Laughing Gull

I followed a little laughing seagull around at Guana State park in Ponte Vedra, Florida. This is a mini pictorial essay of him.

Here is the gull hunting for dinner around the lake shallows. It was low tide and there were schools of fish splashing everywhere.

He caught a fish and carried it to the edge of the water. Here he worked at turning the fish around so he could swallow it. I felt sorry for the poor little fish but I guess the gull needs to eat too.

After eating his dinner the gull became fascinated by my camera and tripod. He walked over to where I was and studied me and the camera. He was obviously a little puzzled by this strange guy who was taking photographs of him! A cute little guy, isn't he?

Do animals feel love?

Look at the photograph I took of a mated pair of great egrets and then you tell me if animals can express love. This and many other wildlife and nature photographs are for sale on my website Kenneth Albin Fine Art Photography. My photography there can be bought as framed prints, on canvas, as posters, and as greeting cards.

New Rookery Photographs

My commercial work, approximately 150 wildlife and nature photographs are for sale at Kenneth Albin Photography. The company does beautiful work transferring my art to canvas, greeting cards, and framed archival prints. If you are looking for wildlife or nature art to hang in your home or business please take a look at my site.

Here are some of last week's photos from the St. Augustine Alligator Farm bird rookery. Nesting is in full swing now!

Three great egret chicks.

The great egrets even talk while flying!

Closeup of a tricolor heron.

Great egret ballet.

St. Augustine Rookery Photo Shoot

I have a new commercial photography website. It is Ken Albin Fine Art Photography. The website company does excellent printing and framing work and I highly recommend them. If you are interested in a nature or wildlife photograph or canvas please check out my site. I currently have more than 140 photographs there. Many of them are placed into specific galleries to make it easier for you to find something specific you may be looking for. I hope you enjoy my efforts to show the beautiful scenery of Florida.

Last week I went to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm wild bird rookery to take some nesting photographs. It was a humbling experience shooting next to professionals from National Geographic and several other famous magazines. I certainly learned a lot being with them and had a great time with this opportunity to capture some images of these beautiful birds. The rookery is a swamp where herons, egrets, and storks come to raise their young. They have the natural protection of a group of alligators under the nests who keep ground predators away.

A great egret mom and her chick.

A roseate spoonbill in flight.

A wood stork. This is an endangered species.

Restoration of the Color Organ! (Part 1)

40 years ago my folks bought me a 3 channel color organ. With my fuzzy memory I had thought it might have come from Radio Shack but I can't find one that looks like it in any of their old catalogs. I believe it was a Christmas present so who knows where it really came from. All I can tell you about this color organ is that it was one cheap piece of equipment but it did put out a really cool set of colors while the lights were off and "In a Gadda da Vida" was playing! This is one of the few things that made numerous moves with me over the years, residing at the bottom of a closet for the past 30 years. It was too much a reminder of my youth to ever throw away.

This is the back of the color organ. The first thing you see is a large transformer. The original one was small and very cheap. It died after 6 months so my dad wired in this larger one he had in his parts box. The outer shell is just fiberboard and you can see the simple controls. It does not have a microphone so has to be wired into one of the speaker outputs from an amplifier to work.

Here is the front and as you can tell it is a total disaster! The plastic translucent cover with Moire design to scatter light is long gone. Over the years it became yellowed and brittle so I tossed it away about 20 years ago. The little bulbs had colored plastic covers on them. The heat from the bulbs melted most of them so I tossed them in the trash as well. There really isn't much to it, just a small circuit board with a couple of transistors and a few other parts on it. The bulbs are removed in preparation for the restoration. I also removed the cheap cardboard reflector with a thin aluminum coated paper glued to it.I attached leads from the color organ to my stereo and to my shock it still works!

Here are my plans for the restoration. I do not want to use those cheap plastic colored caps on the bulbs so I ordered a set of 6 high powered 6.3 volt wide angle colored light emitting diodes with bayonet mounts to use in place of the old bulbs. That way I won't need to fool with color filters. These came in yesterday and looked really cool but one of the diodes is bad. A replacement should arrive in a couple of days. I also ordered some Moire etched plastic which should be here in about 4-7 days. In place of the cheap coated cardboard reflector I will probably use some plastic pieces with a layer of aluminum foil attached to it. I also have a stack of junk CDs and I am pondering ways to cut and attach some of these to the aluminum foil to reflect and scatter the light like a prism. Those are the plans as they stand now. I will be posting periodic updates on how the project is going. With any luck in a couple of weeks I will have a working color organ that is better than the original.

