Inspirational Weekend - "What About Love?" (Animal Photographs, Bird Photographs, Famous Quotes, Animal Video)

"Since love grows within you, so beauty grows.  For love is the beauty of the soul."  - Augustine

Loving Spoonbills

Happy weekend to you !  This inspirational weekend post will be a little different as I will mostly use quotes from famous people ..... quotes about love, along with my photographs and a video about how animals can express love.

Most people were raised in a loving and demonstrative family.  Count your blessings !

Meerkat Family

Lesser Flamingo Family

"The world does not understand theology or dogma, but it understands love and sympathy."  -  Dwight L. Moody.     

"Faith makes all things possible....love makes all things easy."  - Dwight L. Moody

"Do not waste time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor; act as if you did.  As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets.   When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him."  - C. S. Lewis

"Neighbors"

"What does love look like?  It has the hands to help others.  It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy.  It has eyes to see misery and want.  It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men.  That is what love looks like."  -  Augustine

"The world is not a play-ground.  It is a school-room.  Life is not a holiday, but an education.  And the one eternal lesson for us all is how better can we love."  -  Henry Drummond

"The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us."  -  C. S. Lewis

Below is a video (not mine) showing love between animals:

Below is a photograph (not mine) for humor:

Scripture says:

Matthew 22:37-40=   Jesus said unto him,  Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.  This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Endangered Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle (Photographs and Video)

Hawaii Green Sea Turtle

Green turtles are found everywhere in the world, mostly in tropical waters. The "Honu", Hawaiian name for the green turtle, is distinct from other green sea turtles.  In 1978 it was put on the endangered list because people were harvesting both turtles and eggs to the point the population of these creatures was in peril.   Since then, the Hawaii green sea turtles have made sort of a come back.  

The Honu nest, for the most part, in the French Frigate Shoals of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.  This is a protected area and  is largely free of any predators to the eggs or the babies.  The females deposit eggs at night and up to seven clutches are deposited over the course of a week or so.  The usual amount, however, is 2 or 3 clutches in that time frame.   For each clutch, they lay around 100 eggs.   These gentle turtles only breed every 2 or 3 years, and sometimes not that often.

Juvenile green sea turtles have been known to eat cuttlefish, sponges, seaweed, and jellyfish.  But their main diet is vegetarian.  Adult Hawaiian green sea turtles are known to frequent near shore waters in order to find food as well as to come ashore to bask on the beach.  All of my photographs here I took at Laniakea Beach on Oahu's North Shore.   Sometimes there are several turtles at one time resting and basking on that beautiful beach, also called "Turtle Beach".   This beach is about an hour drive from Waikiki and is 1.5 miles from the charming town of Haleiwa, as you head towards famous Waimea Bay.   Green turtles come to Laniakea Beach to feed on seaweed and algae.  

The above two photographs I took of Laniakea Beach.   That sign on the beach in the photo directly above has information on it about the Honu.   There are volunteers at this beach that are helpful and informative when it comes to the turtles.   They monitor the turtles closely and know each one by name.  They also place red tape around the basking turtles to keep people from getting too close to them.

In my photo above, you can see how close the newly arrived  turtles  are to people before the volunteers rope off the area to keep people at a safe distance.

Below is a short video showing the Honu swimming and eating.

Below is a painting I completed sometime back and prints of it are available at   Fine Art America

"Ain't She Pretty"

24" x 24" acrylic on gallery wrap canvas

Available

The artist in me took liberties with color here;  I made the Hawaiian green sea turtle greener than it actually appears in real life.   That was my intention.  

When you make a trip to Oahu, be sure to bring your camera and take pictures of the Honu at Laniakea Beach.   Summertime is the best time to find them basking there, as the waters are not as turbulent and the waves are not as high as at other times of the year.

Avery Island, Louisiana (Egrets, Oak Trees, Alligators and More) Photography and Videos

Above is a typical scene to be found at Avery Island, New Iberia, Louisiana.  It covers about 2200 acres and is surrounded on all sides by bayous (slow moving muddy rivers) and by swampland and salt marsh.   It is mostly known for the Tabasco Sauce produced there, but it is also a bird sanctuary and has abundant wildlife and many alligators as a following video here shows.   When I visited there several years ago, I did not see any alligators whatsoever.   

Lots of Spanish moss on an over hanging oak tree branch.   Note the wild iris as well.

The Louisiana Iris is the state wildflower and it comes in a wide variety of colors:  blue, purple, yellow, white and pink.   It grows wild primarily in marshland areas around coastal areas.   

This photograph is a little blurred, but let's pretend that's because it is artistic !     I wanted to show the Louisiana wild iris with the egrets in the background.   Unfortunately, I did not take very many photographs while I was there and I am limited as to what I can post here.   Below is a video about the history of the egrets at Avery Island.   Right now it is estimated that there are over 100,000 egrets there.

And if you scroll down, here is another video with views of the gardens at Avery Island.  I hope you are interested in alligators, because there are plenty in this video below.

