Flamingoes & Festival of Sainte Sara la noire |
We climbed the wall and slept in the Papal Gardens in Arles, waking stiff on a bench overlooking the river in the morning. We arrived late at night. No one answered their door.
Why did we hitchhike to the Camargue to see the flamingos, [ who obliged by migrating to Africa weeks before ] We sloshed back and forth with fishing gear in the back of a Citreon that rocked on all axis like a spaceship, our only ride of the day, walking the perfectly straight road all day, Cezanne's mountain on our left, in the haze.
De Gaulle had said that hippies were terrible and no one should pick them up. They listened. In Paris, coming out of the Metro on the Champs Elysees, a giant Louis XIV chair, purple and gold is set on a dais. It was so enormous even DeGalle would have looked like a child if he sat in it. The parade has past an hour ago. "De Gaulle was here!"
The Camargue was beautiful with imaginary Flamingos, the driver of the flying saucer Citroen gave us green melons and Ricard and made us his guest , even though we were so tired we could hardly speak in any language. "We are not French! We are Gitanes!" he repeated and which, thanks to the cigarettes, we could understand. "Gitanes!"
[ Last year in the Marais I saw an ambulance driver zipping long, very relaxed, smoking a long long cigarette. I wondered if the person in back was enjoying a smoke too]
Pigeons can see ultraviolet light and polarized light patterns in the sky.
They use the skylight polarization pattern as part of a sun compass
for orientation, navigation and in spatial orientation tasks.
... Avian double cones have been proposed as putative polarized light receptors...
Intriguing parallels between the functional and physiological properties of polarized light
Reception and light-dependent magnetoreception could point to a common receptor system.
Flamingos flying over Tanzania’s Lake Natron, a salt lake which is home to three quarters of the world’s three million flamingos, as well as toxic multicoloured extremophile cyanobacteria that thrive in water so hypersaline it would strip away human skin. For the flamingos, however, the tough skin and scales on their legs prevents burning, leaving them uniquely free to drink from the near boiling freshwater found from springs and geysers at the lake’s edges.
A flock of pink flamingos fly over an incredibly colourful landscape created by mineral rich soil which changes colour depending on the angle of light.
Professional photographer, Phillip Chang, 61, captured this stunning picture whilst flying over the Natron Lake in Tanzania.
Phillip, who was photographing the landscape itself, was surprised by the appearance of the birds. He said, "The birds formed amazing shapes that you cannot see from below."
We live near a big hospital on a main street so ambulances go by everyday. Our dogs do a whole number when they hear the siren, but not every one gets sung to.
There is an audition period, ears perking, head cocking, followed by various levels of heart wrenching chorusing, sometimes quite feeble for suspected malingerers.
Yesterday they weirded me out by striking up when an ambulance went by slowly without its siren on. They couldn't see, I barely took notice but they lit up right away.
Yet they seem accepting and only curious when one of their number dies.
A pack of stray dogs arrived together, to pay last respects to Margarita Suarez.
Photo via mirror.co.uk
Lying in the floors and trotting through the aisles, the dogs congregated at the funeral of Margarita Suarez - much to the surprise of the woman's friends and family.
Hard to say that it was one of the senses that led the dogs to the funeral home. Last they saw her she was carried off in an ambulance.
Amazingly, on the day of the funeral, a large number of stray dogs slowly followed the hearse carrying Margarita and even returned to the funeral home.
Mary Magdalene arriving in France in a boat without a sail or rudder.
Celebrated by the Gitanes (Rom) community because one of their own sheltered Mary or was with her as a servant, depending which version you hear.
In any case in the video the servant part is disputed and corrected to 'tribal leader who helped people with plants when they were sick) "
Romanies, Manouches, Tziganes and Gitans come from the four corners of Europe and even other continents to venerate their Saint, the Black Sara....
Sara poses for the historiographer an enigma that doesn't seem ready to be resolved. A Camargue tradition sees her as the Saints Mary Jacobe and Mary Salome's servant in Palestine, and as their companion on the banks of the Rhône.
Another tradition, attributed to the Gypsies, see her as a Gypsy who was settled on the Provençal shores and who was the first to welcome, right here, the exiled women from the Holy Land. But what is the foundation for this tradition when History doesn't mention the coming of the Gypsies to France and Provence until the 15th century?" Perhaps being dark they were welcome as people from the traditional story and over time, adapted and embellished it.
