Tim's pix & stuff

To my fans, both of them.

2006-01-14T16:15:00.000-03:00

Dear Fans,

Tim's Pix and Stuff is moving. I have bought myself a website: The Subjective Lens. See you there.

Happy photoblogging,

Tim

Tortorolillo Norte

2006-01-12T15:12:00.000-03:00

Looking back from the beach, Tortorollilo Norte, about an hour north of La Serena, Chile.

New Year

2006-01-09T00:13:00.000-03:00

New Year fireworks in Vicuña.

Plovers

2006-01-07T11:56:00.000-03:00

Plovers at Caleta San Pedro, just north of El Faro, La Serena Beach, Chile.

Ruined chapel

2006-01-04T23:44:00.000-03:00

The ruined adobe chapel at Tortorolillo Norte, an abandoned ore foundry and port a few dozen kilometers north of La Serena, Chile.

The Pond

2005-12-27T22:53:00.000-03:00

Thistle Flower

2005-12-26T23:42:00.000-03:00

Santa down south

2005-12-23T22:06:00.000-03:00

Christmas can seem pretty weird south of the equator. Santa with a llama...?

Eroded Hillside

2005-12-22T22:36:00.000-03:00

Neotropic Cormorant

2005-12-18T18:04:00.000-03:00

The Thing on the Beach

2005-12-09T21:51:00.000-03:00

A piece of a jellyfish, I think.

Dogskull

2005-12-08T15:01:00.000-03:00

Found wandering around a small wood in the Elqui Valley.

How the swallow sees the world

2005-12-07T01:35:00.000-03:00

GIMPing around for Phot Friday's "experimental" challenge.

Chilean Swallow / Golondrina Chilena

2005-12-06T13:05:00.000-03:00

Pigeons

2005-12-04T19:17:00.000-03:00

Orchid

2005-12-02T18:08:00.000-03:00

Children's Choir

2005-11-30T19:11:00.000-03:00

They were singing "The Little Drummer Boy".

Wildflowers

2005-11-27T22:32:00.000-03:00

Swallow

2005-11-27T01:01:00.000-03:00

Source

2005-11-26T14:34:00.000-03:00

School Dance Theatre

2005-11-23T13:17:00.000-03:00

Burrowing Owl

2005-11-19T11:52:00.000-03:00

Burrowing owl, dunes behind Playa Grande, Los Choros, IVth region, Chile. To prove they're burrowers, see the burrow at left. Normally, they stand sentry on the mound of earth in front of the hole.

Burrowing Owl

2005-11-14T18:42:00.000-03:00

Burrowing owl, behind Playa Grande, Los Choros, Chile.

La Serena Beach

2005-11-12T23:25:00.000-03:00

Deadly

2005-11-11T02:00:00.000-03:00

I was told that one of the most deadly and, coincidentally, least detectable poisons known to man is derived from this plant. This was after I had picked several leaves to take photos. But hey, I'm still breathing.

Tongoy Heron

2005-11-06T21:48:00.000-03:00

More investigative visitors may see that this is a repost, but the more sharp eyed will realise that it isn't, quite. It is one of my favourite images slightly doctored to make what I think is a better picture. 'Hope you agree.

More parrots

2005-11-06T02:32:00.000-03:00

These magical birds live in Chile at the bottom end of the Atacama desert. Like many, I normally associate parrots with jungle, but these seem to prefer more arid climes. Recently, I saw a couple of hundred of them flocking over a vineyard near the local embalse; they took off en masse and raucously when a red-backed hawk flew overhead.

(I know where they nest, but it's a secret and I'm not telling. Although they don't make good pets, the ignorant and destructive insist on illegally hunting them.)

Burrowing parrots

2005-11-05T13:02:00.000-03:00

A flock of burrowing parrots lives in the valley that approaches Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, branching off from the Elqui Valley, Chile. The flock numbers a couple of hundred in total.

Cactus Flower

2005-11-05T01:06:00.000-03:00

Flower

2005-11-03T23:25:00.000-03:00

A friend of mine asked me to photograph this flower. I forgot to ask what it is called. Its petals closed up at sunset.

