Photo time.. birds first

I had all but forgotten about the zoo pictures from the New Year's eve trip to San Diego. Things catch up and before you know it, the photoblog series came to an abrupt end.. or blogging for that matter. 

Was not feeling well last two days but made up for some quiet time this afternoon with photo editing. Here, are the birds that posed.

Majesty even in captivity! 

This guy was posing for portraits! 

Almost all the shots here were taken with the 70-200.. some with the now working extender at 400mm. 

This one is not a bird but rather the tail feathers.. the bird kept sticking its head into the feathers. Waited for almost 5 mintues but had to move on with the group..

it was one long feather.. at least 30 inches long and absolutely gorgeous. 

The Kookaburra is one shy bird. This one kept shuffling around. Was glad to catch the colors on the tail feathers.

when it came to "color" , this one takes first place!

This one is a close second..

THis is the first time we saw a secretary bird in a zoo. They could have done a better enclosure for this one instead of a thin long strip facing the road. A bird this beautiful deserves to be free. . or at least a better enclosure. 

Last but not least, a dove that came and posed for me. This is my favorite picture of the entire bird set. 

On to other beautiful creatures, big and small tomorrow.. 

Leo Carrillo Ranch historic park - Carlsbad

The next stop on our 2015 year end trip from Suresh Mama's house?

Leo Carrillo Ranch historic park. 

It was the ranch of the famous actor and park activist Leo Carrillo which now has been turned into a park with a visitor center.

The highlight of the park? 22 peacocks and peahens that are the decendents of a few birds brought from India many decades ago. 

They are free to go anywhere but apparently have made the ranch their permanent home! One of the peacocks is an albino..

We spent an hour at this park and walked a small trail there.  Let the kids have fun watching and following the birds.. 

There were many interesting questions raised.. why is the male more prettier than the female? shouldn't it be the other way around? girls are the ones that have to look pretty, no?! 

There may be really good answers out there on why this difference between peacocks and humans.. but most of the adults in the group just let it slide.

Here are some Peacock and peahen portraits from the park. 

We searched as far as we could before the park closed.. but could not sight the albino peacock. Some things have to wait for the next visit, eh?

Here is a family portrait, thanks to Suresh ... 

Loved the place!

Ventura beach and Harbor Village

Stop four on our road trip was the Ventura beach and Harbor Village. The beach was very cold and given I like heat more than cold, we decided to walk along the beach facing the sun to see if that would help. 

It did to a limited extent.. Hope that my Vitamin D blood test due next week will pass with flying colors after all the sun we got last week.

The waves were tall and rough and there were not that many people around at noon.

we saw these baby Plowers on the beach.. they were moving so fast and well camouflaged in the sands and shadows.. it took me a lot of clicks to get this little guy. 

Then from nowhere this eagle comes down and takes some of these birds! Amazing how nature works!

 The kids had fun running around and climbing the little dunes. 

Then we went to the Channel Island visitor center. We have always wanted to go to Channel Islands park, but they require a lot of planning as the boat tours get booked months in advance. This time we stayed within walking distance of the starting point, but again, same result. No tours available. 

The visitor center is much hyped in the Ventura city website, but it did not live up to that hype. Compared to other visitor centers we have seen in National parks, this one is "okay". 

We proceeded to go to the Harbor Village. This was the real deal! Had lunch at a nice Italian place called Milano's. The food was great! After lunch we walked around the Harbor and took pictures.. the kids went on a paddle boat ride for an hour and that gave us a nice break for a high tea!

This family portrait was taken outside Milano's. 

They had the entire walkway nicely decorated with these lamps. We watched two guys patiently change the decoration for each lamp from Christmas greeting to New Year greeting. 

The paddle boat ride was starting to be a disaster. We watched another family struggle to even get out of the narrow path. The kids somehow managed to navigate through, and once they were out, they had a great time. 

They were very tired after the one hour paddling in the sun. 

 We stopped by for some last minute pictures in front of the murals on the way out. 

and it was time to say bye to Ventura and head towards Anaheim, as we had a date with Mickey the next morning! 

All of us loved the Harbor Village. It is a quieter less cluttered version of Sausalito and the people were sooo nice! Maybe it was the holiday spirit. Maybe the people in the Ventura harbor village are nice by default. Either way, we loved it!

They say it is 5 PM somewhere, for me it is 9 AM somewhere! So the blog takes a break! 

We pick up at stop 5.. later!

N sided polygons

A pentagon that slowly moved to a Triangle..

One of my teachers was saying "we should all take pictures of us doing Yoga from angles that we don't see in the mirror. It will tell you a lot about what you think you are doing vs. what you are actually doing!"

"Be careful, you might not like what you see" was the message.

Photography and Yoga.. two things close to the heart.. coming together for a greater good?

Why not?

Was showing kids how "pentagon" and "triangle" are not the same thing. I used to do the Triangle pose like a pentagon till three years ago. Then Jim Kallet came and showed me how to sit down properly in this pose.

Later Michelle made a dancing reference and it got better.

Three months back Fire taught me a few things about locking legs.. as well as how to tilt my head before moving my arms and how to twist my head to get my profile to the mirror in the Triangle pose. The idea was to get my chin to the shoulder (I was doing cheek to shoulder).

This is a lot better than the version from 4 years ago but... 

 

I used to think in class that the profile of my face was visible to the mirror.. It is not! Still have to turn my face further up and to my left. 

My right thumb sticks out. It is supposed to be touching the rest of the fingers. 

Shoulders are supposed to be in one line and I thought they were in one line. They are not.

This is a real lifelong process of course correction. Will use this as a reference picture and see how it changes next year same time.

The little one took a video of my balancing stick. My knee is at 150 degrees. Definitely not even close to 180! My body is like a table top, but with a bent leg. Have to get it at least a little closer before posting a picture or video. 

By the way THE TRIANGLE ? it is the space between my thighs, forearm and body.. That gap should be a BIG triangle, preferably a right angled one... 

There is a lot of time to get there.

Golu 2015

This year the entire Golu visits were done over one weekend. Here are some of the golus from this year.

As usual, they were all grand and nicely done, be it three, five , seven or nine steps!

Again the kids did great side displays to show their creativity!

Some of the dolls are so intricate that these photos do not do justice to the dolls.

Golus that are new to us this year..

The rest are in this slideshow.. enjoy!

This year Jr. played the saxophone at some houses while she had the energy. She had practiced a few south Indian classical pieces and was hesistant about trying them out. We told her it was in front of friends and she should go for it. It was the highlight of the weekend.

Golus and our friends make sure we don't miss India during Navarathri season!