Another shot from Torquay harbour early in the morning on the day of the Transatlantic Tall Ships Race 2017. This is the Portuguese caravel 'Vera Cruz' and the fast pilot cutter 'Jolie Brise'. Sadly, the promise of a display of some of the world's largest and most beautiful sailing vessels in all their glory didn't really materialise with the larger ships staying well off shore in the English Channel; to be fair, there wasn't really enough room in Torquay harbour to accommodate many of the largest.

The pilot cutter 'Jolie Brise' was built in Le Havre, France in 1913 and was the last vessel to carry the Royal Mail under sail. She has been the winner of the Fastnet Race on three occasions and was the winner of the Tall Ships race in both 2015 and 2016. The 'Jolie Brise' is now owned and operated by the Dauntsey School in Wiltshire and is crewed exclusively by pupils at the school.

The caravel 'Vera Cruz' is a faithful replica, built in Portugal, of the style of vessel used by Prince Henry the Navigator and his contemporaries Columbus and Diaz during the great age of exploration, particularly during the 15th and 16th centuries.

Even today, with the navigational and safety equipment that these vessels are now equipped with, it takes some guts to sail across the Atlantic Ocean in vessels of this size!

After I'd spread an amount of wild bird seed in order to attract a small group of Long-tailed tits early this morning, this chap turned up and scoffed the lot!

Nice squirrel!

A cobbled street in Golders Green

This is a close up of the head of the male Mandarin duck. I think that these little birds must be, with maybe a few exceptions, the most colourful birds in the northern hemisphere.

Amazingly someone just found an old parking meter sign in the centre of London yesterday, the first one I've ever seen since the old days. They were made from 1957-64.

First world problems... This looks like nothing more than a row of beach huts sited at a popular beach at Preston, near Paignton.

However, at the moment they are at the centre of a controversy. Torbay Council are reported to have spent over £2.3 million of taxpayers money on their maintenance, five times more than the £470,000 spent on those residents living in its social housing stock.

Further north of Preston beach and just around the coast at the popular Meadfoot beach, the wealthy owners of a number of chalets are now to be charged some £500 per annum in business rates due to a recent high court ruling. The larger chalets at Meadfoot can be occupied by separate families at the same time due to their internal partition and as such, are subject to the business rate... It's all kicking off here on the English Riviera!

The world's largest population of Mandarin Ducks outside Asia lives in the UK; starting with a few that escaped from a private collection, they've been breeding ever since and there are now over 8000 of them. What's even better is that they are non-invasive - they don't compete with native species for food or habitat, and they don't interbreed, unlike the Ruddy duck which became a severe problem right across Europe.

I have a pair of Mandarin Ducks of my own. I told them about SisterSeagull's beautiful photos and they insisted that I should take their photos too. So here they are - they came to the UK packed in a suitcase and didn't make a sound while the very nice Customs officer debated about letting them in. I just looked up how much they were worth these days - suffice it to say that while my ducks are never going to lay a golden egg, they were a pretty neat investment!

I came across these bees all huddling together a few days ago while out riding the bike. Quite a swarm:

A country scene in west Suffolk

Went yesterday to Dun Beag on the Isle of Skye. An iron age broch, possibly lived in until the 18th century.

Hello All!

So, I have a few Yukon Photos. I am still getting the hang of posting here in forums.
Do the photos have to have been taken by us personally?

The "Log Cabin Skyscraper" in downtown Whitehorse.

One of the friendly foxes that have visited my bldg!
So beautiful, I just waited for him to move into the frame, then got the desired shot

Hotel Westmark,Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous, Feb.2007 Opening night, Can-Can girl review!

I was a volunteer for many Rendezvous celebrations[b][/b]


OOps, I think I posted 2 photos too many! One per day, excuse me, it's early in the morn here 5:27 am

I've removed the second and third photos. With regard to the third image you need to be very careful about posting images of recognisable people - there are different laws about this in different countries and we err on the side of caution. If anyone is recognisable in a photo we either distort their images and/or make sure we have their express permission to publish the image on the internet - that can also be a can of worms so as a general rule we avoid it by not publishing "people pics". Of course you can't always avoid people creeping into an image - if I take a picture of, say, the Houses of Parliament, half the world is going to be in the picture but as long as they're just in the crowd, half-facing away from the camera, not the subject of the photo... then we may not have a problem. Hope this helps.

In addition, please do not retitle the thread by changing the subject line in your post. This rule applies to all threads on all the Forum boards - it confuses everyone when the original title is altered.