Vibrations

2005-11-02T17:09:00.000-03:00

The rings on the water remind me of high school water tank experiments in wave interference.

Red-backed Hawk

2005-11-01T23:32:00.000-03:00

She was sitting on a rock by the side of the road.

Dragonfly

2005-10-30T21:12:00.000-03:00

This one's for my brother.

Pelican, repeated

2005-10-30T00:33:00.000-03:00

I had these four, "motor drive" photos... 'Still learning how to use GIMP.

Lenticular Clouds

2005-10-26T20:23:00.000-03:00

Lenticular clouds are formed by high winds and are characterized by their smooth, sharp edges.

Juvenile Andean Condor

2005-10-25T16:16:00.000-03:00

Condors are occasional visitors to Cerro Tololo. There were three this time, an adult male and two others - it's a little difficult to tell the difference between the females and the juveniles. They just cruise around in the thermals, wings straight out and rigid, like Lancaster bombers, steering with their tails and primary feathers. I was intrigued to note that they fly around with their heads tilted on one side to get a good look at what's below.

Primary Mirror

2005-10-15T12:55:00.000-03:00

This is the primary mirror of the V. M. Blanco 4-m telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. It has been removed from the telescope for repairs and cleaning. This is done every couple of years to maintain the best image quality possible. The whole operation will take two weeks. The Blanco is a fairly old telescope by modern standards, but is still a vital tool for astronomers and remains at the front line of research. The mirror is about 50-cm thick and weighs 16 tonnes. Nevertheless, it is possible to bend this huge chunk of glass just enough to maintain the optimum shape of the thin layer of aluminium that is deposited on the upper surface. This aluminium is deposited on the surface of the mirror in the large, blue vacuum chamber that just appears in the right edge of the photo. The framework of the telescope, largely 3/4 steel, is the blue and orange assembly on the left.

Some of the people in the picture are visitors from Fermilab who are in the early stages of building a new camera for the telescope which will be used to conduct the Dark Energy Survey. This will be the largest digital camera in the world. It will contain more than 60 CCDs, each of which will have 8 million pixels. All told, the camera will have over 500 million pixels, 100 times more than my puny Panasonic Lumix LMC-FZ5.

Hotel Bilbao

2005-10-06T20:37:00.000-04:00

Hotel Bilbao, Coquimbo. Don't ask me why, I just liked it.

More hummingbirds

2005-10-05T19:01:00.000-04:00

I know, I post a lot of photos of birds on this blog, but they're just so much fun to chase down. It must be the caveman hunter in me. Here are some more giant hummingbirds. They're tricky fellows to photograph, you need excellent light, a fast shutter speed, and quick reactions. or you'll just get a lot of blur. But sometimes the blur works, as perhaps you might agree. The giant hummingbird is an impressive creature, being about a handspan long, and it emits a sharp "peep peep" call to which I am quickly becoming very sensitized.

Ghost town

2005-10-04T22:19:00.000-04:00

This church is in the middle of what used to be gold country. In the 1930s, 15,000 people lived there. There's nothing left now but the church, a few ruins and a goatherder's shack a couple of hundred meters away. The church still sees some use however, there was money in the collection box (I added a coin of my own).

The area is dotted with shafts which drop a few tens of meters to where the seam of gold was found. Miners would fan out along the seam, collecting what they could find, until the roof collapsed then whoever was left would sink another shaft nearby and the whole thing started again. Once the gold ran out, there was nothing there to keep anyone around.

Desert parrots

2005-10-03T19:15:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, we saw parrots. I don't know about you, but I don't think of parrots as desert birds, yet here they were. There must have been a couple of hundred of them in this hidden valley. They wouldn't let us get within less than about 20-m, but wheeled around over our heads giving me these wonderful shots. They're burrowing owls and live in cliff sides (don't know where). They're smart too, they forage under some variety of stunted trees, scrabbling around on the ground, but there are always a couple or three of them high up in the tree acting as lookouts. I wonder how they choose whose turn it is to be lookout.

Embalse La Paloma

2005-09-30T20:25:00.000-04:00

This is the Embalse (reservior) La Paloma out by Ovalle. We drove out there and beyond to try and get to a confluence. It proved to be too far off the beaten track to get to that day. Maybe some other time.

