed up in a tree, and – humans watching or not – that was obviously just too tempting to resist.

I must be able…

… to get that down somehow …

Gotcha!!!

And now off to enjoy the prey somewhere more private, out of sight from all these people…

The Eurasian lynx is the third largest predator in Europe after the brown bear and the grey wolf. It is a strict carnivore, consuming about one or two kilograms of meat every day. --- The lynx hunts by stalking and jumping its prey, helped by the rugged, forested country in which it resides. A favorite prey for the lynx in its woodland habitat is roe deer. It will feed however on whatever animal appears easiest --- [Wikipedia]

 

Good Fences

Window Shopping

Sometimes I feel just a little bit tempted to go into a shop and ask them if they truly believe that they’ve actually managed to create a window display that will make potential customers feel that they really must have one of those… well, er, whatever…

Linking to Through My Lens

Weekend Reflection

"The atmospheric conditions have been very unfavourable lately," said Owl.
"The what?"
"It has been raining," explained Owl.
"Yes," said Christopher Robin. "It has."
~A.A. Milne – Winnie the Pooh~

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Thursday – Good Fences

From my visit to the zoo back in June.
Swedish Gotland pony foal (above) – and his mummy (below).

Gotland pony or Gotland russ is an old Swedish pony breed. Gotland ponies are claimed to descend from Tarpans that lived on the small island of Gotland that is on the South-Eastern coast of Sweden right after the last ice age. The Gotland pony is the only breed of pony native to Sweden.
(Source: Wikipedia. Click on the link to read the full article.)

For Good Fences

A Rose

My phone surprises me sometimes by playing around with my photos without any active help from me.  This is what it did with the only photo I took the other day when out walking. It then pinged me and asked if I thought the fancy edit was worth keeping. I decided that it was!

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Rainbows

(Photo from July 2012)

This weekend (for the first time) my town is having a Pride festival. I’ve not really been “attending” any of the events, but even just passing through the city one can’t help noticing…

And it set me pondering about how symbols sometimes come to change their meaning over time.

In a little box of odds and ends at the back of a drawer, I still have this vintage “Christian hippie” button from the early 1970’s. I’m not sure if I ever wore it, but it used to sit on a notice board in my home amongst a variety of photos and postcards and whatnots:

Back in the early/mid 1970’s, buttons with various kinds of statements and messages were very common. If not about religion, it might be For Peace, or Against Nuclear Power, or whatever. (Remember – there was no Facebook back then. So I guess we just had to use ourselves as billboards!)

However (I just checked) it was not until 1978 that the rainbow flag was first used by the gay movement. So this old button of mine had nothing to do with that, but was meant (or at least so I interpreted it!) to remind of the Biblical covenant between God and Noah in the Book of Genesis:

And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. (Gen 9:16, KJV)

In other religions and mythologies too, the rainbow has often been seen as a bridge between heaven and earth; but also as representing elusive mysteries and dreams. (If you have ever tried to chase a rainbow in order to get a better photo of it, you will understand why!)

(And no, I would not wear that button now. For one thing, there might be no end to the variety of interpretations it could provoke!)

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