Do I know you?

Cock-eyed optimism in Vancouver!    People told Ian he might have “fowl” weather while visiting there – looks like they were right!   ”This is from the balcony of  the Sandman Hotel by English Bay.   I was attending the Pacific Coast Brain Injury Conference and during our working lunch he was perched on the railing.   I named this true Sea Gull Pedro and apparently his schedule allowed for lunch, because he helped himself to the crumbs from my bran muffin”.

DID YOU KNOW?    Gulls are able to drink both salt water and fresh water.    They can drink salt water because they have “salt glands” that remove the salt content from the water.    The gulls then eliminate the salt through their nostrils.    Gulls that live near large bodies of water dine on fish, worms, reptiles, even other birds – both alive and dead.    When they see an opportunity disguised as lunch – they take it!    Gulls can also adapt very easily to where and what they eat, which we have seen for ourselves at garbage dumps.

PROOF POSITIVE THAT FRESH AIR PHOTOS ARE EVERYWHERE.    TAKE A LUNCH BREAK AND TAKE A PICTURE.    OPERATORS ARE STANDING BY!

Rudolph Valentato...reinvented.

The sky’s the limit when it comes to unusual food items and the prices they fetch at auction. Whether it’s a corn flake shaped like the state of Illinois, the Virgin Mary’s face on a piece of toast or the world’s most famous NFL quarterback encrusted on a grilled cheese sandwich, you never know what people will pay to own a one-of-a-kind snack.

That’s why an email from BT viewer Cheryl Gelinas caught my attention last month. A certain potato had caught her eye and Cheryl saw potential for a fundraiser. With that, the eBay auction for “Rudolph Valentato” was born.

Imagine my surprise when I received a package in the mail a couple of weeks later. Turns out Valentato himself was mine (and my $25 winning bid, along with a 300% match from another donor, was en route to the Heart & Stroke Foundation).

We had a bit of fun with the winning item on Wednesday’s BT:

rpj.

Home Sweet Home

Paul has a keen eye, seeing this bird is good news!    “One mild day at Hawrelak Park in Edmonton – I zoomed in on this fine-feathered friend“.    She sure is a beaute!    This is a female Pine Grosbeak & is quite the capture Paul, thank you.    We can clearly see her forked tail feathers and her 2 patches of gold.    But this bird is almost “fickle” in its migration pattern .. to find out why, keep reading!

DID YOU KNOW?    The Pine Grosbeak thrives in boreal forests across Canada, the U-S and Alaska.    You could say they live to eat.    Their diet includes:  buds of maple, birch, apple, mountain ash, poplar, and willow trees - fruits of crabapple & mountain ash, and seeds from birch, pine, and spruce.    But when their food supply dwindles they’ll take off in a great group.    It is common for whole populations to move south in search of food.    This activity is called irruption.    So the fact that this bird has stayed the winter is a good indication she and her flock have found a sustainable food source.

ALL IT TAKES IS A FEW MOMENTS OF OBSERVING – A SNAP AND A SEND.    AMAZE AND IMPRESS YOUR FRIENDS WHEN YOU BECOME A MEMBER OF THE FRESH AIR PHOTO NATION.    UPLOAD YOUR PICTURE TODAY!

She may be a man-eating, woman-crushing, heartless, soulless villain…but at least Courtney gives millions of  fans reason to watch what might otherwise qualify as a lacklustre season of The Bachelor (Mondays, 9pm, OMNI).

Ben, on the other hand, seems to be doing everything within his power to exasperate every loyal viewer of the wildly-popular franchise. The Bachelor himself has ignored multiple warnings from various women, all of them solely focused on the model who (as of this week) is now one of the final two contestants remaining in the mix.

Our BT Bachelor panelists do a marvelous job of sifting through the smoke screens. Click on the video link below to check out this Tuesday’s 8:10am segment (including Trevor Schmidt’s passionate plea to our morning audience).

Next week, it’s the always-dramatic “The Women Tell All” episode leading up to the big finale on Monday, March 12th. Until then…

rpj.

Family portrait

Precious primates

Simply amazing.    Suman saw this family monkeying around .. not in a zoo, not in a refuge, just minding their own business in their home and native land of India:  ”The monkey family was in the Himalayan town of Gangtok in Northern India.   We were driving up the mountain and we kept seeing monkeys on the side of the road so eventually we stopped so I could take some pics.   This was in May but the weather there is quite different from the rest of India because it’s up in the mountains.   It was 20 degrees and cool compared to much of India that was 40C at the time”.

DID YOU KNOW?    Monkeys are divided into two geographically separate groups:  the New World Monkeys of South America and the Old World Monkeys found in Africa and Asia.    Momma and her babies above are Old World Rhesus Macaques – they are the most common monkey in that area and thrive at higher elevations of 2,500 metres.    Dinner is usually pine needles, flowers, insects, spiders, eggs or small animals.    They have specialized pouch-like cheeks to temporarily store their food.    That way they can save ’seconds’ for later – most often in safe surroundings.    A group of monkeys is called a troop – anwhere from 20 to sometimes more than 100.    And troops have even been spotted swimming – something they are very good at.

WE MAY NOT BE ABLE TO GO WHERE YOU DO – BUT WE SURE WOULD LIKE TO SEE YOUR PHOTOS WHEN YOU GET BACK.    SEND US YOUR FRESH AIR PHOTO TODAY, SEE IT ON BT AND THIS BLOG TOMORROW!!

Anybody know what time it is?

Kim asks:  Can you guess what time it “was” in this shot?    It was 2am - in June.    “You are looking at the Midnight Sun over Seven Mile Island in Canada’s Arctic.    The sled is called a komatik.   I adored living in the arctic!   I was posted at Coppermine (now Kugluktuk) with Transport Canada just shy of one year so got the full experience!   When your life depends on how well you are dressed, you learn quick!!    Spring and Summer were short but sweet.   I became known as a muskeg runner because I loved to challenge myself to run through it having to quickly decide which knoll was likely to be firm enough to step on, or I got wet and cold!   The only thing I missed were trees, YCO is roughly 500 miles north of the tree line”.    Scroll down to see exactly where this is!

DID YOU KNOW?    Seven Mile Island is about 14km from the community of Kugkluktuk (formerly Coppermine) in Nunavut.    Kugluktuk “the place of moving water” sits at the mouth of the Coppermine River in the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut, Canada, on Coronation Gulf, southwest of Victoria Island … almost on the border with the Northwest Territories.