Seafood

2005-09-26T22:08:00.000-04:00

Seafood, in quantity, Coquimbo fish market. I like this photo for the mix of colors, the odd picture of the water carrier behind and the vast pile of shellfish waiting to be sold. There's probably a myriad things wrong with the composition, but it works for me.

Pelican collage

2005-09-25T18:32:00.000-04:00

I don't seem to be able to get enough pelicans. They're fun to photograph and make great action shots. I haven't seen any hunting for a while though, many of those around the Coquimbo fish market seem to subsist entirely on scraps from the stalls, making them too lazy to go and look for themselves.

Divine happiness

2005-09-20T19:33:00.000-04:00

I was looking for something for Photo Friday's "divine" challenge and rediscovered this happy fellow surrounded by an astonishing array of junk in an ad hoc museum not far from La Serena. I don't know who he's supposed to be. A quick google search for "god of happiness" turns up a stunning array of choices: Hotei (Shinto), Bishamon-ten (and war), Fuk (really, Feng Shui), Ebisu (Shinto again), Re'are'a (Tahiti), Tsho-gyalma (Tibet), Fu Shen, etc. Perhaps he's just a laughing Buddha.

National dress

2005-09-20T18:55:00.000-04:00

This past weekend was the "dieciocho" (Sept 18th) when the whole country quits everything for the long weekend, eats vast quantities of barbecue and dances the cueca until they can't stand it any more. This charming little girl is wearing a version of the national dress, but I don't think she's ready for the cueca just yet.

Sandscape

2005-09-19T00:05:00.000-04:00

The patterns in the sand here can be fascinating. Some sandy beaches have a high iron pyrites content and glimmer in the sun, others are white from wave-crushed shells. This is on Guanaqueros beach and looks like it might be some large river delta seen from an airplane, but this view is only a few feet across seen from head height.

Night fishing

2005-09-18T12:11:00.000-04:00

Pelicans are a recurring theme in this photoblog. I find these ungainly creatures fascinating. Last night, I was out at Guanaqueros and there was a flock of a hundred or more by the quay and several dozen swimming around in the rocky shallows. Clearly they could see something we couldn't because every now and then one would plunge its head into the water and scoop up some hapless fish or another. Climbing on the rocks above, I annoyed them with my flash but hunger overcame the distraction and they kept coming back for more.

Pelicans in flight

2005-09-16T22:27:00.000-04:00

Pelicans sometimes congregate in the small estuary where Coquimbo wetlands drain into the bay. I was driving past one time when I saw them there and stopped to take some photos. As I walked up to them, a dog ran up to them and spooked them, spoiling my fun, but getting me this shot. (Submitted to Lens day "flight" challenge).

Swallow, drinking

2005-09-15T23:50:00.000-04:00

The swallows skimming the pond turned out to be a real challenge. They were just too fast to track. I had to point the camera at full zoom in roughly the right direction, wait for one to fly through the line of sight, fire the trigger at what I hoped was the right moment and just see what I'd get. Mostly, I'd get a shot of the water, occasionally I'd get a wing tip, or half a body, and every once in a while, I'd get something like this.

Cattle egret roost, Vicuna

2005-09-14T18:08:00.000-04:00

Wandering around Vicuna towards sunset, I saw groups of cattle egrets flying towards a tree right in the middle of town. Walking to the Plaza de Armas (a small, square park, a ubiquitous feature of most if not all Chilean towns), I discovered two or three tall trees becoming increasingly crowded with these relatively common, slightly awkwardly elegant birds. They were quite difficult to see except from immediately below, but easy to hear (honking squawks) and smell (phew!).

They can be so numerous that they kill the trees that they roost in. The upper branches were thoroughly encrusted with guano and walking underneath was, well, perilous. There must have been a couple of hundred in all.

Mural, Vicuna

2005-09-12T17:59:00.000-04:00

This is detail from a mural in a house in Vicuna. The house is about 150 years old and consists of a horseshoe shaped arrangements of small rooms, few windows and thick adobe walls. 150 years is old by Chilean standards - it has withstood numerous earthquakes. We don't know much about its history yet, besides the previous owner's family buying it in 1920. In recent years, it has fallen into disrepair and the owner is renovating it with a view to turning it into a hotel.

