What’s in the Background? A WordPress Photo Challenge!

When taking photos sometimes you catch something intended or unintended that appears in the background. This is what Pick over at WordPress has challenged us to find in our photos! I hope you enjoy these photos of what is in the background!

Let’s start with a photo I took at the San Diego Zoo of a Leopard taking a nap!

Taking a nap!

In this next photo, see if you can find the cat!

Find the cat!

And behind the fencing in this photo you will see an unlikely pair of friends!

Unlikely friends

On our recent trip, while visiting the town of Ensenada, I captured the town in this background shot!

Ensenada

Standing on the deck of the cruise ship, check out this white building that pops in this photo!

Bright white

On the cruise ship I witnessed one seagull watching over another taking a bath!

Get behind those ears!

Please do check out some of the other posts by visiting the WordPress challenge! You can do so by clicking here!

Now go out and have a wonderful day, and thank you for the visit!

Take a Hike! – A Wild Weekly Photo Challenge

It is a fairly cool morning as we head out for a hike outside the town of Red River New Mexico. We drive for a bit until we come upon a small sign on the side of the road that designates a hiking trail. Parking the car, we grab bottles of water and our cameras.

This looks like a good trail.

The trail begins

“Where will this take us?” we wondered.

The smell of the forest could only be described as green. Little butterflies flit around settling on the leaves of nearby plants.

A butterfly in the forest

We come to a bend in the trail that allows us to see the mountain views that surround us.

The mountains surround us

The trail takes us down a gradual slope where it opens up to a stream where lovely golden flowers raise their faces to the sun!

We find water and wildflowers

And the trail takes us further into the forest.

The trail takes us further

We stop for photo opportunities.

My husband on the trail

We come across the stream again and we cross the water.

Crossing a stream

Lovely flowers surround us. No wonder the butterflies abound in this place!

Pretty flowers

It is time to go back. What a lovely hike we have just had. Now it is time to sit and take a break!

Sitting down at the end of the hike!

Thank you to the folks at LetsBeWild for their photo challenge #33 – Hiking! Please feel free to leave me a comment on their site! You can get there by clicking here!

Thank you for stopping by today! Have a great Friday!

Illegal Use of Your Blog Content

I am always curious how people find my blog and I take a look at the search terms in my statistics to see how it is that they find me. A couple of days ago, while looking at the search terms I Googled one particular phrase that led someone to my page. I just happened to look at the “images” and found one of my photos leading me to a website that was using one of my photos as their own. You might remember this photo from a post I did in March of 2012.

Toby #1

I was astounded when I saw this, and immediately looked for contact information on their site and graciously asked them to remove my photo as they did not have my express written permission to use my photos as is indicated on my blog page. They ignored my request.

So, I next turned to the WordPress Support Forum and the folks that responded to me were most helpful. What I want to share is the information passed on to me by helpful members of the WordPress community.

I needed to find out who was hosting this website so that I could contact them directly. I was directed to this website that can help you figure out who hosts the offending site: Who is Hosting This?

I was also directed to information that would help me with this issue. Here are a couple of links to articles that were very helpful! These articles are chockful of very useful information!

From the site “ManoloFood.com” I was directed to a really good article entitled: Whine Journalism and How to Bring the Splashback

From WordPress, more great information: Content Theft and What to Do

I have been contacted by the hosting website of the offender and had to send them a DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) notice, which I have done. This is a letter to the web host that you sign under penalty of perjury. It indicates the site illegally using your content and you add in the link to where your content was stolen from. It asks for the hosting website to immediately remove or disable access to “the infringing material.”

Currently, the offending site does not have any photos showing on the page where my photo was illegally used. I am hoping for a quick resolution of this violation.

A huge thank you goes out to Raincoaster, Happiness Engineer MacManx, and TimeThief!

Hopefully my fellow bloggers and followers, this will not happen to you. And if it does, I hope that the information passed on to me and included in this post will help you!

Have a great Thursday and thanks for visiting!

Do You Do the Flamingo?

No, that is not an error in the title of this blog! And, there is actually no dancing involved, OK, maybe one dance shot! This post will feature some amazing shots I was lucky to get of Flamingos at the San Diego Zoo! It was our first stop when we went with Russel of Russel Ray Photos! Again, thank you Russel and Jim for such a lovely day!