Please Help Save Harvey's Life!

It would be illegal to copy an entire newspaper article on a blog so the photo is just the first part and I will explain the rest of the story. Apparently the military have been secretly training rabbits to act as guard animals similar to Dobermans. They are bred for aggression and trained to attack any intruders attempting to penetrate sensitive sites that worry Homeland Security such as nuclear plants, nuclear waste facilities, and government buildings at night. Their small size and silent, secretive nature makes them potentially ideal guard animals.

Harvey was one of the first attack rabbits in this experimental program which was jointly sponsored by by the Pentagon, Homeland Security, and the League of Republicans for U.S. Patriotism. He was stationed inside the perimeter fence at the Hampton nuclear facility when five off duty soldiers came by outside the fence. They began taunting the rabbit by beating on the fence and yelling. Harvey apparently became so enraged by this that he finally broke his rigid training, scaled the fence, and leaped at the soldiers. According to preliminary autopsy results three of the soldiers died almost immediately from the carotid arteries and jugular veins in their necks being ripped open while the other two soldiers died of blunt force chest trauma caused when Harvey hit them in their chests with his hind feet. During the trial the defense attempted to show that this incident was the fault of the military for initiating this foolhardy training program for rabbits and that Harvey was not to blame. This defense did not sway the verdict since the general consensus was that any rabbit who could be this violent had to be held accountable for their actions. Many pieces of evidence the defense attempted to enter into the record were blocked by Homeland Security on the grounds that it would violate national security. Harvey was given a 20 years sentence in solitary confinement at Boulder Penitentiary. He is now back in his kennel under heavy guard while the case is being appealed on the grounds that rabbits rarely live past the age of ten years. Since Harvey is already 2 years old this is effectively the same as giving him two terms of life imprisonment.

Here is where you can help. If you feel that Harvey is being unfairly punished for this please send a letter to the following address telling them why this is such a cruel travesty of justice:

Homeland Security, Experimental and Covert Division
21406 West Arlington Boulevard
Washington, D.C. 78209

You can also go to the ASPCA website and sign their petition to free Harvey. Their URL is http://www.aspca.org/

PETA also is organizing an email campaign for this cause. You can get more information on how to participate in this worthy cause at
http://www.peta.org/

PLEASE HELP HARVEY! He should not be given this cruel treatment for something he had no real control over. Animal lovers everywhere need to unite before it is too late for Harvey. If you love animals you need to help send the message to the government that we will not tolerate mistreating animals this way.

Thank you and please respond soon. Harvey's time grows short.


Oh yes, just one more thing. APRIL FOOL!!!!!!

Rough 3 months healthwise

I am still fighting the eczema problem. After I went back to the dermatologist and got the cortisone shot, prednisone pills, and steroid cream things started clearing up about 50% before plateauing. The steroids lost their effectiveness and I started having huge flareups. This atopic eczema or atopic dermatitis as it is also called is very nasty in its severe form. I have it on my arms, feet, underarms, neck, and groin region. It follows the pattern where an area will turn scarlet and burn intensely, followed by peeling and then turning dark purple. Then it all starts over again. I have not been able to move around much or get out of the house except for doctor visits. Putting on clothing is agonizing and at this point the skin is so sentitive that even moving around is extremely painful. I have been practically living under a vaporizer and have been moisturizing the skin several times each day. Nothing much has helped so went I went back to the dermatologist March 10th he was pretty stumped. He took a punch biopsy in one of the red areas to send off for analysis and I went in the next day for blood tests. He isn't sure it really is eczema at this point but from what I have read about it I think it looks like a classic case of severe, chronic atopic eczema. I go back next Friday to learn the test results. In the meantime I am in agony. It feels like my body has been dipped in battery acid. Imagine the worst case of sunburn you have ever had and triple the effects and you will have an idea of what I have been living with. The doctor put me on the top dosage of the immunosuppresant drug cyclosporine. This drug has recently been used on severe eczema when other drugs fail to control it. It will probably take at least 2 weeks before I see any improvement. I am very nervous about the dangerous side effects of it but really do not have much choice if I am to recover from these daily flareups. Otherwise I am doing all of the things that are recommended by authorities on the disease but with no real benefit seen.