Pelican Yoga

Looking down (#46 in series: on Pakistan’s Shyok River)

Published May 16, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#46 in series: on Pakistan’s Shyok River)

Arguably, the world’s most dramatic alpine scenery is in northern Pakistan.

Distinct from the Himalaya-proper, the Karakoram includes the world’s second highest mountain, plus many other peaks which are handsomely more spectacular/imposing than is Everest.

The Karakoram’s rivers are incredibly dynamic, constantly reshaping their valleys.

Essential to human life in this very demanding environment, these rivers also kill people and destroy many man-made structures..

Above and below, you are looking at the Shyok River, several kilometres upstream of its confluence with the Indus.

The Indus drains almost literally all of Pakistan.

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Looking down (#45 in series: from both sides of Tasmania’s highest dam wall)

Published May 11, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#45 in series: from both sides of Tasmania’s highest dam wall)

The Gordon Dam took ten years (1964-1974) to build, in southwestern Tasmania’s “wilderness”.

Its creation/raison d’être – Lake Gordon – is Tasmania’s largest lake.

When full – which it hardly ever is – that reservoir is Australia’s largest body of freshwater.

Most of the time, the actually largest freshwater body in Australia is another man-made one – Western Australia’s Lake Argyle, which always covers a much larger surface area than does Lake Gordon.

The Gordon Dam was in itself a very controversial project, but the bigger environmental battle (arguably, Australia’s most significant) was the subsequent one which eventually prevented construction of its intended “sibling” dam, downstream.

Click here, if the saga is new to you.

The featured image shows the dam-walled edge of Lake Gordon’s dark waters

The photo below, taken three minutes later from the Gordon Dam wall’s other side, looks down, 140 vertical metres.

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Looking down (#44 in series: on a turtle in Réunion)

Published May 4, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#44 in series: on a turtle in Réunion)

I rarely deploy a camera in any kind of zoo, but this opportunity was too good to miss.

In addition to the island’s glorious natural attractions (they include the Indian Ocean’s highest peak, a host of endemic species, one of the world’s most active volcanoes, and one of its rainiest locations) Réunion has an excellent aquarium.

i am almost certain that this post’s hero is a hawksbill turtle.

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Looking down (#43 in series: on a Sicklefin lemon shark)

Published May 1, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#43 in series: on a Sicklefin lemon shark)

In March 2016 my beloved and I were in northwest Western Australia, “sailing” on a motorised yacht from Broome to Wyndham.

(with many “tinny” side-trips to islands, tidal creeks, beaches, waterfalls, etc)

We were “exploring” the Kimberley Coast – the world’s greatest tropical coastal “wilderness”.

Around 7am on the fourth day of March, we were just a few kilometres distant from Horizontal Falls – this coastline’s most celebrated “attraction”.

By Grand Canyon standards, visitor numbers were infinitesimal.

However, by “way-out-of-any-town” Kimberley standards, we were in severely tourist-infested waters.

Accordingly, some local sharks have learned that a boat may provide a “free feed”; we were far from the first tourists to observe a very relaxed shark, so “amazingly close” to “their” boat.

To my knowledge, “our” boat did not feed the shark.

Nonetheless, the image immediately above does show a mutually beneficial relationship between a “client” (the shark) and some “service providers”..

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Looking down (#42 in series: on a frond & a 100% organic “float”)

Published April 26, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#42 in series: on a frond & a 100% organic “float”)

As was true of #41 in this series, I took the featured photograph in southeastern Alaska’s Glacier Bay in June 2015.

Unsurprisingly, kelp “forests” thrive there.

Kelps (and all other seaweed species) do photosynthesise, but – like all other algae – they are not plants.

Algae – even the towering “forests” of giant kelp – have no roots, nor any “complex” vascular structures.

As anyone who has harvested washed-up kelp from a beach knows, a single frond from a kelp “forest” can be massive – much too heavy to float.

So how does a kelp “forest” manage to stay upright, with its fronds positioned high enough in the water column to enable them to “harvest” the necessary sunlight?

You are looking at the answer.

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Looking down (#41 in series: on a well-camouflaged fish)

Published April 22, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#41 in series: on a well-camouflaged fish)

This series has fewer than 10 remaining chapters.

The next several all look down into water, or through it, or at it.

This chapter’s image was the fruit of looking down into a tidal pool in southeastern Alaska.

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Looking down (#40 in series: on one of the darkest & fastest of its kind)

Published April 17, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#40 in series: on one of the darkest & fastest of its kind)

The featured image was not shot in monochrome.

Its colour palette is accurate; if my camera had looked straight up rather than almost straight down, the image would have largely been blue, flecked with white and grey.

I took the photo in a “remote” part of northern Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan province in May 2024.

What appears to be a rock is a rock; I have no idea of its mass, but am sure it would weigh at least several tonnes.

In the context of the relevant valley, however, that rock is a speck!

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Looking down (#39 in series: on a Madagascan barber, sans salon)

Published April 12, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#39 in series: on a Madagascan barber, sans salon)

An elevated vantage point sometimes offers an interesting, “different” view of human activity, and the opportunity to record it, candidly.

As the featured activity would suggest, I was looking down to a very “modest” street.

However, my vantage point for all images in this post was the most “desirable” location in Madagascar’s national capital – the royal palace complex, which sits atop the city’s highest hill.

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Looking down (#38 in series: on kelp, Otago Peninsula, NZ)

Published April 5, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#38 in series: on kelp, Otago Peninsula, NZ)

The Otago Peninsula is a long” finger”, extending 20 kilometres east-ish from the second largest city on New Zealand’s South Island.

Dunedin is modest in population – a “permanent” home to little more than 130,000 people, and now #7 in NZ.

Once, however, it was the nation’s premier city.

Dunedin still feels surprisingly “grand” and “important”; culturally, this “university city” is generally considered one of NZ’s “big four”.

The Otago Peninsula’s sheltered side is the southern wall of the large, drowned valley that is Otago Harbour.

Otago Peninsula’s ocean-facing side is very much wilder.

My photo looks down from the ocean side of the Peninsula’s extremity, Taiaroa Head, which is home to the world’s only “mainland” breeding colony of Northern Royal Albatross.

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Looking down (#37 in series: on a Wandoo woodland’s floor)

Published April 1, 2026 by Pelidoug

Looking down (#37 in series: on a Wandoo woodland’s floor)

If you wish to experience an incredibly diverse array of extraordinary flowering plants – most especially, species that naturally occur in only one part of the world – you’d be best-advised to avoid places with “good” soil and abundant, “reliable” rainfall.

The “winning” combination: “poor” soil, unreliable rainfall and a very high evaporation rate!

Arguably, the world’s best natural “flower gardens” are in the southwestern “corners” of Africa and Australia; there, “looking down” is almost always rewarding, but most especially so in Spring.

I took the photo on 30 October 2023, circa 100 kilometres southeast of Perth.

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