This last month marked the one year anniversary of my mom's death at age 93. You might say she was taken from us but that word has a much bigger meaning in our family history.

Pins, like the one above, were available to Naval officers during World War II to give to their girlfriends or fiancés. This particular pin was given by my dad to my mom. They met while he was on leave in Detroit and she was working at the USO. It led to a nickname that stuck with my mom for the rest of her life.

I could tell you the story but you can hear it from her in the video below, produced by Museum of History and Holocaust Education at Kennesaw State University,

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The video is part of the Georgia Legacies of World War II Exhibit at the Museum. If you are interested, the Museum's profile of mom and her WWII experience can be found at this link.

Her background includes years at a Canadian boarding school, college interrupted by World War II, work at the FED and USO, a whirlwind romance that changed her name and resulted in a family with four boys, and induction into the American Rosie the Riveter Association. That's her below working at the USO.

The first photo and text are copyright Clinton Richardson. If you like these posts, please tell your friends about the Venture Moola blog at Readjanus.com. More of  our images can be found on our companion website at trekpic.com. Feel free to share this blog with your friends. The more readers the better. 

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It is the day after and all is calm. To look at the porch, you would not think anything unusual happened here. What you cannot see, however, is hidden on the porch in the corners and next to the screen. And dying, after a precision chemical counter-attack that has now removed the imminent threat.

Last night was a different story. We were up at the cabin overnight to meet the next morning with some contractors. To pass the time, Frances was working on a small table she had set up on the porch, starting a new basket weaving project.

The afternoon had been pleasantly cool for August in Georgia and the evening was even cooler. We had opened up the cabin and turned off the air conditioning, anticipating sleeping with a fresh breeze coming in the windows.

I was on the sofa in the living room just a few feet from Frances working at her table on the the porch. Only two screen windows separated us.

"Did I hear that?" she asked.

I listened. In the distance toward the lake I could hear a light buzzing like the soundtrack of a World War II era movie about an enemy air attack.

"It sounds like a motor-cross race." She added.  "Who would be doing that at this hour?"

Odd.  We were in a very dark and quiet place. There were almost no lights on the lake except ours on a Sunday in late August. And, we were so far from the road we almost never heard road noise.

The buzzing got louder and louder. And, then it happened.

All at once, dozens of hornets started slamming into the screens on the porch. And, then more and more hit the screens until there seemed to be hornets everywhere clinging to the outside of the screens. +

Frances left her basket weaving and came in the cabin. I closed the door behind her. This is an old cabin with a porch floor of pine boards riddled with spaces between boards that are large enough to accommodate a determined insect.

Before I could turn off the porch lights, the beasts began appearing on screens of the living room widow that faced the porch. These were not your garden variety bee or wasp. These were European hornets, three inches in length capable stinging multiple times.

They were crawling around in groups of two and three, probing and looking for ways to get in. I walked back to the door with its panel windows. A half dozen hornets were trying frantically to get in.

I locked the door.

Frances laughed.

I guess she did not think they could work a door knob. I was not taking chances.

Then I walked the few feet to the only bedroom on the ground floor. It also faced the porch. More hornets on screens and the side window without screens. Fortunately closed but also covered with hornets hungry for the light.

We decided to close up the house and turn on the air. I do not think either of us expect the hornets to breach the screens and get in but there was something comforting about closing all the windows. And, it did serve to cover over the incessant buzzing that had surrounded our home.

I returned to the couch next to the porch window and tried to concentrate on the two heron pictures over our fireplace. They were taken just a couple of hundred yards from the end of our dock. Tonight they were a calming influence in the midst of a bizarre and unprovoked inter-species attack.

I am happy to report that no vertebrates were injured in this attack. After awhile we were able to put the creepy crawlies to the back of our mind and get on with our evening.

The next morning, there were still dozens of hornets on our porch. We opened the door between the porch and the deck to let them out. Those who did not leave of their own free will over the next couple of hours became the body count from our counterattack.

Some of the 29 hornets who failed to leave the porch are shown below.

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All photos and text are copyright Clinton Richardson. If you like these posts, please tell your friends about the Venture Moola blog at Readjanus.com. Want to plan your own safari? If so, feel free to check out the outfitter we used at Porini.com.

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+ My apologies to any bees feeling slandered by the title.

Sharing the pictures she proudly captured at the science museum with her mom, our granddaughter explained -

"This is an old car that is older than Papa."

"This is a moon rock. It is older than Papa."

"This is a T-Rex. I don't know if it is older than Papa."

