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Category: Americas and Eurasia and Africa

Freshwater driftwood, riverbed rocks (#59 in “a shining moment” series)

 

On 9 June 2015 the relevant part of the glacier and snowmelt-fed riverbed was bone dry.

But when the river rages, it uproots mighty trees, carries them for a while, then dumps them

Then, over many years, the consistently shifting, ever-swelling/shrinking river transforms their “skeletons”.

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“Ugly Beauty” (#55 in “a shining moment” series)

 

Ugly Beauty is a composition by Thelonious Monk.

Received notions, prejudices and phobias can prevent people from seeing or hearing clearly.

Less so posthumously, but very much so during his lifetime, many just did not “get” Monk’s music – for reasons not hugely dissimilar to those which can blind people to an arachnid’s or a reptile’s beauty.

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Daylight’s opening hour: upland (#54 in “a shining moment series)

 

Today’s song with words is a lovely celebration of daybreak on “the spine of England”.

Its image comes from “the roof of the world”, where even flat, “low” places are several thousand metres higher than England’s Pennine Hills.

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Daylight’s opening hour: lowland (#53 in “a shining moment” series)

 

Today’s photo (copyright Doug Spencer) was taken at 7.41 am on 05 February 2020 in the Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary, Keoladeo National Park, Rajasthan.

Its musical companion is a sublime morning raga, performed by one of the Indian subcontinent’s most eloquent instrumentalists.

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Fresh produce (#52 in “a shining moment” series)

 

The featured image (copyright Doug Spencer) shows produce being sold on the footpath in the “old city” quarter of Jaipur, Rajasthan, on 07 February 2020.

This post has two very different songs.

Neither is new, but each is fresh.

Both vividly remember the calls of actual produce sellers, but the second song is really about something that money cannot buy.

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High flyers (#49 in “a shining moment” series)

 

On this winter’s day in Rajasthan these demoiselle cranes had it easy.

The altitude was low, the weather mild, and they only had to fly for a few minutes – from a local dam to a nearby village, where food is provided expressly for them – then, back to the dam.

To reach this cranes’ paradise, however, they had to cross the world’s mightiest mountains…and as winter becomes spring they will have to fly over the Himalayas again.

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Bottoms up (#44 in “a shining moment” series)

 

Long, prominent tail feathers are a key feature of Anas acuta, the northern pintail.

This handsome, migratory, large dabbling duck really gets around.

The pictured individuals were wintering in Rajasthan, before heading north to their breeding grounds in central or northern Asia, or Europe.

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