大安鷺鷥育雛 Egret Brooding Daan

In the late spring at Daan Park the Great Egrets and the Blue Herons have gone back to the north. In the mean time the resident water birds, Little Egrets and Nigh Herons, are busy building their nests and tending their babies.    Egret II 2014

Arboretum 2014

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Arboretum 2014

Bluebonnet 2014

While visiting Austin during the weekend, we took a little detour to Ennis for the bluebonnet photograph. The blooming was not as good as last year, may be we were a little early for the full bloom. In Austin we drove around the Hill Country looking for bluebonnet again. The blooming there was not half as good as Ennis. Many locals told us this is a bad year for the wild flowers because the lack of rain before the spring. Click the link below for the album:

  Blue Bonnet 2014

Splash

This photo, shot at Daan Park in Taipei February last year, had won the third place of GSCCC's February competition in the Nature Project Images category.  Check the GSCCC newsletter of February 2014 here

gulfstatesccc.org/newsletters

Cappadocia and Ankara

On the 10th day of the tour we spent a full day exploring Cappadocia, famed for temples and houses cut directly into the region's spectacular rock formations. Day 11 we departed for Ankara, the capital and the second largest city of Turkey. At Ankara we visit the Mausoleum of Kemal Ataturk and Anatolian Civilizations Museum, that came the only disappointment of this Turkey tour. The world class Anatolian Civilizations Museum was under renovation and virtually has nothing for public display. 
Turkey 8  Turkey 9

Pamukkale and Konya

We arrived Pamukkale hot spring on the day 7. In the Pamukkale park Mesut, our knowledgeable tour guide, took us for 2 sessions of guided tour and gave us a 2 hours lunch break in between. The first session is the geological formation of this Cotton Castle and the second session is a walk through the Hieropolis archeological site. After overnight at Pamukkale our bus leave for Konya, a city renowned for its Seljuk architecture and also as the home of the whirling dervishes. The next morning we headed for Cappadocia, made stops at a kindergarden, a caravanseri and a carpet atelier.                  Turkey 5   Turkey 6  Turkey 7

Kusadasi

This morning Cathy and I took three buses to get to Ephesus from our hotel. It was raining, gusty and cold on our arrival but the rain stopped soon so we got to stayed for a good 3-4 hours there, including a visit to the Roman time high end houses - Terrace Houses. Inside the Terrace Houses we luckily dodged the second assault of a hail storm outside. When we got back to Kusadasi the sky cleared up and the temperature warmed up. We had tea and lunch at the shore and then we strolled along this Aegean Sea coast trying to capture the beauty of this bay city which is many Europeans' favorite summer vacation place. To view the album, click here:  Turkey 4

From Istanbul to Kusadasi

On the fourth day of the tour (3/23) we went from Istanbul to Canakkale, having lunch at Gallipoli before cross the Dardanelles Straight to the Asia side of Turkey. We had a stop at the ancient city of Troy in the afternoon. The next day we drove from Canakkale to Kusadasi with one stop at Asklepieion.

Turkey 2
Turkey 3