Some days I'm not sure myself.

But I am sure of the magic that happens when children get to interact with exhibits at a museum. Take this image from the Vatican Museum captured a few years ago.

The young girl entered the room unattended and walked right up to this marble statue of Anubis, an Egyptian god associated with death and the afterlife. She immediately struck up a conversation and gestured with her hands. The encounter lasted for several minutes.

The content of the conversation will, however, remain a mystery. The girl spoke in Italian and the god, half man and half jackal that he is, remained silent. You might say he was stone-faced throughout.

Nonetheless, there was something just short of magical going on. An undeniable connection had been made that enriched the girl's experience. It improved ours as well, just to get to see the interaction.

And, in case you are wondering, I am not older than Anubis.

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All photos and text are copyright Clinton Richardson. If you like these posts, please tell your friends about the Venture Moola blog at Readjanus.com. Want to plan your own safari? If so, feel free to check out the outfitter we used at Porini.com.

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We won't answer that question here but watching the youngest Richardson consume a waffle this morning reminded me of an earlier experience with his older cousin. The youngest eats his waffles with his fingers and then wipes his sticky fingers in his curly blond hair. His older cousin, you will see, has a much more refined technique.

How to Eat a Waffle. (Don’t try this at home!)

Receive and inspect waffle. Play with eggs while waiting for syrup. Grab sticky syrup dispenser with both hands. Pour liberally on waffle, first up and down the creases that separate the four parts of the waffle and then over waffled portion. Look at sticky hands. Inspect waffle.

Take knife and cut the four creases to create four waffle quarters. Take same knife and cut one quarter into long strips. Work knife under strip to raise waffle toward mouth. At the same time, lower chin almost to the chest and turn head to the right. Carefully raise knife toward mouth and slip waffle toward mouth without sticking knife in mouth. Fill mouth with waffle, lift-up head and chew. While chewing, declare waffle to be good.

Slip closer to table and repeat. Skip declaration. Drink chocolate milk slowly. Smile. Wipe sticky hands on shirt and think better of it. Reach for napkin and wipe hands.
Finish milk and walk to bathroom to wash hands, face and elbows. Apply soap liberally, wash and dry gently with paper towels. Be careful not to remove freckles.

Walk to car, buckle seat belt and head to Mine Craft camp. Convince Papa to turn on the navigation system and take detour from designated route. Practice saying “route recalculation” in your best robot voice. Discuss other potential detours.
Arrive at camp and depart.

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All photos and text are copyright Clinton Richardson. This image is from Springfield, Illinois, just outside the courthouse where Abe Lincoln practiced law. The photo was taken late one Spring night in 2017. If you like these posts, please tell your friends about the Venture Moola blog at Readjanus.com. For more photos, check out at Trekpic.com. Feel free to share this blog. The more readers the better. 

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You may remember our posts from last year about coming to the realization that we had a colony of great blue herons nesting nearby - Dinosaurs Across the Cove, May 31, 2018 and Seeing Through a Lens, June 28, 2018 - where we discovered that the racket we were hearing across the cover was not the result of a single nest of herons.

Instead, over the course of a week's observation from a kayak drifting along the edge of the water, we found a dozen active nests. This young heron was practicing the new-to-her art of fishing just below her nest one of those mornings and allowed me to drift close enough to capture this image.

Well, they are back in full force. The colony continues to thrive. Outings in May and June this year spotted nine active nests along the shoreline with more obvious activity just out-of-site behind the tree line. Sometimes you can hear them when you cannot see them.

In my first outing this year, I was greeted by a young heron in the same location as the photo above and, not 30 feet away, a cormorant just like the one below sitting on this same log. It was a perfect welcome back moment. (See The Launch, July 12, 2918). Both sat quietly as my kayak drifted closer. A repeat from last year when I found both spots similarly occupied on the same morning.

It was a "deja vu all over again" moment as Yogi Berra would have said. Except this year there was a difference. As I looked toward the shore behind the heron, an adult heron walked out to join it's charge. A fishing lesson was in process.

Here is wishing you a great 4th of July week. Enjoy a heron audio clip from Audubon.org. Worth a short listen. My imagination tells me these calls include much of what we might have heard during the Cretaceous Period if we could get close to the heron's ancestors - other colony sounds.

Let me know if you do not think they sound somewhat other worldly.

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All photos and text are copyright Clinton Richardson. If you like these posts, please tell your friends about the Venture Moola blog at Readjanus.com. For more photos, check out at Trekpic.com. Feel free to share this blog. The more readers the better. 

