Taking pictures at a zoo in Newquay gave me the opportunity to catch a chameleon under a light and to see it change colour.
Chameleon in the pink spotlight
Much more difficult to catch was this little fellow who was always on the move in Michigan.
Chipmunk
It just wouldn't stay sideways so that we could see its stripes.
However my favourite retriever was only too pleased to sit in the shade when he had finished playing with his ball.
Cody
He liked to sleep on the mat next to our bed when we stayed at his home. The only problem was he snored so loudly that we could not sleep. He had to drag him on the mat to get him outside the room.
Nevertheless for a long time he could been seen as the wallpaper on my computer engrossed in a favourite pastime.
I meet many dogs in our village. This is a Lhasa Apso named
Billy
He gives me my first link to our prompt for this week.
Billie Holiday with a dog
One dog which always has a place in our heart belonged to my wife's sister but resided with her mother in the 1950s. He has appeared on my Sepia posts before, but deserves another outing.
Major
Now when we go on holiday we always get involved with dogs - and they regard it as a holiday too. These two we didn't know but they loved a Cornish beach.
Paddling on Crantock beach
My daughter's dogs in Michigan always look on it as a holiday when we are there. One of them was always content to practise his favourite sport alone.
Cody fishing for frogs
Buster however was always impatient when we took him out in Caranton Woods in Cornwall.
Come on you two. Keep up!
The dog park near my daughter's home was a place her dogs always loved. It meant that they could dive in and climb out up a ramp.
Cody, Scout, Lily and Gem after a swim off the jetty
Of course there was also the ever present tennis ball to play with, if Cody didn't wander off to look for a treat by sitting down at somebody's holiday picnic spread.
Scout was named after the girl in Harper Lee's 'To Kill a Mockingbird' even although he is a boy.
It seems appropriate somehow to finish this post with him on the day that the death of Harper Lee is announced.
Scout - at rest
RIP Harper Lee.
To check how others have interpreted the prompt this week stroll over to the links at Sepia-Saturday-318.
Congratulations and grateful thanks to Carmi for his Thematic Photographic themes. This week is the 300th time he has set a theme for us to follow and in which he has given us free rein to show our favourite photos. Here are just five of mine, most of which will have appeared on my blog before,at one time or another. This is the most recent,
Bullfinch 2014
recovering in comfort from a head on clash with a doubled-glazed window.
I wasn't very good with a camera before digital came along. Good photos were a bit 'hit' of 'miss.' This is a successful miss!
Miss - Hutton-le-Hole, North Yorkshire, 1981
The blur just under her hand is a bridge across a stream. The Infinity Bridge at Stockton-on-Tees provides a lot of opportunities for camera buffs. One of my favourite shots is this one taken looking up from the footbridge -
Infinity Bridge
Dogs have featured in many of my posts and it's almost impossible to choose a favourite from amongst them. So I'm going to include two - of the same dog.
Cody 'fishing'
and relaxing after a game of tennis, or is he waiting for the game to start?
R - Rottweiler, Retriever Crufts, The greatest dog show in the world, has been on while I have drafted some posts for this year's Challenge. The Best in Breed for the Working Group turned out to be Barney, a Rottweiler.
I don't have any photos of him but it just so happens that a five months-old puppy has recently come to live in my village.
Max - Rottweiler puppy
Max walks quite well on a lead even at this age and he is getting used to meeting people. Now that he recognises me he wants to play and not sit still to be photographed.
Max
Rottweilers are an ancient breed once used in wild-boar hunting and as a cattle dog. More recently they have been used for police work and as guard dogs.
I introduced you to the "Gang of Four" under 'L' for Labrador.Now it's the Retriever's turn in a second "Gang of Four," also owned by my daughter and her husband.
Black Lab Mutt (Gem), Retrievers - Cody, Scout and Lily
Cody and Scout were special mates since they came from the same breeder. Cody had been cared for there for a long time after his owner died. When Scout was a puppy and and the breeders had a licensing problem their dogs were being taken into care while the problem was sorted out. When the premises were being cleared Cody had hidden Scout in a cupboard and laid down in front of the door so that he would not be found.
They were both 'loaned' out with number of other dogs to stay with Gem and blind Sam (see 'L'). Cody and Scout proved inseparable and they stayed when the other dogs went back. After Sam passed on the new "Gang of Four" was formed when they were joined by Lily, a Golden Retriever puppy.
Cody being teased by Scout
Cody died last summer. He was a dog who had some favourite positions, usually spreadeagled on the floor.
With one eye on his tennis ball
They all like swimming in the lake, probably Scout most of all.
