I brought a GoPro mainly to shoot underwater shots but always love the leaf cutter ants - they are the hardest working critters in the forest! To see how they work is amazing - groups are up in trees cutting leaves and others are shuttling leaves back to the colony. My fav is to watch an ant carrying a big piece of leaf with another ant riding along - freeloaders are everywhere! Also love it when one walks across the lens! If you look closely you can see them coming down out of the tree in the background.

Tags:   Ants Animals AnimalPortrait AnimalBehavior Wildlife WildlifeViewing WildlifePortrait Video Belize CentralAmerica TropicalForest Travel TropicalRainforest Insects

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Catfish seemed to be a common fish sold in villages along the rivers in Gabon - quick video of fish for sale in the market.

Tags:   Fishing Fish Gabon Africa OgooueRiver Markets Food FoodMarket FoodVender Animals AnimalBehavior AnimalPortrait Video Water

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Hello Flickrsphere friends - sorry for the long absence but I've been back on the road with a lot of work travel - currently in Gorgeous Gabon checking out sites that are being proposed for hydropower development and considering alternatives. With 400+ species of freshwater fishes, Gabon, represents a freshwater biodiversity hotspot. But this biodiversity hotspot is threatened by proposed dam development including a total of ~40 potential hydropower dam sites across the country. This includes and ~30 in the Ogooué watershed. The Ogooué, is ~1,200 kilometers long, is the principal river of Gabon in west central Africa and the fifth largest river in Africa by volume of discharge, trailing only the Congo, Kasai, Niger and Zambezi. Gabon is a must see for those lovers of adventure and biodiversity - more on that later!

Tags:   Gabon Africa Travel Adventure Hydropower Freshwater Water Rivers Biodiversity Fish PeopleAndNature Energy

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I took over 500 pics of the redwoods in Southern Oregon and Northern California but it was this v-short video that best depicted the beauty of the site. You can see the biotic pump in action condensing water from fog into rain…and of course all the beautiful trees!

Temperate rainforests are coniferous or broadleaf forests that occur in the temperate zone and receive heavy rain...the moist conditions of temperate rain forests generally support an understory of mosses, ferns and some shrubs and berries.

Temperate rain forests occur in a variety of regions around the world - the Pacific Northwest of the USA & Canada, the Validivian forests of southwestern South America, New Zealand and Tasmania, the Northeastern Atlantic (small, isolated pockets in Ireland, Scotland, and Iceland), southwestern Japan.

These forests pull in large amounts of water vapor from surrounding regions and from nearby bodies of water. As the vapor condenses into rain, the local atmospheric pressure drops...the whole rainforest-water vapor system is called a biotic pump, because the living forests move the water.

You can read about the forest fires that hit the redwoods in 2021 here:
www.eenews.net/articles/when-the-toughest-trees-met-the-h...

Tags:   Redwoods California Oregon OregonCoast Forest Nature ProtectedAreas Clouds ClimateChange Trees Water

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Still no snow for Fort Collins so I had to add some. Took this picture at the 2 Trees Horse Farm in Fort Collins and edited it to add some snow. With climate change this may be the future if you want a white Christmas. Merry Merry & Happy Happy Flickrsphere!

Tags:   FortCollins Colorado Christmas Snow Trees Light NightTime Night

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