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Time to depart from our Safari Series and broaden our focus. This week we are on Florida's Gulf Coast fishing off shore for sharks. An odd choice perhaps but the grandson is shark-crazy and the plan is to catch, tag and release sharks as part of a shark study.

My son found a captain qualified for this so we have committed to this adventure for the day. The plan is to fish behind shrimp boats off the coast using various dead fish parts as bait.

We get nice weather but the plan fails. The shark aren't biting and after six hours for laying down bait behind shrimpers both active and inactive, we come up empty. Not a single shark caught or tagged. Thankfully the weather is cool and sunny and the sunscreen effective so we are no worse for the wear as we spend the day moving from shrimp boat to shrimp boat.

The next day we are with the same captain and head out to try  again for a couple of hours before heading inshore to fish for snipe. After a couple of empty tries behind shrimp trawlers, we come upon this pair with the boat on the right active sorting the "trash" fish out of a recent haul of shrimp and dumping it overboard. Perfect for attracting shark looking for an easy snack.

Before we set our bait and begin fishing our captain strikes up a conversation with the crew on the shrimp boat. Mike, who is working the back of the boat, is happy for the conversation.

"How long have you been out?" asks our captain.

"About a month. Quiet the last few days but a good catch today. Were out of Houston."

"Would you trade beer for trash?"

"What have you got?"

You can guess the answer to that question. After learning that Mike preferred a beer we did not have, we made the trade anyway.

And, that is how a morning's search for sharks in the Gulf of Mexico resulted in a catch of fresh shrimp. You can see the catch in my son's hand below.

And, what about the shark fishing?

The "trash" was put to use immediately. Once we settled in a spot behind the shrimp boat our captain started tossing the dead sea creatures in the water. And, from the electronic fish detector on deck we could see it was attracting a lot of fish below.

Mike and his fellow crew members also kept releasing "trash" into the gulf as well, supplementing our free feast for scavengers below. Unfortunately, Mike and his buddies were more expansive in what they included in their trash disposal, tossing crushed Budweiser cans into the water as well. We watched as the cans floated away in the tide.

I wondered? Were the shrimpers unconcerned about trashing the gulf or were they disposing of the evidence of an unsanctioned trade? Possibly both.

Our luck with shark fishing did not improve. After releasing all the chum into the water and tossing out two lines baited for shark we came up empty again.

Not that our six-year old grandson grew bored however. He made a morning out of inspecting the discarded fish and crabs and tossing them overboard.

After exhausting our supply of chum, we headed in shore for a couple of successful hours fishing for snipe. When we departed the boat mid-afternoon we headed to our condo to clean up before dinner.

The freshly caught shrimp were later prepared at a local restaurant. A nice end to a day on the water.

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All photos and text are copyright Clinton Richardson. If you like these posts, please tell your friends about the Venture Moola blog at Readjanus.com. For more photos, check out at Trekpic.com. Feel free to share this blog. The more readers the better. 

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Our safari has ended and we are headed home. But first, we have some time to kill before our flight home.

Our outfitter has arranged a driver who picks us up at the Wilson Airport a little before noon to show us around Nairobi for the rest of the day. His name was Gideon. He was tall with a soft but deep voice that reminded me of James Earl Jones. He had immigrated to Nairobi from Malawi and now worked for our outfitter Gamewatchers Safaris.

Gideon took us first to a bead and jewelry manufacturer in Karen, a suburb named after the author of the novel Out of Africa, for a short tour. All of the bead makers are women with children who do not have husbands.

It is part of the company's mission to provide employment to this disadvantaged group and there is always a waiting list of applicants for openings. Our guide showed us around the plant and explained the various parts of the process from shaping to baking to coloring and finishing the beads.

Afterwards, Gideon took us to a nearby restaurant for lunch. We both felt like we were dining in a movie set for a film about colonial Africa. We sat outdoors on in an area that looked and felt like a country club setting. When it cooled down with the threat of rain, our servers brought out a small coal-burning appliance to set down beside the table. Linen napkins, etc. You get the picture.

As we drove, we talked. Where was Gideon from? Did he have family? Where did he live? He was very curious about America and asked many questions about life in the States. What were houses like in the United States? Did the houses have walls like those in Karen?

The walls. They were everywhere we drove in Nairobi. So many and so high that they obstructed your view of what lie behind the sidewalk or street. And in the high-end residential areas they were frequently topped with razor wire. Homes like fortresses. Like luxury prisons.

