I am planning for the day that Photographworks becomes a country. I began with the flag, on the principle that nationalism calls out for easy symbolism. So this will be its flag.
There are more than 20 million sheep in the UK, so I figure they have a healthy future. Not so the puffins I love to see. Here’s a news item from the BBC about the risk of extinction to puffins and other birds.
It sickens me. It spoils my pleasure.
When Rachel Carson wrote ‘Silent Spring’ in 1962, people could perhaps claim they didn’t know about the hidden destruction to the environment, to wildlife. No one can claim that now.
Thanks to my wife Tamara, who found the BBC article.
Photograph Works 
Love the flag. How apropos for Bonnyland photographworks. Saddened by the news of some bird species on the verge of extinction, especially my fav the puffin. Thanks to you both for the link.
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You like puffins – great to hear. Spread the word about the dangers they are facing.
Yes, it’s sad. I’ve been lucky to be able to go to the Isle Of May in the Firth of Forth and see puffins. And in the waters around Bempton Cliffs in East Yorkshire. I could scream sometimes with all the destruction of wildlife.
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The Mallard will be a nice representative of “my country” … not on the threatened species list, that’s for sure. I like the symbolism of your flag.
The Puffin situation just makes me want to break down in a little heap and cry.
We have Puffin on the disputed [US/Canada] island of Machias Seal Island. I have not yet been there.
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The photo you took of a mallard with its wings rising for take-off would be great for a flag.
Disputed territory?? Who knew! Tell more: I’d be interested to read a post about it.
Yes, a little heap of powerless people who are shouting into the wind. That’s what I feel like. When I lived in Norfolk in the countryside I would regularly see flocks of two or three hundred lapwings birds wheeling about. It was such a glorious sight as the black and white on their wings would flash as they turned. I find myself being split between despair and faith in the future.
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Me too … ‘split’. They’ve done a great job on the Bald Eagle … he’s off the list now. And Panda! Puffins are cute, so they must have a good chance. I honestly have to read up on the disputed little island. If Donald Trump gets elected, perhaps he’ll make a long story short, settle it once and for all, invade New Brunswick [where I live], and we’ll all become ‘Merkins’ *only kidding*
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What are Merkins? That’s a new one on me.
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‘Americans’ … try and pronounce ‘merkins’ with an American accent 🙂
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I’ll have to try it out on Tamara 🙂
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Thank you for your comment about me in the article.
And such a creative, cute article!
xxxx,
T
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Sickens me as well, David… The stuff they’re putting out these days makes DDT seem like child’s play. So, with all of the backlash there was about DDT and the information contained in “Silent Spring”; how is it, – with all of the information available on the internet – that this can be happening? The trouble is that the Internet is a double-edged sword; and all of the DISinformation floating around out there that can blot out the truth – the information we all desperately need to know – before it’s too late…
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Thanks for commenting, Deb,
I couldn’t agree more. Misinformation is everywhere. There is nothing that is immune from it, not even the weather. I can only speak for the UK, but I am sure that part of the problem is how disinherited people are. In most of the UK* there is no ‘right to roam’. So people don’t really know the countryside. They visit is as strangers, keep to the footpaths, and go home.
And meanwhile the destruction goes on.
*Scotland is an exception: People have a right to roam, like they do in the Scandinavian countries.
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On the “right to roam”… could you explain further, please?
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Legislation entitles the public to access for walking, cycling, skiing, etc. on most land and bodies of water n Scotland outside the cities and towns.
In England and Wales it is different. There, the only access the public have is in National Parks and along designated footpaths. National Parks cover less than six percent of rural land, so there are huge swathes of land that are in private hands AND inaccessible to the public.
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That would be “like”, as in thank you, not for restrictions of Public Access. We have something similar here in Canada – for water access, that is – and Crown Lands, wherever they may be.
And now you have me wondering…
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We too have Crown lands, but then we have a Crown 🙂
From memory, the Crown owns all land between the high and low water marks of all rivers and estuaries, or something like that, as well as lots of stuff inland, under the title of The Crown Estates.
And we have to pay a licence fee to the Crown if we want to copy official maps. In the USA, all those maps and other stuff like that is not subject to copyright. I read that in Heather Brooke’s book on the MPs’ expenses scandal here in the UK that she helped to expose. Until then it never occurred to question why my own country was charging me to copy a map that it produced.
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Let me get this straight… You’re paying for a copy that YOU’RE making? Like, on your own time, paper and machinery? Poppycock!
And I’m in Canada so yes, as part of the Commonwealth, we still acknowledge The Crown; )
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Yes it’s strange, isn’t it. The Crown uses public money to authorise the making of maps and then charges the public a licence fee to use them.
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And apparently Crown Lands are under Provincial jurisdiction – and for me that would be Ontario – (I was going to send you a link, but I need to be on the computer to actually access the maps of Crown Land):
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