Duck tales - Cool Wall-papers of Waterbirds

Here are 20 of my favourite wallpaper images, about cool waterbirds - completely free for you in high resolution with greetings of Holi, the Indian festival of colours.

Click on the picture you like and it will open on a new page with that image in high resolution. You can then save it on your computer and use it as you wish! If you have an old computer with limited RAM, you may need to downsize these images as they are all high-resolution big files.

If you do not know what are wallpapers and how to use them, click the "Wallpapers" tab above (towards the top of the blog) for instructions.

And if you like these wallpapers, do share the link of this page through Facebook, Google plus and Twitter. So check these out and have fun!

I hoped you have liked at least some of these wallpapers. If yes, do not forget to share the link to this page through Facebook, Twitter, Google plus etc. Thanks in advance and happy holi, the festival of colours from India!

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Fun in the theme parks - Mirabilandia and Oltremare

Adriatic coast of Italy, from Ravenna down to Ancona is one long stretch of seaside towns that come alive with tourists every summer. Parts of this seaside route between Savio to Riccione are the most famous and thus, most crowded. These are also the parts that are full of tourist attractions that open around the end of March and remain open till the end of tourist season in September. This post is a photoessay about two theme parks in this area - Mirabilandia in Savio and Oltremare in Riccione.

Both these theme parks have an entry ticket of around 30 Euro per person, but they have special offers for hotels-plus-entry and for families, which work out much cheaper. The tickets are valid for two consecutive days.

Mirabilandia theme park

Mirabilandia is a games and adventure theme park. It has many kinds of roller coaster rides including those that splash into water and those that run entirely in water, passing through water falls.

My favourite ride in this park is where the lift takes you up to the top of a tower and then drops you down, stopping just before you touch the ground. It brought me a big rush of adrenaline.

The park also has some cultural shows including dance and music shows, clown shows, and a film stunt show with cars and bombs.

The entry ticket covers the cost of all the rides, the only problem is due to the long queues in front of the popular rides, especially on the weekends and especially in July-August. Therefore, I prefer going there during April-May, before the tourist rush starts!

Oltremare theme park

Oltremare is a nature theme park with dolphins, fishes, birds and animals.

My favourite part of this park is the dolphin show which is simply incredible. I know some persons who do not like the idea of using living beings as part of game shows and would like to close all zoos and animal based shows. I agree with them that even with the best of conditions, an animal in captivity is never in the same condition as being free.

However, I also feel that the world is very careless towards animal lives. The human capacity for killing animals and fishes and destroying the environment in their greed for money is endless. In this situation, I feel that zoos and theme parks play a fundamental role, much more effective than all the books and films, in educating the young people about nature and environment. Thus while acknowledging that zoos and theme parks are not the best thing to happen to the animals that live inside them, I think that these are useful and  can play an important educational role.

I also love the animal theatre of Oltremare where small birds and animals are the actors.

The park also has lot of different areas for looking at close at fishes, other marine beings and animals, including farm animals.

Conclusions

I love both the theme parks, Mirabilandia and Oltremare. However, if I had to choose only one, I would choose Oltremare, since I love watching the animals. So if you are holidaying in Romagna, the Adiatric coast of Italy, find time to visit these two parks!

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Best of Nature & Wildlife Pics 2011

This was a wonderful year for my photography. My main interest is in taking pictures of ordinary people and daily lives. However, whenever I get a chance, I also like taking pictures of nature, flowers, plants, animals and birds.

I have a simple Nikon SLR D40 and I don't use any special macro lenses.

My two key moments in 2011 regarding nature-wild life photography were a visit to Mangal Das Graças in Belem (Brazil) and a visit to Delhi zoo (India). Actually zoos with caged animals and birds are the opposite of wild life but I like Delhi zoo, as it has so many open areas with huge spaces, and lot of migratory birds that come here in the winters.

From all the nature and wild life pictures that I clicked in 2011, here is a selection of 20 images that I really like.

(1) Curcuma in Kanakpura, India: I was at TRDC, a vocational training centre for disabled guys where they learn about agriculture and animal husbandry. It is run by Sri Ramana Maharishi Academy for Blind of Bangalore. Students here grow different crops. I was there for a meeting.

During the lunch break, I was walking in the fields, when I saw Chander following me. He is deaf and thus, we talked through gestures. He dug out a piece of the root of curcuma (haldi) to show it to me and I was really thrilled. I had never seen fresh curcuma before.

(2) Flowers and the butterfly: The next picture is also from TRDC in Kanakpura. During a coffee break, I saw two butterflies around some salmon pink colured flowers (called Ixora - name courtsey, Gughuni Basuti :)). Part of the wings of the butterflies were of a similar colour. I cautiously crept closer and managed to click the picture of one of them.

(3) Orchid gardens of Manila: The third image is from Manila (Philippines). We were staying in the middle of the city and I was busy in running a workshop and then coordinating different meetings. Thus there was little time to go out and explore the city. Still one morning I managed to visit an orchid garden. Though I didn't see any orchid flowers, the views of placid water in the canal were beautiful.

(4) Wild life from Amazon: The next 6 pictures are all from Mangal Das Graças, a beautiful wildlife oasis on Amazon river in Belem (Parà state, Brazil). Pheasants, herons, scarlett ibis, iguanas, colourful macaws, etc., there was so much to admire in this place. I was especially fascinated by the macaws, who seemed to have specific personalities and looked at me disdainfully.

(10) Monkey and the ancient tomb: The next image is from Tughlakabad in Delhi. It was a foggy morning and we were visiting the tomb of the Tughlak emperor from 13th century, when through a slit in the tower, I saw this monkey sitting on a tree outside.

(11) Autumn in Bologna: For nature and wild life photography, there are so many opportunities closer to our home, like this picture of yellowing autumn leaves. I took this picture one morning in the garden next to our home when I had taken our dog out for his morning walk.

(12) Moss and lichen: One of the wonderful experiences in 2011 was to go out for a nature discovery walk with Marco Colombari, who explained about inter-connections between plants, trees, birds, animals and human beings, and took us to discover an old sacred forest in the middle of the city. I love the bright colours of moss and lichen of this picture.

(13) Libelia Sifilitica: During a visit to Geneva (Switzerland) I went to visit the botanical gardens. Some ten years ago, I had lived in Geneva for a few months and at that time I had been to visit these botanical gardens many times. Going back to the gardens after ten years was wonderful for discovering so many medicinal plants like Libelia Sifilitica that was used for treating Syphilis before the antibiotics.

(14) Wild life from Delhi zoo: Next five images are from a visit to Delhi zoo. The images are of black necked stork, kite, great hornbill, lion and painted stork. I love painted storks and can look at them for hours without getting tired, and I had gone to the zoo especially, to look at them.

(19) Migratory birds in Kakkere Bellur: While coming back from Mandya, someone proposed that we visit the Kakkere Bellur village in Maddur sub-district. Here migratory birds come and live in the village trees, in harmony with people living there. Villagers are very protective towards the birds and say proudly that their daughters have come home for child-birth.

(20) Sun flowers: This last image is of a variety of sun-flowers from a park in Geneva. I loved their beautiful colours and their satiny look.

So what do you think of my selection of the best nature and wild-life clicks of 2011? Which one do you like more?

If you want to see more of my photographs, take a look at my picture archives on Kalpana.

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