When we were finished with our list, it was to early to head to Nairobi International Airport for our flight home so we asked Gideon if he had any suggestions. At first, he could not think of anything that interested us. So we suggested he take the long way to airport. And, then he had a thought.

"I could drive you by the slums," he said. "It is good to see them because it reminds us of how fortunate we are." And  so as we meandered toward the airport, he pulled the car to a stop at the top of a hill and invited us to get out.

There below us for miles to the left and right and abutting right up to modern city buildings were ramshackle buildings with rusted corrugated tin roofs and scrap metal walls. The buildings were so crowed together that from our distance you could not easily make out where roads or walkways were.

After weeks of taking photographs, I could not bring myself to take a picture. The scene was too much, too overwhelming. I had seen pictures, in the movies even (think Slum Dog Millionaire), but until now I had no direct experience, no sense of scale.

I was sure I could not do it justice with a camera. How many people must live in this area? And, what kind of life do they have? What government services could even reach into the depths of this maze of shacks?

Could he take us closer, I asked? Yes, he could drive us along the edge as we make our way into the city on our long route.

And so we did.

It was dusk when we began driving down a street that abutted the edge of the slum. On our left for blocks and blocks were the tin shacks we had seen from above. In front of them were beaten up booths, mostly empty now that night approached. On our right, just the other side of a four lane road were the walls common around Nairobi with the buildings and activities of a modern city behind them.

There were lots people out and about, both adults and children. None had a scrubbed tailored look. I tried to look down the passage ways that entered behind this front of the slum. What I could see in the diminishing light were dirt pathways, mostly narrow and winding into the back parts this rusting city within a city.

"They can't get services in." Gideon noted. "When someone gets sick or injured, they have to carry them out because an ambulance cannot get in."

I looked again into the slum. Three children left the street in front of us and followed a darkening path that led to who knows where.

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Photo by Schreibkraft use under Creative Commons license and modified by the author.

If you like these posts, please tell your friends about the Venture Moola blog at Readjanus.com. Want to plan your own safari? If so, feel free to check out the outfitter we used at Porini.com.

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Imagine my surprise yesterday to find my February 7 blog post - Safari 19: Hunting With Children - presented on this web page as the work of someone else. Here, on another person's web site, sits my work but with "Alex Jones" misrepresenting that he took the pictures and had the experience taken by me and reported in my earlier blog.

Should I be flattered or outraged?  Some say imitation is the purest form of flattery but this is not imitation, it is plagiarism. And plagiarism, according to plagiarism.org (yes, there is such a website), is "an act of fraud" that "involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterwards."

But still, it is a bit flattering isn't it? After all, someone who holds himself out as a professional wildlife photographer was impressed enough with my photographs and writing to steal them and post them on his web site as his own.

But no, I am definitely going with outraged. Photographic-Safaris.com and someone named Alex Jones misappropriated my images and content and posted them on their web site as their own work. You can see it for yourself in the screen shot above.

If you are one of the thousands of people who read my February 7 blog, one full week before Mr. Jones posted it verbatim(1) and image-for-image onto his website and held it out as his own, you saw my original Safari 19: Hunting With Children post. And, you saw this as the first image in my post.

It was a great day on the Maasai Mara that I was reporting about in Hunting With Children. To get to watch Amani the cheetah hunt with her three children was a thrill. But it was my experience and the experience of others on my trip, not Mr. Jones'. And, those are my photographs, not Mr. Jones.

And the trip that produced the great images and content for my Venture Moola blog was with Gamewatchers Safaris not Mr. Jones' Photographic-Safaries.com.

I don't know Mr. Jones. Never met him. Never talked to him. Nothing. Nada.

But back to Alex Jones who is described on his site as a man with "enormous patience" who claims to have captured "photographs of unequalled wildlife behavior.. . ."

How much "patience" does it take to steal images and content from someone else's blog?  And, when it says "captured," would you think that includes taking images from someone else and claiming they are your own?

In the site's About section, we are encouraged to "[r]ead about some of the exquisite wild animals that Alex has photographed.. . ."

Don't be fooled, Alex Jones did not photograph the cheetahs in my blog post. Nor did he write the copy. He ripped it off from the Venture Moola blog and me. To paraphrase plagairism.com, he stole my work and lied about it afterward.

If you want to see my images and read about a great African safari trip check out my blog at ReadJanus.com or check out the same content on the fully-licensed porini.com website, home to Gamewatchers Safaris.

But enough about copyright infringement and plagairism. The whole incident also reminds me of a great encounter on a great trip last fall. Join me in viewing a few other photographs I took on that special day.