More of my photographs follow below:

Avery Island is a salt dome, and it is located about 140 miles west of New Orleans.  It is about 3 miles inland from Vermillion Bay which opens into the Gulf of Mexico.

I hope you enjoyed your visit with me here as much as I enjoyed viewing these photographs from years gone by.

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Red Vented Bulbul - Drama on Oahu, Hawaii

Red Vented Bulbul in Palm Tree

Photograph by Carol Reynolds

Red Vented Bulbuls (pycnonotas cafer) are quite common on the island of Oahu.  They are considered a harmful invasive species as they wreck havoc on gardens and fruits and causes over $300,000 damage annually to orchids here.    There are several orchid growers on this island.   Red vented Bulbuls eat other things besides flowers and flower buds; they also eat fruit and vegetables as well as insects and even small lizards.   I took the photograph above from off my patio (they are called lanai here in Hawaii).   There is a big drama going on above in the palm trees just beyond my lanai.   See photo below.

Anyone familiar with palm trees knows that when they have orange and/or brown "leaves" that that means it is dying and will soon fall off the tree.   Can you see the bulbul in this tree?  A pair has built a nest on this dying palm leaf.   It was green when they began the nest.    Look below.

See the nest ?   At this point I believe there are only eggs in the nest, because the male and female take turns sitting on it and there is no constant back and forth like there would  be if the eggs had hatched and they were feeding babies.   

I wish I could do something to help.   I called the number for a bird/animal rescue place, and the woman said nature would just have to take its course,   These were probably young parents and they will have to learn the hard way to build their nest somewhere else.   Nesting season lasts a long time and soon they will have a new nest and new eggs. 

The photograph directly above gives you a good look at the Red Vented Bulbul's nice crest.

I took all the above photos this morning while on my lanai.   Later in this post is a video by someone else from You Tube, showing baby bulbuls being fed by the parents.  I wanted to give you a little more information about this aggressive bird first.     They are just a tad over 8 inches in size, and so far are found only on Oahu and the big island of Hawaii.  They are an alien introduced species to Hawaii and were originally from tropical southern Asia, as in India and Burma and China and I believe Pakistan as well.   The male and female bulbul look alike.   

On Oahu there is also found the Red Whiskered Bulbul, which are a bit smaller and, in my opinion, a lot prettier as they are lighter in color.   

I hope, after the nest falls , that "my" bulbuls stay near my area.   I enjoy their beautiful songs and their comings and goings.   They chase smaller finches and other birds away from what they consider their territory.    

Below is a video of bulbuls,     Enjoy !

reynoldsrenditions@gmail.com

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Alien or Introduced Birds of Hawaii (Finches and Common Waxbill)

"God loved the birds and invented trees.   Man loved the birds and invented cages."  - Jacques Deval

Yellow-Fronted Canary

The yellow-fronted canary is very common in Hawaii. I have seen most of the ones I have photographed on Oahu at Kapiolani Park in Waikiki.  They are native to Africa and were introduced to Hawaii in the 1960's.

Below is a painting of mine which includes one of these canaries.  

"Contemplating Life"

9" x 12" oil on canvas

Available

In this painting is a little story:  the beautiful and sweet canary can wreck havoc on the butterfly and the lady bug in the painting.   Life is sometimes cruel and also fragile.  I based the title of this painting on Ecclesiastes 3:1-8...... "To everything there is a season....." 

Saffron Finch

I photographed this beautiful Saffron Finch in the artsy town of Haleiwa on the North Shore of Oahu.  They are suppose to be more common on the Big Island of Hawaii than on Oahu; I have only seen them in 2 or 3 other areas of Oahu. They are 7 inches and mostly yellow with orange on the forecrown.   They were introduced in the 1960's from South America.    I get a big thrill whenever I see them.   

Common Waxbill

Not the best photograph, but I have my mind set on a future painting with this reference photo and I can make improvements then.

Common Waxbill

The Common Waxbill is a tiny little 4" bird that  is found in small flocks and they are fast and furious when they fly.  They are very shy and very common on Oahu.   They are native to Africa.  They are not an especially pretty bird, but I find them cute and charming and enjoy watching them.

Java Sparrows

Java Sparrow

The Java Finch or Java Sparrow is quite a handsome bird as far as I am concerned, and remind me of Puffins.    They are literally everywhere on Oahu, and on the Big Island of Hawaii as well as Maui .  These birds also travel in large flocks.  They are native to Indonesia.   

The House Finch as well as the House Sparrow have also "invaded" Hawaii.   I love all of these birds and they remind me of the mainland USA, but so many of the native birds of Hawaii have suffered because of these and other introductions (like the mongoose - that is a subject for another post) and several native birds have become extinct.

We can learn a lot from nature and birds.   For instance,  you have never seen a bird sitting on a wire or a tree branch having a nervous breakdown wondering about the next meal !  Reminds me of Matthew 6:25, 26 where it says that the heavenly Father takes care of the birds of the air; and also in Matthew 10:29-31 where it says we are worth more than many sparrows to Our Father.   He will take care of us and provide for us; just trust and have faith. 

My Website  

reynoldsrenditions@gmail.com