What was really cool about seeing these lovely, colorful birds, was that they were nesting or preparing their nests…So, without further ado, I hope that you love these photos of this lovely bird!

So, do you do the flamingo? Here is one doing that lovely dance!

Let’s Dance!

And, let’s sing!

A duet!

These lovely birds mostly breed in the Galapagos, Columbia and Venezuela, and some lesser known places. And, they breed at the San Diego Zoo too! Here are a couple of shots that we were lucky to witness of these birds nesting!

Nesting

More of the nesting birds

Periodically they take a break to snooze.

Resting bird

Or they converse with one another about the work being done.

Having a conversation

When they raise their heads, they have lovely profiles. Don’t you agree?

A lovely profile

And they often look at the visitors and I swear I could hear this one asking a question!

Are you looking at me?

It is their feathers that are so incredible what with all their color and patterns!

Beautiful feathers!

Flamingo feather patterns

They also stop often to do a bit of housecleaning!

House cleaning

Did you like this series of photos? I would love to hear from you!

Now go and have a great Wednesday, and, again, thank you for stopping by!

Other Zoo Views – Part II

For this second series of photos…well, let’s see where the San Diego Zoo takes us, shall we?

Now, I need to let you know that I love cats! Small, big, and bigger! Check these lovelies out! We happened upon the leopard enclosure at dinner time…One of the big cats was vocal, which this photo shows of this big cat talking!

Are you listening to me?

And this next photo, feeling that all of the creatures on this earth should never be caged, can’t you hear what I heard as I looked at this beauty?

Wishing there were no bars…

Royalty exists at the zoo. Can you just picture the crown on this cutie pie?

Such a regal face!

And, Santa’s reindeer are there too!

Santa’s Reindeer

Right behind those lovely reindeer, comes this amazing creature! There was a baby, but even with a docent there, they could not clear the way for good photos! However, this is still a good shot! Check out the eyes…

Cute and Adorable!

You know that I love textures and patterns…Now you might have a fear of snakes, but the skin on this snake is pure beauty!

Beautiful skin!

Right behind the snakes was this lovely tarantula! If you have a fear of spiders…you are warned!

One heck of a huge spider!

Now for cute and cuddly looking…

The Wild Boar!

And for the more cuddly than this one…here is an “Awww” photo!

The Koala

One final shot was a lovely bird, who will be featured in another post, with glorious colors and a huge beak!

Pretty bird!

I hope that you enjoyed this post! Stay tuned for a post on the White Pelican, who is not only regal but a beauty too!

Thanks for stopping by and see you later!

Pretty Feet Contest Winner 2013!

I just know that you are dying to know who won this contest! Are you ready for the results?

In third place, with the most beautiful toenails…

The Elephant

In second place, with dainty feet for such a big girl…

The Lioness

And number one…

The Zebra!

Many thanks to all who voted for me!

Thanks for participating, and for stopping by today! Stay tuned for Part II of the San Diego Zoo!

Other Zoo Views – Part I

I wanted to take today to share with you some other photos that I took at the San Diego Zoo. There was so much to see, and I took so many photos…where do I begin? Shall we walk through the zoo together?

Do you remember the movie “The Lion King?” Well, I was able to capture some photos of some of the cast. Let’s start with that cute Meerkat who was named Timon…

Timon

And the Warthog was named Pummba, remember?

Pumbaa!

Then there were the three hyenas. Laughing little fellows! Check this one out!

That was very funny!

OK, aside from “The Lion King” characters there were some pretty cool animals. One of the most striking things was one of the first sights: It was a dog who was best buddies with a cat. Not just any cat, but a Cheetah!

An unlikely friendship

Did you know that there really is a Cheshire Cat? No, really there is! While I did not catch it smiling I did capture its tail!

The Cheshire Cat

Some of the faces of the creatures that we saw were very expressive. See what you think.

Are you looking at me?

You smell funny!

What’s doing?

Others are a bit more laid back.

No chance of getting cold with all this fur!

Nap time!

Like I said at the beginning of this post, I took a lot of photos! So, stay tuned for Part II!

Thanks for the visit today! I hope your day has been excellent!