Scout coming back to land
Lily, looking angelic
But as befits the youngest she's the one always in trouble.
In picking my favourite photos of 2013 I have tried to avoid shots that have appeared on Thematic Photography before. But in working through the year I just had to start with one you have seen already.
White Frost - January 2013
We get a variety of birds in our garden throughout the year. In April this cock bird was taking a stroll over a flowerbed.
Cock Pheasant - April 2013
One of the most colourful birds we see is the bullfinch not that you can view it in all its glory in the next shot I've chosen.
Bullfinch in Conifer - May 2013
Next I have chosen a shot of a single flower - the only one of this type we have,
Alium - June 2013
At the end of August we set out to visit our daughter in Michigan. I have shown many pictures of her dogs over the year but my next picture reminds me that three weeks before we travelled, she lost Cody the oldest of her four dogs.
Cody before he crossed the Rainbow Bridge
While in Michigan in September we visited Detroit Zoo. A series of my favourite photos of the animals appeared in Treasured-thematic-photography.
Away from the zoo I came across this chap, one of the biggest I've seen - the metal frame he is hanging on to is 3-4 inches deep.
Grasshopper - September 2013
Back home when we visited York I could not resist taking the next shot.
'Dog' doing what comes naturally - York, November 2013
When it came to Christmas Day a jewel took pride of place.
Ready to Ring in the New
All that remains is for me to wish Carmi and all Thematic Photographic contributors a Prosperous and Happy New Year.
Carmi has asked us this week to show photos we didn't take ourselves. The only way I can be absolutesure of that is to show pictures in which I appear myself. However I'm not the important one in the shots I have chosen to show - one of which you have seen before.
Cody waiting in the hope of a taste
A second shot from a different angle shows him (in 2010) still waiting patiently - he would never beg.
Cody in a favourite position.
This is a position he will never take up again, but one in which I will remember him for ever.
Cody, my daughter's dog died, in his sixteenth year on Sunday 18 August when his loyal heart finally gave out.
Cody starred in many thematic photographic posts of mine where I took the shots. For more shots not taken by others please cross over to Thematic-photographic-257.
I went searching in my archive to meet Carmi's 'Downward' theme this week. I had quite a choice but settled on these five..
Turbine Generator Exhausts - Platform construction site.
From my brother's pictures taken during WWII.
Aerial View - Attack on the Italian Fleet - Taranto 1940
I have no idea how my brother obtained this picture. There is one very similar in the Imperial War Museum. I have to assume that he obtained from a Fleet Air Arm pilot on the raid.
On a wet April day in 2010 I took some shots of and from the Clifton Suspension Bridge looking down in to the Avon Gorge.
Clifton Suspension Bridge and looking down the Avon Gorge
Avon Gorge from the Clifton Suspension Bridge
I am going to cheat with my last photo, I was not looking downwards but ....
My A-Z posts this year
are based on my garden – flowers, animals, the birds and the bees, butterflies
- with a bit of poetry thrown in. For some letters I am expecting to cheat
somewhat – wishing they were here.
R – Rose, Rhododendron, Robin, Rabbit, Retriever
For a rose we can only begin with Burns:
My love is like a
red, red rose
That’s newly sprung
in June
An older verse applies to roses too as not all are as red as
those.
Thou blushing rise,
within whose virgin leaves
The wanton wind to
sport himself presumes.
Over the years we have been
nurturing a rhododendron bush that didn’t thrive in the soil in the front
garden border. It has gone from border to tub, to ericaceous tub to back garden
border where it now flowers happily.
Rhododendron
Three girls,
engrossed, were wrenching full clusters
Of cerise and pink
from the rhododendron,
Mountaining them on
spread newspaper.
They brassily picked,
slowed by no chagrin,
I’m pleased to be able to show a
photo of one of my favourite birds which I’m sure you will have all seen on
Christmas cards.
Robin
No noise is here. Or
none that hinders thought.
The redbreast warbles
still, but is content
With slender notes,
and more than half suppressed;
Pleased with his
solitude, and flitting light
From spray to spray,
where’er he rests he shakes
From many a twig the
pendant drops of ice,
That tinkle in the
withered leaves below.
Cute but less welcomed is this fellow about to attack the
plants.
Rabbit
Now if today had been Friday then perhaps I’d get up early and
sing along:
The song was written for Noel Gay's
show 'The Little Dog Laughed' which opened on 11 October 1939, at a time when
most of the major London
theatres were closed.
The farmer with a gun would have
needed a Retriever to fetch the rabbit. I know one that could do the job.
Cody
Incidentally Cody was 15 years old on Easter Sunday; he’s no
April fool.