And, if you think you might like an opportunity to have days like this yourself on the African savanna, think about contacting the outfitter I used for my trip - Gamewatchers Safaris. You can reach them through their porini.com website or by contacting Wayne Hammond at wayne@gamewatchers.com (or in the UK by phone on +44 (0) 7986 978985) or Julie Ruggow at julie@gamewatchers.com (or by telephone in the US toll-free at 1-877-710-3014.)  Wayne helped me and Julie helped a good friend plan great trips. Either can help you too.

Gamewatchers Safaris were great hosts and even better guides. Very experienced and very knowledgeable. They work in partnership with the local Maasai who ran their lodges and served as our guides. As you have seen through this blog, their guides will help you have great game watching experiences.

To close, let me say that while I may be a bit flattered in a perverse way by Mr. Jones, I am not amused.

Nor, apparently, is my buddy above.

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All photos and text are copyright Clinton Richardson. All worldwide rights reserved. These images and more can be seen at the author's Safari Collection at Trekpic.com. If you like these posts, please tell your friends about the Venture Moola blog at Readjanus.com. Want to plan your own safari? If so, feel free to check out the outfitter we used at Porini.com.

And, feel free to share (but not steal) this blog. The more readers the better.  Click here if you would like to get a weekly email that notifies you when we release new entries. Or, click in the side column to follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

Two Hazda men head out into the Tanzanian wild as the sun rises in the distance. Part of one of only three remaining groups of hunter-gatherers left in Africa, these Hazda men are being accompanied this morning by two intrepid female photographers.

After about an hour, two of the men will spot a black-faced vervet monkey and shoot it with their bows an arrows, stopping afterward to skin and cook the animal over an open fire. Later, they will search for beehives.

One of the hunters begins whistling back and forth with a honeyguide bird. The conversation continues until he finds himself directly below a beehive lodged in a hole high above in a baobab tree. He and others pound stakes into the side of the tree and climb straight up to the nest.

The bees are smoked out and the honeycomb extracted. All share in the bounty of sweetness and bee larvae. The honeyguide bird also feasts on the bees and wax. The remainder of the honeycomb is packed for the return to their small camp. The women have been collecting tubers and baobab fruit to supplement dinner.

The book is the culmination of a life-long journey of discovery by the two authors, who have crisscrossed the more remote parts of the African continent to record the lives and ceremonies of Africa's endangered indigenous peoples. Many of the peoples and their initiations have been pushed to extinction by the modern world since their ceremonies have been recorded and no longer remain as independent people living in traditional ways. Others remain independent but threatened by outside interests.

Among the many rites recorded are Pokot and Rendille coming of age ceremonies, Venda girls graduations, and courtship and wedding ceremonies of the Turkana, Barabaig, Samburu and Somali. The great coming of age ritual of the Maasai warriors, known as the Eunoto, is also photographed. And, that is just in volume one.

Volume two includes breathtaking images from the ceremonies of some of the much kingdoms of the Congo, Nigeria and Cameroon including images from the Voodoo Kingdom in Cameroon. Frenzied spirits with masks and outfits to match fill the pages and the cover reproduced below.

The trip back to our oldest societies with authors Carol and Angela will give you a spectacular look into the richness and diversity of traditional African society. It will also impress upon you the reality of humanity's vanishing past.

Many scientists believe we are firmly within the sixth great extinction on our planet. Think about it. Wildlife species are disappearing at historically rapid rate as climate change promises to accelerate this change. But so are the oldests of our societies.

Will modern societies be next?

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All text is copyright Clinton Richardson 2019. The images are from the book African Twilight - The Vanishing Rituals and Ceremonies of the African Continent by Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher and copyright protected. If you like these posts, please tell your friends about the Venture Moola blog at Readjanus.com.

And, feel free to share this blog. The more readers the better.  Click here if you would like to get a weekly email that notifies you when we release new entries. Or, click in the side column to follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

The rear window on this truck we found parked outside a Moab rock shop says, "4 out of 5 voices in my head say go for it." In 2018, I listened to those voices and committed to post weekly to this photo blog.

In March, we posted peter-peter-peter and the BAND with this image of a singing titmouse. The post shared the modern paleontology view that birds are direct descendants of dinosaurs. Think modern day velociraptor when you watch your next bird belt out a tune.

In April, we spent a couple of posts visiting the issues of light pollution and the joy and wonder of finding a visible night sky. The first called The Color of Black and White featured an image from a very dark sky in Utah while the second, It's Not That Far From Here, explored the night sky from the the Pisgah Forest near the southern entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway.