The walls facing the interior of the horseshoe are decorated with a series of murals, mostly showing rural or ocean scenes. Unfortunately, several of them face into the morning sun and have faded almost beyond recognition (right). The one at top appears on the north facing wall and has been enclosed in a dining area with wooden walls and so relatively protected from the elements. We don't know if it depicts a specific place - the church tower is typical of many in Chile, but the roofs on the center-left with their upward spikes are not an architectural style known in this country.

Beast of Burden

2005-09-12T14:18:00.000-04:00

The horse is still bery much a working animal in Chile. The first world eye is normally accustomed to seeing horses only on special occasions and then they'll be fine, well-groomed specimens in quality leather trappings. It is a pleasing novelty to see old dobbin pulling a basic cart down a town's street, but they aren't there for the eye's pleasure. They're there to work.

Joaquin Lavin campaigns La Serena

2005-09-10T01:15:00.000-04:00

Joaquin Lavin who narrowly lost to the current incumbent last time around, is a center-right candidate for president of Chile in next year's elections. He was in town the other day glad-handing and generally obstructing traffic.

Queueing for a few minutes got you a handshake for the gents or a quick kiss on the cheek for the ladies (a besito, the obligatory greeting for women in Chile) and a polaroid to remember the occasion. These were so quick that it was actually quite difficult to time a snapshot of his face between the lucky supporters.

Giant hummingbird

2005-09-04T19:01:00.000-04:00

This is a giant hummingbird (picaflor gigante, patagona gigas gigas), the largest hummingbird in the world. They're here for the spring flowers and can be seen in gardens all over town. They are truly huge for a bird that can stand still in the air and suck nectar from a flower, measuring over a handspan long.

When hovering, their wings move slower than the smaller varieties, but they're still a blur in a photograph. When they have to fly a significant distance, they tend to climb high in the air, then fold in their wings and plummet like a pub dart.

Interestingly, for all their novel size and although they clearly summer in Chile, it is not yet known where they spend the winter.

Club de Jazz, Coquimbo

2005-08-30T19:19:00.000-04:00

The Club de Jazz in Coquimbo has been owned by the Cuturrufo family for some time and it wouldn't surprise me if they all play one musical instrument or another. Cristian, on the right, plays the trumpet and has performed at the Royal Festival Hall in London. With him, playing piano, is Valentin Trujillo, famous with two or more generations of Chilenos as "Tio Valentin" from a children's TV programme he used to be in -- he's a cancer survivor and when he plays no-one is allowed to light up on pain of unceremonious ejection.

I've seen them play twice, both times to crowded houses. On the first occasion, we arrived just 15 minutes late which is normally considered way too early by Chilean standards, but we couldn't get in. To our great good luck, however, one of the family (Rodrigo, right) who knows us as regulars, was on the balcony above, saw us, and beckoned us in by a back door. We sat at the top of the stairs, also filled with spectators of all ages, just in sight of the two of them. On the second occasion, wiser, we arrived early and got much better seats (but with apologies that the front row had been reserved for a local dignatory).

The marvellous old building used to be the Social Club in Barrio Ingles. Behind an unassuming door, you find a large, roofed-over atrium, with a chandelier, balconies and surrounded by vairious function rooms. Up the stairs at the back, there's a snooker room with a genuine slated table, one of perhaps 5 in the whole of Chile and probably about as old as the building. There's a small theater, a sound recording studio and a bar. The atmosphere is always very friendly and relaxed, the family care for the place and its clientele wonderfully evident.

To my great distress, however, they're selling the place. Their club in Santiago has taken off and they're moving down there. The local entertainment rag also laments this and echoes my hope that the new owners won't wreck the old Club. Either way, I shall miss sitting there, in my black hat & jackiet, just to the left of the stage, sipping white russians and getting drawn into frantic, climactic energy of the music.

A Gorgeous Cliche

2005-08-29T01:20:00.000-04:00

Normally I'm not a great fan of sunset pictures, too cliched. But this one was too spectacular not to share. It's a composite of eight photos and the stitching is not perfect for which I apologise, but you get an idea of the majesty of this day's end.

