This is a guy who I met during a travel with friends in Morocco. They were visiting a family living nearby the potters quarter of the village and happened so that one of the guys worked as a potter and he invited us to see how their everyday life and work in the small factory is going on. It was done in old fashioned way with a kick wheel, which I thought was pretty cool, but also I notices that they burn old tires when they bake the pottery, which was not cool at all and makes the work and life in the area very unhealthy. I felt sorry for them, but sadly I am not really in position the help them, but at least I can rise awareness of that problem. In my blog I posted a few pictures from the workshop if anybody is interested.
The God's Eyes (Prohodna) is a strange cave formation found in Bulgaria, which were used as a place for religious rituals from several thousand years. The thing is pretty big and still instills mystical feelings in the visitors. This one time I'm not going to talk or give explanations, because I think this is something that has to be simply seen.
God's Eyes (Prohodna Cave) Bulgaria, with the Sun through one of the "eyes"
I found a colony of these colourful birds, called Bee-eaters (Merops apiaster) at small river's bank in Bulgaria. They are very common around the whole country and small colonies can be found around most of the rivers, where they dig holes for their nests in the banks. The only problem with them is that they are very timid and don't leave people to get close.
From Wikipedia:
As the name suggests, bee-eaters predominantly eat insects, especially bees, wasps, and hornets. They catch insects in flight, in sorties from an open perch. Before eating a bee, the European bee-eater removes the sting by repeatedly hitting the insect on a hard surface. It can eat around 250 bees a day.
I recorded a night landing at Sofia, Bulgaria. The city's landmarks can be seen clearly and its also noticeable that its darker than most of the other European cities.
That is one very small monastery, which I found not very far from the town of Vratsa (Vraca) in Bulgaria. It's by far the smallest one I've ever seen and one of the most overlooked and unheeded. Its name means something like St John of the Desert (or may be the "abandoned" Monastery of St John) and the legend says that it's named after St John of Rila, who lived for some time in the small cave-like place near the building. Also the legends say that it was the l place of a Thracian sanctuary, which is more than likely considering the Bulgarian territory overlaps most of the old Thracian kingdoms. Some of the paintings were dated to be from XI century.
The way to the Monastery St Ivan Pusti, Bulgaria
The way to the Monastery St Ivan Pusti, Bulgaria
The way to the Monastery St Ivan Pusti, Bulgaria
Monastery St Ivan Pusti, Bulgaria
The bell of the Monastery St Ivan Pusti, Bulgaria
Monastery St Ivan Pusti, Bulgaria
Fountain in the yard of the Monastery St Ivan Pusti, Bulgaria
Fountain in the yard of the Monastery St Ivan Pusti, Bulgaria and the caretaker
Fountain in the yard of the Monastery St Ivan Pusti, Bulgaria
Entrance of the Monastery St Ivan Pusti, Bulgaria
Painting of St John of Rila above the entrance of the Monastery St Ivan Pusti, Bulgaria
Cross on the Monastery St Ivan Pusti, Bulgaria
Monastery St Ivan Pusti, Bulgaria
View from the Monastery St Ivan Pusti, Bulgaria
View from the Monastery St Ivan Pusti, Bulgaria
The road out of the Monastery St Ivan Pusti, Bulgaria
Even though London is overcrowded city it its parks can be seen some pretty interesting birds. These many parks with their artificial lakes are like magnet for different species of waterfowl and some other animals. I like to spend time in them and observe these otherwise difficult and rare to see in the wild birds.
These for example are Barnacle Geese (Branta leucopsis), which is a species from the genus of the so called "black geese". Their range is from the North parts of the Atlantic (Greenland, Svalbard, Novaya Zemlya) during the breeding season down to Netherlands during the wintering.
There were very strange legends about that bird, which was believed to be essentially the same creature as the barnacle. This gave rise to the English name of the barnacle goose and the scientific name of the brant. It is sometimes claimed that the word comes from a Celtic word for "limpet", but the sense-history seems to go in the opposite direction. The barnacle myth can be dated back to at least the 12th century. Gerald of Wales claimed to have seen these birds hanging down from pieces of timber, William Turner accepted the theory, and John Gerard claimed to have seen the birds emerging from their shells. The legend persisted until the end of the 18th century. In County Kerry, until relatively recently, Catholics could eat this bird on a Friday because it counted as fish. In Judaism birds that grow on trees are not kosher.
