Meet Ronaldo the Macaw at Blackpool Zoo

Meeting Ronaldo the Macaw at Blackpool Zoo was certainly one of the highlights of the visit. They have some wonderfully colored plumage and weigh in at around 1200-1300 grams. Surprisingly they have a bite pressure far exceeding that of humans (approx 160lbs) on the order of 1000 lbs.

Ray Blending in with Floor of Tank at Blackpool Aquarium

Some footage of a Ray happily swimming along and blending in very stealthy with the surface conditions at the bottom of the tank. Its amazing to see how well they are adapted to the environment, its often really difficult to event tell them apart from their surrounds.

The BIG One Roller Coaster Blackpool Pleasure Beach

Some footage of The Big One Roller Coaster at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. Also known as the Pepsi Max Big One. It has a height of 213ft (65m), and a drop of 205ft (62m). The track is 5497ft (1675m) or about one mile in length and can reach speeds of up to 74mph (119kph). Given the length of the track the ride lasts for a good duration of about three minutes.

Meerkat Checking things out at Blackpool Zoo

Some footage of a Meerkat doing what it does best – standing on its hind legs and having a look around. It this case the Meerkat is having a look around its interior enclosure at Blackpool Zoo.

Revolution Roller Coaster at Blackpool Pleasure Beach

The Revolution Roller Coaster at Blackpool Pleasure Beach recorded doing one half of the ride. The ride begins by doing the 360 degree loop whilst being propelled forward and then does the ride in reverse. This is one of ten thrill rides at Blackpool’s Pleasure Beach.

Piranha – Are you looking at me?

The following is some footage of a Piranha staring out from his tank at Blackpool Aquarium looking at all all those tasty tourists passing by. Now this is a fish that knows its bits, bytes and nibbles!

Elton John Blackpool – Witness the Concert Stopping Weather

For the first time since 1977 Elton John played a concert in Blackpool at the Tower Headland Arena (Saturday 16th June 2012). The intro act (2 cellos) began playing around 18:40 with Elton John arriving on stage at 19:00 and played through until about 20:55 at which time he informed the audience that the concert had to be cut short due to some really bad weather on the way. So you can witness just what the weather was like in the video below, recorded around 21:20. Yes, that’s four people you can see cycling along the promenade, I am sure they were well soaked by the time they got to higher ground. You will also see a few photos from the concert, along with the aftermath of the area being vacated by the 11,000 or so people who attended the event. Most people were well prepared for the weather conditions with water proof leggings, jackets, hats, gloves, boots, scarfs and the like. I recently heard that there are two seasons in the UK – Winter and July. As it was the middle of June when this concert was held, I think its safe to say that the season certainly seemed like winter.

Garden Features at Flower Show

The following photos are of some garden features to be found at the Cork Racecourse during a flower show some years ago.

Wildlife at the Lough, Cork

Here are just a few photos of the local wildlife enjoying their time at the lough in Cork.

Olympic Torch Relay, Day 25, Crossing the Bridge of Dee

Following on from yesterdays post where the Olympic Torch arrived in Aberdeen today’s post focused on its journey south towards Dundee. The Torch left Dyce, Aberdeen around 07:30 it reached the Bridge of Dee around 08:35 at which time the videos and photographs below were taken. As the day has now drawn to and end that’s 25 days of the relay completed and 45 days left until it reaches London in time for the commencement of the opening ceremony.

 

 

RGU Garthdee New Build – Photo Update 12 June 2012

Its been a bit over two weeks since the last photo update. In that period the most visible change is the commencement of the cladding process to the final section – the main entrance. This addition finally gives an impression of the overall scale and mass of the building, thereby giving a clear impression of what the final end product will be like. The other change clearly evident in the first few photographs is the start made to the walls of the main entrance into the campus.

Previous posts showing the progress of the build at Garthdee
27th May 2012 – Views of the New Build from Kincorth Hill
26th May 2012 – Progress Update
11th April 2012 – Tower Crane Removal
8th April 2012 – Progress Update
26th February 2012 – Progress Update
8th February 2012 – Progress Update
22nd January 2012 – Progress Update
14th January 2012 – Construction Time lapse
14th January 2012 – Progress Update
4th December 2011 – Progress Update
29th October 2011 – First set of photographs showing progress to-date

Photographs of other University Campuses and Buildings
18th May 2012 – University College Dublin
17th May 2012 – Dublin City University
15th May 2012 – Western Gateway Building, University College Cork – Computing, Maths & some other units
30th March 2012 – Sphere within Sphere at Trinity College Dublin
29th March 2012 – The Quad and Honan Plaza at night, University College Cork

Olympic Torch Arrives in Aberdeen – Torch Relay Day 24

Thousands upon thousands of people were out in Union Street and Castlegate to welcome the Olympic Torch to Aberdeen (Details of the route available on the BBC Torch Relay site). The show kicked off around 18:30 entertaining the audience with a number of acts up until about 19:45 or so when the torch finally arrived and the large torch on stage was lit. At the start of the evening Twist and Pulse, best known from Britain’s got Talent gave a quite energetic act getting the crowd going. Towards the very end Colin Montgomerie said a few words on stage.

For me probably the most interesting part of the entire show was the prolific use of mobile phones, even spotted an iPad in use as well. Several of the photos below show just how pervasive these devices have become. At a guess given the size of the crowd it wouldn’t be at all unlikely that several million photographs were taken during the two hour or so period of the event.

The highlights most certainly was the wide spread use of mobile devices to record both still images and video. The low lights would have to be the blatant over commercialization of the event with the sponsors names being screamed out over the speakers by the host and some of the acts what seemed to be every few minutes. There was certainly plenty of advertising around in printed form to more than adequately advertise the sponsors. This has made me consider what the Olympics itself will be like. Chances are that a large proportion of air time will be given over to advertising various products and companies rather than truly focusing on the event at hand, namely the competitors striving to compete at the highest level.

One can get some small sense of the size of the crowd from a picture taken from high up, just to the side of stage via Samsung’s Olympic Torch Relay Site. See the 7th picture down to see a reverse angle of the photo being taken for Samsung’s site. With the event coming to a close only a few hours ago, quite a number of people have already tagged themselves via their facebook accounts.

Reverse angle shot of Samsung’s Big Cheer Photograph being taken.

Leuchars Airshow – Helicopters

As the title says here are just a few photographs of some of the helicopters to be seen at Leuchars Airshow.

Sunset in Paris

Here are just a few photographs as the sun goes down over Paris one evening in August.

The Red Arrows at Leuchars Airshow 2011

This post comes as a change from many of the previous posts focused on buildings, flowers, swans and so forth. Today we are looking to the skies, in particular the Red Arrows display at the 2011 Leuchars Airshow, Scotland. There was some extremely heavy rain just a short while before the Red Arrows went through their routine. As you can see it was quite overcast. The large array of umbrellas of all shapes sizes and colours made for some interesting photographs – something for a future post. Overall it was a fantastic day out with a great selection of aircraft both on the ground and in the air to be seen.