And a single-frame view:

Cloudy day at the beach

2005-08-28T20:40:00.000-04:00

The weather in La Serena never gets really bad, just monotonous. In winter, it sometimes feels like the sun will never come out again, and the town is capped by low grey clouds day after day. On any given day, it is, however, pretty straightforward to find the sun, just drive for about half an hour in more or less any direction (well, except west), the local favourite being up the valley.

Unlike similar beaches a few miles north or south, the beach in La Serena is never really empty. There are always at least a few people out jogging, riding a bike, walking their dogs, letting the children run a little while, or, as above, practising their surf kiting without actually risking the surf.

Neotropic cormorant, sunning

2005-08-24T23:18:00.000-04:00

Locally, this bird gets called a pato, but pato translates as duck, meaning that pato is a catch-all for any random waterfowl of which you don't know the proper name, much like a pajaro. However, like pajaros, patos usually have a specific local name. This one's a yeco and it posed for me like this for several minutes while pelicans cruised by and its cousins, red-legged cormorants, hung out nearby with the sea lions on the rocks off Fuerte Lambert, Coquimbo, Chile.

Lago Laja

2005-08-24T00:39:00.000-04:00

Lago Laja is at the foot of Volcan Laja, several hundred kilometers south of Santiago, Chile. That's Argentina you're looking at, the volcano's to the rear.

It was silent there, but for the occasional bird call.

There were silvery grebes swimming in the lake which are more common to the lowlands and a surprise there - the lake must be 1500m above sea level or more. At the edge of the lake, we found places where occasional streams of bubbles would suddenly rise up from the gravelly lake bottom, presumably gases venting from deep down in the volcano, reminding us that despite the quiet, hadean force lurked beneath.

Black-Hooded Sierra Finch and fire hydrant

2005-08-24T00:02:00.000-04:00

It's no use asking "what's that bird?" in Chile. Most likely, you'll get told it's a "pajaro", unless it's a condor, or a pelican, or something obvious like that, or waterfowl which are all patos (lit. ducks, like, er, this one). Smaller birds get called pajaritos, which is the diminutive form. But pajaro is the catch-all name for any random bird, and I wonder how many visitors to Chile have gone home to show photos to friends and proudly announce "and this bird's called a pajaro, and that one's a pajarito!". However, there are common names for most if not all "pajaros" and this one's a Cometocino del Norte, which translates as "bacon-eater of the north". Go figure.

P.S. A friend of mine just pointed out that I had misspelled "pajaro" as "pajero" which means something quite different, roughly what the English and Australians would describe as a, um, "wanker". Also, Mitsubishi market an SUV here called a Pajero. Likewise, go figure.

Vizcacha

2005-08-23T23:26:00.000-04:00

This cuddly looking creature is a vizcacha. They're something between a squirrel, a rabbit, a hare and a chinchilla and are ubiquitous in the drier countryside of the north central regions of Chile. They don't like you to get too close, although this one is a little more used to people than most as it lives on the side of Cerro Tololo next to the observatory and a frequent watcher of the sunset along with the astronomers waiting for the night.

Their relatives, chinchillas, are all but extinct in the wild, although there are some still at the Chinchilla national park a few hours south of here. Someday I'll get down there to have a look.

Goose, resting

2005-08-23T01:08:00.000-04:00

I suppose that this goose, at the same bird sanctuary as the mandarin ducks, must be comfortable, but it's giving me a neck ache.

Mandarin ducks

2005-08-23T00:52:00.000-04:00

A pair of mandarin ducks at the avian zoo on the road to Ovalle. The same zoo has a young female mountain lion (just to add contrast to all the birds). It eats a donkey every two weeks. A donkey costs about 15,000 pesos, or a little less than US$30. They also have an old steam tractor whose firebox door bears a legend claiming a patent from my home town in England. It's a small world.

Saturated cactus

2005-08-22T14:17:00.000-04:00

There are too many pictures of plants on the web, so here's my contribution - a cactus with the saturation turned up horribly high. I'm also submitting it to Moody Monday's "Centered" challenge because, well, it's centered. As for moody, well it looks like it might eat something, don't you think? Or perhaps it already has.

