Visual Thoughts! The Photography and Writings of D L Ennis…

When I shoot sunrays like this I try to get the best angle, where they are most distinct and shoot a fast shutter speed…This amazing photo was sold will be used for a billboard.

Hiking the Otter Creek Trail…in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

Taken at Glenn Falls is in Augusta County, Virginia, in the Blue Ridge Mountains. It’s on private property, but I managed to get to it to take some pictures. The falls itself drops 25-30 feet into this beautiful natural pool after which the creek continues East to the Tye River in Nelsen County.

This is Otter Creek, on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia, on an early frosty morning in early March, 2007…

A tranquil scene on a spectacular morning on Otter Lake in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia…

Pictures courtesy by D L Ennis

© 2007 D L Ennis, All rights reserved.

 

D L Ennis can find beautiful landscapes right where he lives. He married Dawn and they are now live in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

That’s the great thing about nature, it’s everywhere, and landscapes are everywhere. And that same sunset behind the mountain that you’ve seen everyday since you were a kid may look pretty amazing to someone who has never been to the mountains.

If you love nature and landscape, you won’t regret to spend your time to explore his photography here. Many beautiful and amazing pictures can be found in his Visual Thoughts, the photography and writing of D L Ennis.

His photography can be simple and everyday or it can be vast and amazing. It’s all about the great pictures he takes. it’s how he takes the picture that makes it beautiful and treasure to someone else. And I admire his works.

Tiger

The tiger is regarded as the king of the jungle in most parts of Asia, because its forehead has a marking which resembles the Chinese character 王, which means “king”

Among the big cats, only the tiger and jaguar are strong swimmers; tigers are often found bathing in ponds, lakes and rivers.

Adult tigers are fiercely territorial. The size of a tiger’s home range mainly depends on prey abundance, and, in the case of male tigers, on access to females. A tigress may have a territory of 20 km², while the territories of males are much larger, covering 60–100 km².

While females can at times be aggressive towards other females, their territories can overlap and they do tolerate each other. Males, however, are usually intolerant of other males within their territory. Because of their aggressive nature, territorial disputes can be violent, and may end in the death of one of the males.

To identify his territory, the male marks trees by spraying urine and anal gland secretions on trees as well as by marking trails with scat. Males show a grimacing face, called the Flehmen response, when identifying a female’s reproductive condition by sniffing their urine markings.

Elephants

Did you know ?

• The elephant is distinguished by its high level of intelligence, interesting behavior, methods of communication and complex social structure.
• Elephants seem to be fascinated with the tusks and bones of dead elephants, fondling and examining them. The myth that they carry them to secret “elephant burial grounds,” however, has no factual base.
• Elephants are very social, frequently touching and caressing one another and entwining their trunks.
• Elephants demonstrate concern for members of their families they take care of weak or injured members and appear to grieve over a dead companion.

Elephants are intelligent but to the Chinese they use to call them Tai Pun Cheung ( stupid elephant). I don’t know the reason why this animal is called stupid . Elephants can be trained to perform in entertainment shows, help to transpot heavy things like timber logs.

Elephants are mammals, and the largest land animals alive today. The elephant’s gestation period is 22 months, the longest of any land animal. At birth it is common for an elephant calf to weigh 120 kilograms (265 lb). An elephant may live as long as 70 years, sometimes longer.

The largest elephant ever recorded was shot in Angola in 1956. This male weighed about 12,000 kg (26,400 lb), with a shoulder height of 4.2 m (13.8 ft), a metre (3 ft 4 in) taller than the average male African elephant. The smallest elephants, about the size of a calf , were a prehistoric species that lived on the island of Crete during the Pleistocene epoch.

The Asian elephant, has an enormous domed head with relatively small ears, an arched back and a single finger like protuberance that is located at the tip of the trunk. An Asian elephant has five toes on the front of the feet and and four on the back.

A large bull could typically weighs six tons and is ten feet high at the shoulder. As with gorillas, there is a large degree of sexual dimorphism between males and females in Asian Elephants where adult females are about half the size of the largest males.

The males have tusks and the females have ‘tushes’, which are shore second incisors that just stick out beyond the upper lip. However, it is important to note that on occasion females some times have longer tushes than described.

The gestation period is between nineteen and twenty-two months. Periodically, it is noted that male infants typically have a slightly longer term than females.

The African elephant, have a straight back, enormous ears, and two trunk ‘fingers’.

African elephants are named for the peculiar shaped ridges of their molar teeth; the ridges of an African elephant’s teeth are coarser and fewer than those of the Asian elephant.

The African elephant has only four toes on the front feet and three on the back. Interestingly, it has one more vertebra in the lumbar section of the spine.

Both sexes have tusks, and they are also larger in size as compared to male and female Asian elephants.

The largest African elephant recorded weighed over nine tons and stood more than twelve feet high at the shoulder. As in Asian elephants, the female African elephant is generally half the size of a fully grown male.

Gestation period tends to be slightly longer than in the Asian elephant.