If you have ever wondered what it is like to venture out in the middle of the night away from city lights to take in a truly dark night sky, check out one of the posts. As I noted then, it is both invigorating and disorienting to be out in the dark away from civilization and your comfort zone. And, while you can easily get lost if you are not careful, you will have a unique experience that will remind you of the vastness of the universe and our small place in it.

Night sky viewing takes you back in time. The light you see from the stars and planets started traveling our way millions and even hundreds of millions of years ago.the sky you see in dark places is the same sky our ancient ancestors viewed at night.

Consistent with looking back in time, we also used April to visit Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, using the images they left on their coins in our entries on Ancient Social Media  and A Selfie of Cleopatra. The entries include coins from the Ancient Selfies Collection  featured in my 2017 book Ancient Selfies, a 2017 International Book Awards Finalist and 2018 eLit Awards Gold Medal Winner.

The coin above was issued to pay a young Cleopatra's troops in 48 BC while she and they were pinned down in Cypress by her brother's armies. Shortly after, Julius Caesar arrived in Alexandria and demanded to see both siblings. Cleopatra snuck into Alexandria wrapped in a rug and changed the course of history.

May took us to Yellowstone and gave us perhaps my favorite posting of the year - Magic Mike and the Otter - where we relate our experience touring Yellowstone in a snow storm with one of the worst guides on the planet.

But, how bad could it be if it generated images like the one above? Think Ace Ventura with a chili dog smeared across his face dragging four Atlantan's around in a mad rush to see his first wolf of the season.

The day failed in its guide's primary objective but provided lots of entertainment. That's a coyote above, just one of many interesting sightings we did make that day.

The wolf came the next day, early in the morning when I was without a guide and had stopped to watch a pair of elk grazing along side the Madison River. In our Wolf in the Wild posting, I relate the heart-pounding experience of watching a lone wolf confront a elk less than a hundred yards away from where I was standing. 

Of course, this was not  all we saw or wrote about from our trip. Moose and grizzly bears also featured prominently in our visit and our blog. The moose we found ourselves surprisingly close to when he ambled out of a willow stand not 10 yards away. Revisit that experience at Moose-a-boo and The Moose Whisperer, the two posts we dedicated to that adventure.

The bears we experienced from greater distances (thank goodness). Our first experience was a bear jam just south of a construction zone in Yellowstone, along a route Magic Mike had taken us the day before.  You can visit that at Grizzly Jam or join us a few days later in Grand Teton National Park as we catch up with Griz 399, perhaps the most famous grizzly bear on the planet.

The surprise of the summer, however, came closer to home. For the last few years, we have been seeing great blue herons just across a cove from our cabin in North Georgia. Last year I found what I thought was "the" nest responsible for all our sightings high in a pine tree next to the water.

This year I had a few days to search out the nest in my kayak, heading out several mornings and evenings to search for this year's heron's nest. Over the course of a few outings across the cove (I was not the brightest crayon in the box on this one), it became apparent that not only was the nest occupied with young herons but that there were several nests - a great blue heron rookery - on the island that hosted the first nest. Who knew herons nested in rookeries?

I wrote about this a few times, capturing the closeup below in the posting called Great Baby Blues and images of the herons nesting high above in Seeing Through a Lens. and Dinosaurs Across the Cove. If you would like to see a cormorant launch himself from a log in the water near the rookery, check out The Launch posting.

Perhaps a favorite heron (or dinosaur) image came from one of these trips across the cove. Seen below is a young heron waiting to be fed in a nest several stories up. I think this chick looks positively prehistoric, a worthy heir to its direct line to the ancient Tyrannosaurus family.

Ancient Odysseus, the clever Greek wanderer, entered my mind when I saw this hulking Oldsmobile in a North Georgia junk yard. The place was filled with hood ornaments and logos that hailed back to ancient heroes.

This particular rusting old car, however, is what brought to mind the spent figure of Odysseus sneaking back into his home after decades at sea. This connection and the image of Odysseus from an old Roman coin sparked the discussion in the Ancients Among Us post.

And that is just part of our 2018. We also posted thoughts an images from great National Parks in California and the West. Joshua Tree, Death Valley and the geologic wonders of Yellowstone all caught our interest.

And then August took us far from our comfort zone. Twenty-four hours of flights and layovers to go somewhere we had never been before - the wilds of Kenya.

More about all of this in our next Venture Moola Retro posting.

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