Also, there are way too many pictures of plants on the web that are there for the pretty colours. So I tried some in black and white (guess what colour the flower is):

Finally, there are way too many pictures of cats on the web. Don't even get me started.

Killing fields for bees

2005-08-21T21:37:00.000-04:00

I was out at friend's place today and wandered around his several hives seeing if I could get a decent photo of a bee. As it was there was too little light on this cloudy day to get any really good shot of a live one, but while I was wandering around, I looked down at what I was walking on and outside the hives I found the ground was carpeted with the bodies of dead and dying bees. Investigating further, I found that this carpet was up to and inch or more deep in places. The hives had been there 6-7 years and this appeared to be the wastage of bees over that time.

But it wasn't so simple as the dumping ground for old, dead bees that had served their time. I watched one, perfectly healthy bee, land at the entrance to what must have been the wrong hive. It was immediately mobbed by a couple or three other bees defending their home. They forced it off the hive and down onto the floor beneath. One defending bee kept at it, rode its back, and shredded its wings. Once so rendered helpless, the invader was left to die amongst the carcases of its predecessors.

I don't know about you, but I don't usually think of bees as being so savage.

Corpus Christi Pelecanus Thagus

2005-08-18T20:42:00.000-04:00

A medieval myth about pelicans caused them to become a symbol of the christian sacrament of holy eucharist, the body of Christ or Corpus Christi. It was believed that pelicans would pluck their own breast to draw blood to feed their young, as Christ feeds the faithful with his own flesh and blood. The origin of this myth is put down to occasionally drawing blood while preening or the sight of fish blood on their beaks. But seeing the pelicans around here, I wonder if it was just the natural colour of their beaks (here a little enhanced).

Pelican, GIMPed

2005-08-16T23:28:00.000-04:00

The pelicans at Coquimbo are developing their spring mating plumage and become more photogenic by the day. This picture is a minor triumph for me as I learn the ins and outs of what can be done with image processing software (in this case The GIMP).

Animita, Caleta San Pedro

2005-08-15T01:06:00.001-04:00

Chile is littered with "animitas", small shrines by the side of the road or on a beach commemorating an accidental death. By the road, it will normally have been a car crash, on the beach, a shipwreck or a drowning. They will always include a small "house" in which is found flowers, a religious icon, or just something the builder found decorative. There will often be a cross on top. Some animitas become famous and grow as visitors add their own decorations. A believer may stop on a journey and pray a while at an animita, asking for safe passage. It is considered good luck to leave a bottle of water, or, when it used to be the law that vahicle license plates were replaced every year, an old plate.

Animitas are traditionally re-dressed on the day of the dead each year, although the vast majority are essentially abandoned. The one above obviously still has someone to come and clean it up once in a while, although apparently not recently. It is on the beach by the pueblo of Caleta San Pedro, a fishing village on the bay just north of La Serena. There is a small plate on the top probably identifying the victim to whom it is a memorial, but this is so weathered and corroded that it is illegible.

A seaward view of the same animita.

Coquimbo y la cruz

2005-08-11T14:28:00.000-04:00

Coquimbo y la cruz, originally uploaded by Tim Abbott.

I like this view of Coquimbo because it encapsulates so much of my impressions of the town. The old man in hat and scarf at left, the dog in the street, ratty old buildings, all higgldey-piggledy, overhead wires all over the place, the stairways up the steep hill, and the Cross of the Third Millenium standing above it all.

Los Penetrables

2005-08-09T13:22:00.000-04:00

Los Penetrables 1, originally uploaded by Tim Abbott.

This is a hands-on, er, scuplture outside the children's interactive museum in Santiago (The Museo Interactivo Mirador, or MIM). It consists of an alleyway filled with thousands of dangling, plastic cables, arranged in four blocks of different colours. Children, and adults, are positively impelled to run through it, letting the cables stream over their heads, shoulders and arms.

This image is, obviously, modified. I liked the effect, the way the supporting framework for the cables is suppressed and the children stand out. The photo was taken in July which, for you hemispherocentrics out there, is the middle of winter hence the warm clothes. It was a cold, drizzly day, but the children didn't care.

La Serena Beach / Playa La Serena

2005-08-06T00:40:00.000-04:00

La Serena Beach / Playa La Serena, originally uploaded by Tim Abbott.

One of the great things about photoblogs and the photoblog community is that you can find out things about your own photographs that you won't discover any other way. I got 200 hits on this image in two days, easily my most popular photograph so far. I didn't really think much about it when I first posted it. It was one of many taken on La Serena beach that day - mostly, I was trying, and failing, to show the high fool's gold content of the sand, which would get sorted into glittering patches by the lazy waves of the day. In frustration I shot a couple of pics into the sun...

La Serena beach must be about 10 miles long, a sweeping curved bay with the port of Coquimbo at the southern end, La Serena in the middle, and Punta Teatinos (fishing & surf) at the north. It's busy by Chilean standards, even in the middle of winter, even away from the apartment blocks built at the front line of the tsunami flood plain.

I prefer the likes of Los Choros beach, which is not much smaller and frequently completely empty; I found a whale jaw there once, and the bird life is much more varied.

Pelicans

2005-08-04T11:26:00.000-04:00

Pelicans / Pelicanos, originally uploaded by Tim Abbott.

(Entered in Photo Friday's Complexity challenge.)

Pelicans are an odd mix of grace and ungainliness. In the air, they are masters of gliding, and will often been seen barrelling along the crest of a wave, just centimeters above the water, on the La Serena beach. I keep expecting one of them to misjudge it at some point and end up crash-landing into the surf, but they never do. When hunting, they fly up to some 20 meters above the water with slow beats of their large wings. They cruise around for a few moments with their beaks pointed straight down, then suddenly spear straight down into the water. "Spear" is the only word for it with those beaks of 50cm or more.

Getting into the air again, however, is another matter and grace does not enter into it. Likewise, on land, they appear clumsy and awkward. No surprise really, given that beak.

A friend of mine recently told a story of someone who was killed by a pelican. This bird had been injured and caught by some kindly park rangers who corralled it in a shower stall at work. Later on, one of them stuck his head over the top of the door to check that the bird was alright. For his trouble, the pelican saw him, and launched his beak straight up, javelin-like, under his chin and severed an artery in his throat. The poor fellow bled to death before help arrived.

With regard to the photo above, I am slowly learning how to play with The GIMP, a freeware image editting program. This photo is saturation enhanced throughout, then blues desaturated. You can see more, unmodified, images of pelicans in my Flickr account. Click the small pic below.

A tragic beauty

2005-08-03T09:43:00.000-04:00

A tragic beauty, originally uploaded by Tim Abbott.

It's a nasty stretch of road at the best of times; narrow, winding, a steep drop on one side, sheer rock on the other and as busy as any other rural stretch of the Panamerican highway. One day, some years ago, a man lost his wife (and family, depending on reports) there to a nasty accident. Thereafter, he stood a lonely vigil at this spot, either under the tree or on the other side by the rocks.

He and his story seemed to be quite well known, I heard about him from several sources and took to keeping an eye out for him whenever I took a trip to Santiago. I often wondered that he was never picked up and treated or, perhaps more likely, locked away.

Once, I stopped and gave him some food, after I'd been told that many do. He looked at me blankly, his face grimy and hair lank.

I was away for several years and then, on my return, he wasn't there. Someone told me he'd died.

Some part of me grieved with him, now that part grieves for him. Wherever he is, I hope he's found peace.

Surf fishing, Punta Teatinos.

2005-07-30T02:44:00.000-04:00

Surf fishing, Punta Teatinos, La Serena, Chile, originally uploaded by Tim Abbott.

Sand trees

2005-07-28T21:47:00.000-04:00

Sand trees, originally uploaded by Tim Abbott.

Rebar house

2005-07-27T22:40:00.000-04:00

Rebar house, originally uploaded by Tim Abbott.

Submitted to Photo Tuesday as an entry for "implied" given the implication of a future house.

Donkeys, Los Choros

2005-07-27T10:48:00.000-04:00

Donkeys, Los Choros, originally uploaded by Tim Abbott.

Andean Condors

2005-07-26T21:21:00.000-04:00

Andean Condors, originally uploaded by Tim Abbott.

Downtown Chicago from the air

2005-07-26T21:12:00.000-04:00

Downtown Chicago from the air, originally uploaded by Tim Abbott.

Cocoi (White-necked) heron (Garza Cuca), Tongoy wetlands, Chile

2005-06-27T22:58:00.000-04:00

Cocoi (White-necked) heron (Garza Cuca), Tongoy wetlands, Chile, originally uploaded by Tim Abbott.

Tongoy seems to have suffered a series of very high tides recently, the beach is all but washed away, but the wetlands are bigger and better than ever, and the birdlife loving it. I'm particularly proud of this picture, not that I got all that close to the bird, but the general content of the image.

2005-03-27T17:24:00.000-04:00

Cold feet.

Downtown Chicago over the port wing.

2005-03-27T17:23:00.000-04:00

2005-03-27T17:21:00.000-04:00

Crossroads in snow, Illinois.

Downtown La Serena

2005-03-25T19:51:00.000-04:00

Really short bollards next to the courthouse in La Serena

Seaside tat in Coquimbo.

2005-03-25T19:26:00.000-04:00

Barrio Ingles dedication

2005-03-25T19:24:00.000-04:00

This is on a street corner in Barrio Ingles, Coquimbo. It is a, er, translation of the Spanish paragraph above and absolutely typical. "From here towards the north, as it was the original layout of our city since the XIX century in ahead, we iniciated the rescue of the architectonic patrimony know "Barrio Ingles", inheritance that ties us with the 5 continents. Although delayed, it is our will to preserve and value our roots and hership". Hership?

Keeping watch

2005-03-25T19:22:00.000-04:00

Barrio Ingles, Coquimbo, ostensibly owes some of its history to past English colonials (I assume this is after Sir Francis Drake shelled the area). The autoridades of Coquimbo are currently investing heavily in developing the entire town and Barrio Ingles has been completely refurbished into a district of really quite pleasant bars. My favourite would be Club de Jazz where high quality jazz can be heard on many weekend nights. These two characters keep watch.

Coquimbo street scene

2005-03-25T19:19:00.000-04:00

I was in Coquimbo today, the nearby port town which, together with La Serena, provides the regional population center. This photo looks up from the main street at the edge of Barrio Ingles. The cafe at right shows a silhouette of a woman which might indicate that it is a "cafe con piernas" or "coffee with legs". These are a Chilean speciality, where you can buy a cup of coffee at an extortionate rate and ogle the waitresses wandering around in their skimpy underwear (Chileans like thongs). I didn't wander up to check.

2005-03-24T13:23:00.000-04:00

A cattle egret, or garza boyera, on La Serena beach, north-central (Chico Norte), Chile

2005-03-24T12:48:00.000-04:00

Andean condors. A female and two juveniles. The male was flying around, but never got close enough to get a decent picture. I was sitting on a rock not six feet away. They're about 3-4 feet tall. They paid me very little attention after sizing me up for signs of impending death and consequent edibility.

While condors are generally carrion feeders, they do hunt. Someone I know who works in the mountains a lot says he occasionally finds piles of bones on either side of a ridge where some hapless animal has been knocked off by a hungry condor and later consumed.

2005-03-23T17:55:00.000-04:00

A large (body length ~5cm) bee/fly/wasp, in the dunes at Los Choros, north-central Chile

2005-03-23T17:41:00.000-04:00

Burrowing owls or Peque'n, on the dunes behind Playa Grande, Los Choros, north central Chile

2005-03-23T17:34:00.000-04:00

Opilionid spider, southern Atacama desert, Chile

2005-03-23T17:32:00.000-04:00

Opilionid spider, southern Atacama desert, Chile

2005-03-23T17:11:00.000-04:00

Isla Damas, off the coast of north-central Chile

2005-03-23T16:52:00.000-04:00

Lizard at Parque Volcan Laja (south-central Chile)

2005-03-23T12:59:00.000-04:00

A boatdock in Chicago on the lake coast, from the air, in snow.

2005-03-23T12:55:00.000-04:00

Seaweedscape

2005-03-23T12:52:00.000-04:00

Scallop shell with sand fleas